Humans have quite literally invented cars that are better at killing people, especially children.
“I don’t want children to die in accidents,” say people as they drive huge masses of metal that might do just that.
I’ll keep driving my PEV Minivan that has 360 cameras and I can see in front of me easily. I care about children’s lives, unlike bubba in his lifted pickup truck. Why do you need a 4x4 lifted 3 feet and you live in the suburbs?
Yes, but mini vans aren’t lifted 20 ft off the ground with absurdly huge hoods for no apparent reason.
The reason trucks and SUVs are killing kids is because you can see a 4ft tall person that isn’t standing 100 yards in front. These are the only vehicles with this problem.
…you know what they say about guys with big lift…
Funny thing is, the people I know with large vehicles around here always bemoan how difficult it is to park, yet don’t want to solve the obvious problem because twice a year they want to haul a fridge to the dump or pick up something from the home improvement store rather than have it delivered or rent a truck for an hour.
Counting the differences in cost (loan, gas, expected maintenance, insurance etc) it came out to where I would have to use the truck to haul something at least a very weekend possibly more to break even with a much newer car vs just renting a truck once or twice a year. Pickups are almost universally owned by people too stupid for middle school math imo.
always bemoan how difficult it is to park
I’ve made multuple older men incredibly upset by laughing at them when they say this
They get pissy and respond with “well you’re some skinny long haired hippie who drives an EV so what do you know?” Which, yeah, all of that is true
But then I pull up the pictures of me 4x4ing in the rain and snow through fire smoke at work, pointing out that I drove a RAM3500 fully kitted out and lifted with a giant set of 4 110g tanks in the bed blocking anything other than my mirror and cam view, yet I only had issues parking when people didn’t know how to stay in their own lines, and that I regularly had to squeeze my truck into areas with an inch or less of clearance in order to do my fucking job on a construction site, and I never hit anything but a rock (downhill, someone left a fucking rug out on some dirt in the rain and when my truck hit it I just slid til I hit the rock, company deemed me blameless)
They usually get flustered and change the subject p quick at that point
Driving a truck and not wanting children to die in accidents are in-fact not in conflict with each other. Or are you implying that truck drivers do want them to die?
Driving a truck and not wanting children to die in accidents are in-fact not in conflict with each other.
Then design trucks which are not as deadly to pedestrians on impact.
Large vehicles are inherently going to be more dangerous to pedestrians than cars. If you make a truck the size of a car then it no longer functions in the role it was intented for. Why is everyone so focused on trucks anyway? The nose height on most vans is compareable and on semi trucks it double the height of a pickup yet nobody seems to be complaining about those.
No, but it clearly isn’t important enough to them to influence their choice.
So you think people should not buy trucks because they might be in the 0.1% of truck drivers who end up killing a pedestrian with it? What about the people who have a legitimate use for the bed?
GOP judge declaring NHTSA unconstitutional in 3… 2… 1…
This is actually a good point. And here’s a video discussing the issue.
The whole chart is rather fascinating and eye opening: Vehicle visibility
Astounding. Hummer H2 beating the Sierra by 3m is incredible. A truck designed almost exclusively to express how selfish you are and it has better viability.
I’d be curious to see that chart for a Toyota Yaris. I drove one for a few years and it was almost unnerving how little hood it had.
That’s not to mention the optics.
#4 is the optic for the RWS. This cannot be used to aim the main gun, but it can be used as an alternate form of CITV, especially since it’s so damned high off the ground, it may be able to see over obstacles. Not as good as CITV in the thermal range, though.
That being said, some civilian vehicles are gonna have their own camera systems too, so…
Civilian vehicles should all have thermals and a night driving HUD. If I’m paying 30,000 dollars then they can damn well put some actual stuff in there. Headlights being weaponized isn’t something we have to tolerate.
Sorry, no can do, also cupholders are extra, best we can do is plastic hubcaps and a 10,000/6 month warranty.
This is misleading because being higher up you can see much better further ahead, and over obstacles and barriers. Your special awareness is much better at distances that are relevant for avoiding collisions. If something is 1.5m away its too late anyway.
