The hoods on trucks are so massive now if you put a 6 year old in front of one you wouldn't be able to see them at all. Like seriously wtf are we doing here?
The regulators in this case are the problem. What's driving massive hoods and massive trucks in general is fuel economy regulations.
The CAFE regulations specify a target fuel economy based on the "footprint" of a truck [1], which is the wheelbase times the width between the tires. Trucks with larger footprints have less stringent fuel economy requirements. Unfortunately, the formula they use to determine this makes compact trucks practically impossible. A truly compact truck like a 90s Ford Ranger or Chevy S10 is supposed to achieve 44 MPG, while a full sized truck only needs to get 27.
The irony is that many people would prefer to buy a smaller, easier to park, less expensive, safer, and more fuel efficient truck, but these regulations make them unavailable.
The other half of this is the chicken tax. Internationally, small trucks are widely available. However the tariffs make it much more difficult for the market to bear the sale of these small trucks (vs domestic mid-size truck or imported small passenger car) in the USA, CAFE notwithstanding.
That's a factor to some extent, but not as much as the CAFE regs. Many foreign manufacturers simply produce trucks in the U.S. or Mexico. Toyota for example makes their pickups in Texas and Mexico and so isn't subject to the chicken tax.
The big 3 and Toyota all used to make compact pickup trucks. Ford has the new compact Maverick coming out next year, but even that is still 6 inches wider, 4 inches taller, and 23 inches longer than the Ranger of 30 years ago. If you look at today's Ranger, it's 11 inches wider, 7 inches taller, and 35 inches longer than the Ranger of 1991.
Average vehicles have only grown in footprint by about 4% since 2008. Weight is <10% heavier than when EPA began tracking it in 1975. [1]
Most of the weight shedding after 1975 happened in the 1980s in the immediate wake of peak oil prices. [2] Vehicle weight is just now catching up to what it was just before the ~1980 oil crisis, and current gains are far offset by fuel economy and horsepower ( there is a relationship between power, weight, and acceleration/speed available to the vehicle).
The extra 4% in outlay could very well be explained by a combination of consumer and regulatory demands for safety (all else equal, it is easier to engineer something bigger with cushion room to be safer than it is something smaller).
Ultimately it is difficult to explain away the lack of small trucks and smaller cars without accounting for the large play of regulation (safety testing, poorly constructed CAFE standards, and tariffs).
One can readily see from operators of the 125cc motorcycles like honda Grom, illegal street operators of ATV/dirtbikes, and mopeds that there is considerable demand for minimal footprint transportation. Tiny cars like the Suzuki Alto are in demand in other less regulated markets.
Our criticism should not be the presence of large SUVs and cars, who have legitimate use for large families who live off of dirt roads and those with a low risk tolerance that demands monster sized cars full of safety features and crumple zones. Rather our criticism should be aimed at questioning why the guy riding his ATV down the residential street is a criminal while the well to do person riding newly constructed 4,500 lb Tesla full of toxic metals recharged by the local coal plant is not.
Which is why they’re now patching it with front cameras. I saw a video from inside the cab of a big pickup truck (like an F250), where they’re at a stoplight and there’s a Corvette in front of them that can’t be seen from the driver’s seat, so they only see it on the dashboard screen.
Tax is not the answer. People are already paying the stupid tax on the $60k pickup truck (I laugh at your down votes), but that does not stop people from buying them. They know they are overpriced, maintenance costs are higher, environmental costs are higher, tight parking is an issue, and garage space is too tight, yet they buy them any way.
It used to be people bought trucks because they were the tool they needed but they are a status symbol now. For gods sake can we please go back to small sporty BMW status symbol?
European regulators also take pedestrian safety much more seriously than US regulators. You only see cars in Europe with the pedestrian safe sloping nose.
I'm not sure about that. I see cars like the Cadillac Escalade here in Austria. Not many of them mind you and almost always only outside hotels like the Intercontinental. I assume to ferry wealthy tourists around in what they are accustomed to in the US.
This is the real solution. The quality of drivers in the United States is atrocious. It's laughable what constitutes "driver's education" here. Every state is different, but likely none of them treats driving as the dangerous, serious-at-all-times activity it really is.
Living in an ordinary US metro area without a car is a punishment we reserve for drunks and the desperately poor; we haven’t the heart to inflict it on those who are merely bad at driving. What are we going to say? “Sorry, kid, if you want to be a functioning adult you’d better move to Manhattan.”
Some European jurisdictions also have meaningful vehicle inspections. There doesn't seem to be any US state that will take your car off the road for being jacked up five feet in the air.
Electric cars are something we must do to halt climate change, but we need to recognize it's an example of doing the same broken thing, just better.
At the end of the day we will have a more green version of what we have now, carrying over all the existing flaws of automobile oriented infrastructure (ie. pedestrian deaths, traffic).
Migrating away from automobile transportation solves "traffic" in only the most obtuse sense of the term - there aren't literally passenger cars contending for space. We care about traffic because it deters us from going where we'd like to and makes remaining trips take longer. I think pretty much everyone acknowledges that walking, cycling, and transit are slower than driving and will deter even more trips. We spin that in a positive way, as encouraging the development of more neighborhood-level communities and businesses. But then it's hard to explain why "traffic" is a problem you're solving. Traffic has the same effects as the solution you're selling!
Traffic is an issue with automobile oriented infrastructure because automobiles are such a space inefficient way of transporting people.
In the context of a conversation of how trucks are getting bigger and bigger, it's worth noting that the size gains are having implications on traffic too!
The point being though that electric cars will be just as space inefficient as ICE cars. If we want to move more people, more efficiently and avoid traffic jams and new highway construction, we'll have to opt for different solutions.
Clearing a traffic jam is only valuable to the extent that people get where they're going faster than they would have via the traffic jam. It's frustrating when the freeway moves at a a light jog, but that's as fast as a city bus was ever going to make progress, anyway.
Many drivers of SUV are not aware of the body of their vehicle because these are so large and high.
How many a large car is turning, say right (via a dedicated lane), but 10-20% of the vehicle is still in the other lane? Hundred times every week probably... This is just driving me crazy because they are not a bus or a very large delivery truck! They are just an Audi, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, etc ...
CAFE standards (regulations) are the reason why trucks are so large. Fuel efficiency standards are based on the size of vehicle, so a bigger vehicle allows for more fuel consumption and thus a more practical to build vehicle while still meeting standards.
There is no shortage of small trucks internationally. If you want smaller trucks, you seek deregulation (removal of fuel efficiency standards and the chicken tax).
This is a false statement. Unless you are oblivious to the current regulations, and the fact that one must remove (deregulate) CAFE as it stands before small trucks are economically feasible.
I highly doubt that the larger frontend distributing the force over the whole body makes things safer. In particular because for a higher frontend this includes the head, which is arguably the most sensitive area of the body.
I've noticed that taller vehicles tend to drive much faster in places where pedestrians may be. Being up that high messes up my ability to judge speed making it feel like I'm crawling. I'm really careful and slow in parking lots. Especially when I'm driving my truck. But I see 3 ton SUVs zipping around like sports cars in some parking lots. Absolute insanity.
This is why I exclusively ride on sidewalks (which is legal and common where I live). I recently gave road riding a try recently just to test my fears; it was a short ride, a less-used road, and early in the morning, and I still had 3 close calls in the 15 min it took me to get home. I tell anybody who feels happy telling me I shouldn't ride on sidewalks to give me a blank check for medical bills if they're so confident that I'll be safe on the road.
High performance SUVs let people scratch that itch for a nice, fun to drive, car to reflect their current financial situation (most people get richer over their careers) while still being a practical A to B family hauler befitting a responsible adult.
Think of it like being an expensive way to have both a Honda CRV and a Dodge Challenger while only using up one parking spot.