The angle is also incorrect because they are putting the eyes of the driver straight in line with the hood, which is not how its been in any vehicle I’ve ever driven, the head should be higher or further forward.
The origin of the line is at head height…
Also these vehicles gain in distant visibility at the expense of everyone else on the road, blocking their views.
You don’t want to see “over” obstacles close to your vehicle when said obstacles are in fact human beings standing in front of your car.
At parking lot speeds, 1.5 meters is also not “too late,” and it certainly isn’t when you are at a standstill but need to determine if it is safe to move or if there is a small person in front of your vehicle, i.e. in the school pickup line, or in a parking lot, or your own driveway.
Ooo ooo we can do it like buses do. We’ll put a bar on the front that folds out. 3 year olds totally know what that is right? They’ll just get out of the way!
(/s)
It’s out of control. I drive a 2019 Kona and I moved to that from my 2013 Elantra. Last time I was at the dealer was looking at the new Konas and they’re bigger, too big for me.
The most jarring thing is when I was picking up a prescription for my cat, and on the way home I was driving next to a plain vanilla, factory-stock GMC truck whose hood was literally taller than my entire car. And I don’t drive a miata or some other sub-compact, I drive a freaking Nissan Leaf, so about the size of your average sedan.
Since then it’s like a switch flipped in my brain, and I can’t unsee just how insanely huge modern-day pickup trucks have gotten.
I have conservative family members who deliberately go for the biggest SUV with the lowest gas mileage available just to “stick it to the government.” If the government told them that they couldn’t drive a small car, they’d be out there shopping for a small car. It’s incredibly childish.
Yeah, a lot of stupid culture war crap is now tied up into the car your own.
If people actually prioritized performance, handling, visability, cost to drive, and cabin features, then a LOT of people would probably be better off with a sedan.
If you don’t need the space, you can get so much more bang for your buck with a smaller car. The $10k more you spend on the larger form factor could go toward a nicer power train and cabin luxury features.
Ya know it probably says something that the concept of “cabin luxury features” made we want to burn the inside of a car. Ill stick to my lack of cupholders in my 30 year old car thanks, but seriously when I see the interior of modern cars they make me want to rip into them with wire cutters. Bunch of useless crap like lane assist, cruise control, and addaptive road assist, powered stearing is the only luxury I need.
Fun fact I am only 24, I just am tech literate in the way that causes me to think 90% of technology is worthless crap that shouldve never been created and needs to be recycled.
True. I’m mostly saying that you could probably take that cash and upgrade to a nicer car that isn’t covered in creaking injection molded plastic inside, or something with nicer seats and upholstery.
AKA decent materials, and not the cheap garbage you get on a base model American SUV.
I’m almost 40 and a lot of my cars in my teens and 20s were from the '80s and '90s. Almost everything I’ve owned has had at least a rudimentary cruise control although there are some ('80s Bronco II, '95 Miata, early '90s 240sx, 99 Impreza Wagon) where it was broken or I just never used it.
All that said, I LOVE the radar controlled cruise control on my current vehicle. I’ve used it for at least 20,000 miles of driving at this point. Interstate, highway, city, you name it… Pretty much any time I want to maintain a steady speed over 28 and there’s not a lot of stop and go traffic. I hate thinking about life without it now (and I hate using standard cruise control without radar)!
Most other countries I’ve been to, all the trades use these, and seem to have no problem getting projects done.
Let’s ignore the lack of crush zones, air bags, seat belts, re-enforced door panels and cabin pillars, for a moment. (The lack of any safety features is why they are mostly illegal to operate on roads in the US.)
How far do you think that roller skate could pull my empty 24,000lbs tandem axle tilt bed trailer? Or even my 4000lbs trailer? On a highway at highway speeds.
Japanese Kei trucks are pretty rad, but they don’t fly with US highway safety regulations. They’re meant for slower roads / slower collisions speeds.
That said, most American trucks do not need to be remotely as big as they are.
Or a hatchback or a station wagon…
Oops, nobody makes station wagons anymore. We stopped making them because, uh, people stopped buying them. Yeah, that’s the ticket. People stopped buying them because we stopped making them.