I doubt its as fun to drive as a light weight convertible. The market for these super fast SUVs aren't driving purists, but those people you see who go 90mph on the freeway and drift right to left to right again with zero blinker. The people who see you trying to get over, then hit the accelerator to cut you off lest they let you get ahead of them and damage their pride. The people who merge into the exit only lane and try to hit the throttle and pass you on the right side before the exit lane barrier appears. Manufacturers are playing right into all the bad habits I see drivers do on the road.
Big fast SUVs aren't as fun as a Boxster, but the Range Rover Supercharged (as an example) is very fun to drive for a large SUV. Same with the Cayenne Turbo. With adaptive dampening a lot of big cars can feel much smaller if you're willing to spend the cash.
And anecdotally, everyone I know who drives a sports version of an SUV also owns a sports car of the variety you're describing. You see lots of people hauling their GT3s to track days in those sorts of SUVs.
They still seem like such brutally overpowered cars for what is actually considered legal or defensive driving. If you buy a GT3 and take it to the track, I get it. You have a place where you drive it unsafely but privately and in a controlled area where you can kill yourself and not harm others. It still begs the question, why are you buying the cayenne turbo if speeding and driving recklessly is illegal, and at safe operating speeds without driving recklessly you aren't ever going to be tapping into those extra horses you paid for. Car manufacturers really do a serious wink wink nudge nudge with these overpowered cars, implying you will drive safely and legally when the speedometer goes to 200mph and the advertisement features someone drifting around downtown los angeles. It reminds me of how during prohibition, budweiser would just sell you all the ingredients required to brew your own beer at home and put on a label that says "not to be used to make illegal beer."
Nine times out of ten when I see an AMG g wagon on the road they are doing something dangerous with a phone in one hand. Usually just ripping the throttle to get to 50mph from a stop as fast as possible, then that's their baseline speed for driving around any and all residential roads in my city where the speed limit might be half that.
You don't need a powerful engine to speed: even Kia Sorento can still drive 100+ mph. Powerful engine gives better acceleration, which provides comfort and safety not just for yourself but other drivers. For example you don't create a hazard while doing a left turn, merging from a ramp, passing on the oncoming lane, doing a right turn from a secondary street into a high speed road etc. And, unless it's a DIY mod, a car with a powerful engine also comes with suspension and brakes to match so it's safer overall.
In all the situations you described, a powerful engine just makes the maneuver more risky. Sure you can turn right and get up to speed on a 50mph road instantly, but you having a faster car doesn't make the person coming up the road behind you have a faster reaction time, so they will still end up slamming on the brakes and causing traffic when they see you pull out and cut them off. All these other maneuvers aren't hazardous if you do them legally and wait your turn. If you are driving safely and legally, there is no reason that you need improved brakes designed to stop you from 100mph or suspension designed to take a sharp turn at 80mph.
Believe me, I see these fast cars zipping on and off freeways and roads all day in my city, and they absolutely do not make the situation any more safe for anyone at all. They just create more chaos and uncertainty accelerating and decelerating so fast and jerking around the car so much, and a lot more noise on the street since even classy cars like Mercedes Benzes have this obnoxious throaty exhaust now as it seems, at least for the fast models.
I am not sure I understand you. I am not going to cut off anybody, not everyone driving an expensive car is a douche you pictured. I can safely turn right in a much shorter gap than a budget SUV with underpowered engine could without cutting off anyone. All other maneuvers are not getting safer if performed at half speed.
And sure, technically you can take all the time you want doing the left turn even when the light turned red, it will be of a little consolation when a distracted driver t-bones you.
As far as suspension and brakes go - there is no constant need of course but in the extreme situations it can be life and death. Stuff can happen: animals jumping in front of you, stuff falling from trucks, your tires cut or blowing out for whatever reason, other cars not driving legally and safely etc. etc.
Also, I believe you, you notice bad drivers in expensive cars and have the class hatred for them. So do I, when I see stoners in the beater civics driving like maniacs, yet I figure that it's not the Honda problem, somehow.
The fact that regulation precludes the viability of a small vehicle that is able to punch above its size (like a Chevy Astro, or older Ford Ranger) in terms of capability is a large part of why vehicles have grown so large. Commercial needs that used to be served by these small vehicles are being solved by F150s and Transits. Commuters who used to commute in hatches and wagons which could sufficiently perform their weekend duties as well are buying crossovers and SUVs which have nearly identical interior dimensions. This vehicle inflation has been largely driven by fuel economy and safety regulations.
The road to hell is legislated with good intentions.
Seems like the smart thing to do would be to treat law and regulation as something that needs - just like any other product - continual feedback, iteration, and improvement.
"Oops we created this bad side effect, let's narrow things down further" in the same way that we'd patch a security hole introduced by a new product feature.
Saying "the answer is to just stop trying to prevent bad things" is nonsensical on the face of it. The problems that caused people to care enough to want regulation didn't just magically go away!
>Commercial needs that used to be served by these small vehicles are being solved by F150s and Transits. Commuters who used to commute in hatches and wagons which could sufficiently perform their weekend duties as well are buying crossovers and SUVs which have nearly identical interior dimensions. This vehicle inflation has been largely driven by fuel economy and safety regulations.
I don't understand what you're saying here. Are you implying SUVs have better fuel economy? Because they don't? Also generally safety regulations are tougher in Europe, but cars are smaller, so I don't believe that SUVs comply better with safety regulations either.
The federal fuel economy standards have a weird calculation that incentives vehicles with a large footprint. It's the ratio of footprint to MPG that's important to the feds.
Haha, they do, and they are the same bullshit, and basically killed small hatchbacks.
In EU car makers are paying for extra g of CO2/km on every vehicle. And that g/km is calculated based on weight of the vehicle. I don't have exact numbers, but basically 2 ton SUV can have something like 140g/km without penalty, while 1.3 ton hatch has to have 70g/km which is impossible.
>This vehicle inflation has been largely driven by fuel economy and safety regulations.
Why don't we see this in europe, or japan, or any other first world urban area where you see a proliferation of tiny trucks, tiny vans, tiny vehicles, mopeds, etc? Surely these other places also chased fuel economy savings and safety, but they ended up with a market that looks (and weighs) a lot different. I doubt these cars are any more dangerous or less fuel efficient than some American market car. What sort of policies were enacted in these places that lead to the markets for these small vehicles, which we don't see here?
I drive a 2017 Ford Fiesta hatchback that is 160" long, weighs about 2,600 pounds, and gets a minimum of 26, average 28, MPG in Los Angeles traffic on basic gas.
I've moved with it, put a rack on the top, and drive friends around.
It's got CarPlay, cruise control, even stupid LED lighting for my cupholders.
If that's not punching above its literal size and weight, I don't know what would. Unfortunately this car has been discontinued now.
Nothing in today's market is comparable.
Regulation on size/weight will give cars like this the opportunity to survive.
You're missing the point. Between increasing belt-lines, fatter pillars, thicker doors and smooth/aerodynamic and rounded shapes modern cars have less space than older ones of equivalent exterior dimensions. Because people want a baseline amount of interior space in any given class of vehicle the vehicles have grown. Look at the new iterations of compact cars and compact trucks (and their counterpart SUVs) for a good example. They have nearly identical interior dimensions and have grown a couple inches in every direction and a couple hundred pounds. Just because you feel your car is a good deal for what it is does not mean it is not also subject to the same regulatory treatment. An '03 Ford Escort wagon is 10" longer and the same width and weight as your car and blows it out of the water in terms of usable interior space (I could only find a spec for the 2dr coupe but it has 92.x cubic feet vs 97.x for your Fiesta hatch). It's slower and gets worse fuel economy and doesn't have bluetooth but that's just a reflection of the state of tech at the time.
Pretty much every product line has received this treatment over the last 20yr. Your car would exist without modern safety/fuel economy regulation. It would just look like a 2003 Ford Escort that puts down performance numbers that are more befitting the year 2021.
The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) from NHTSA codes every fatal motor vehicle accident in the United States, including collisions with pedestrians. It's a magnificent data set used widely in the insurance industry, but also by engineers in related sectors. It would be my goto dataset if I was in your position.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/research-data/fatality-analysis-report...
Similarly, I hope folks will reach out with ANY additional data around the lack of danger caused by large / heavy vehicles as opposed to any other non-commercial vehicle.
I'm sorta tired of people regulating or trying to regulate every aspect of life. Maybe just let people make their own decisions.
I still disagree that there's a regulatory need here. Are there not consequences for the drivers in these situations? Are pedestrians not somewhat liable for their own situational awareness?
Even if regulation is the only solution (I do not believe it is) there's ways with better locality like limiting access to the roads, providing better pathways for pedestrians, better guard rails, lighting, etc. Regulating the vehicle is a sweeping change that assumes that people who own these vehicles have absolutely no need for them in the first place.
I live in an area where a high clearance SUV or other large vehicle is a necessity for navigating many of the roads. Why should I, and others like me, suffer for the externalities occurring in cities (this seems to pertain to) where I will never drive?
But the issue is that drivers of large vehicles are typically less aware of pedestrians. So how can I as a pedastrian be responsible for the situational awareness of the SUV driver? It kills me just as much if they are not aware of me.
I think other solutions would work just as well, just add sidewalks so roads become smaller, or make users of large SUVs pay for the cost of killing pedestrians.
>I live in an area where a high clearance SUV or other large vehicle is a necessity for navigating many of the roads. Why should I, and others like me, suffer for the externalities occurring in cities (this seems to pertain to) where I will never drive?
I don't know where you live but most SUVs are not really made for off-road use either and there are plenty of high clearance smaller cars around. Moreover, let's turn the question around, why should pedestrians pay (with their lives) so that some people in remote areas and many city people who want to feal like a outdoor cowboy can drive SUVs?
> So how can I as a pedastrian be responsible for the situational awareness of the SUV driver?
The same way you're responsible for anything you do around other people. Pay attention to who and what is around you, how exposed to danger you are currently. I don't walk around parking lots or other busy areas assuming drivers can always see me, do you?
> I don't know where you live...
It's fine if folks want to regulate their cities like this, by all means. Make vehicles over some size/tonnage illegal in the city limits, do whatever in the city. But why choose a pathway that effects people who live far from them? I struggle to follow the logic.
We really need to stop treating SUVs and light trucks like something other than passenger vehicles. The difference between a mom driving a minivan, and a mom driving an SUV is functionally no different in terms of passengers. But the SUV doesn't have to follow "passenger vehicle" pedestrian safety requirements, so it's a lot more lethal to pedestrians/cyclists than the minivan.
NHTSA also needs to take into account how well do non-passengers fare in a crash. Right now it's only focusing on car safety for the driver, which is a very shitty view for safety of cities entirely.
I'm 100% fine with bans on large cars on most city streets - existing cars grandfathered in for a few more years.
Sport utility vehicles and light trucks are allowed to mount their grill higher than a passenger vehicle and with less slope on the hood. This means that a collision with a pedestrian is more abrupt and that’s why a collision with an SUV is 2-3x more deadly for a pedestrian than a collision with a passenger vehicle. https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-s...
That article doesn't say anything about regulations. The only thing I can find that relates at all to what you're talking about are the Federal Bumper Standards, which only apply to passenger cars. Minivans are excluded as well as SUVs.
Please link to the regulations you're actually referring to, not a generic article about SUVs causing more deaths.
Specifically this regulation, the distinction between passenger and non passenger vehicles. A Lexus NX SUV should be considered and regulated as a passenger vehicle except for its 28 degree sloping chin giving it a “non passenger” vehicle exemption. This means it can avoid a slew of pedestrian safety measures.
The major concern is bonnet (hood) heigh which as you mentioned is separate from the “passenger” vehicle designation. Entering non-passenger vehicle designation is more about avoiding fuel economy standards.
Well as you can see from the Twitter thread minivans cause a lot of excess deaths too. But they are classified as passenger vehicles, unlike SUVs and trucks which avoid the safety regulations by being “non passenger” vehicles.
SUVs are getting ridiculous. They are too wide and long for narrower UK roads and parking spaces but I keep seeing more and more, and they are getting wider.
Modern SUVs are increasingly scaring the shit out of me.
I have driven a 2020 Lincoln Navigator and all the drive by wire nonsense completely removes any sensation from the driver that they are in this poorly-balanced 2+ ton death machine.
At least in the 90s you could feel that the Ford Excursion had an 8.1L engine sitting right above of the steering rack. It gave you this visceral sense of the size and heft of the machine. For me, this made me respect the physics a hell of a lot more.
Obviously, fly by wire is kind of mandatory once you get to a certain scale, but that is the entire point of my argument. If cars are getting so big that we have to add the equivalent of MCAS to make them feel more "driveable", then perhaps we are going in the wrong direction in a lot of ways...
I think it was Jennifer Ouellette who once remarked that "cars increasingly look like they want to murder me", or something along those lines. I think of that every time I see one of these huge things looming at me.
marketing to suburban mothers. It started with "SUV's are safer" which then led to "SUV's can carry more" and the other option of "SUV's aren't minivans" to woo over the dads. Eventually it became the question of "can I afford to put gas in it?" as well as "do I ever want to go offroad?" (even if they never plan to).
My anecdata says women are as self conscious as men, if not more, about driving minivans. I've heard numerous women say they want/"need" to sit up high when driving but that's never been a reason quoted to me by a man. My sister chose an SUV because she was averse to the equivalent minivan (no reason given other than "it's a minivan").
Generally speaking if a car comes in coupe and hatchback form factors, the hatchback is more popular among men and the coupe among women (in the USA). Since hatchbacks are unequivocally more practical, the only explanation I can see for preferring the coupe is aesthetics. This would imply that statistically, women make car buying decisions more heavily weighted by aesthetics as compared to men.
Yeah. Now. Rewind back to the 90s, the soccer moms all had minivans. I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong per se, I don’t have the marketing data the car companies do to justify the positioning. I only know when I was growing up, all my friends’ mothers were driving the vans and their fathers drove the sedan to work. It’s a really weird juxtaposition that SUV’s have brought.
I think it's just the type of consumer. People purchasing non-sporty sedans are just plain, practical, price-conscious consumers.
Perhaps a second factor is that Japanese cars dominate the market, and American manufacturers can only compete via competitive pricing (eg. compare the price of a Ford Focus and a Corolla).
how is a sedan practical? a wagon or hatchback is practical. It also happens to be the type of car used by 90%+ of the population in certain European cities.
The ones that are based on truck platforms are probably super cheap for the manufacturer to produce. Then they throw on a leather package and let you connect your iPhone and they can get another 10k out of you.
From what I've heard, cost of building a smaller vehicle isn't that much less than a larger one since they tend to have a similar number of parts. So you may save some material costs but the cost of putting it together is similar. And the margins on a larger vehicle tend to be higher because people are willing to pay more for it.
Did there used to be a lower tax rate on vehicles over a certain weight because then they were classified as "working" vehicles or something like that?
I’m hearing people now saying things like a vehicle as large as the BMW X3 is “fine if you don’t have kids.” As a kid who grew up in a Subaru Outback and later a Prius, it leaves me scratching my head.
If you have kids that are close together in age, carseat and seat belt requirements can get tough. We had to move from a Subaru Outback (which I loved) to an Ascent (which I do not love) just to fit the 4th car seat in. It is impossible in an Outback, although 3 car seats work fine.
This is a huge factor that non-parents don’t realize. Today’s car seats are huge, to the point that they’ve been seriously proposed as reducing family sizes. More expensive car seats are even bigger, with anti-rebound bars, seat-to-floor bars, and extra side padding. We tell parents to keep their seats rear-facing as long as possible (in many circles up to the age of 4, with limited evidence), and discourage smaller booster seats. There’s no comparison between the situation today and a generation ago.
And that’s just the car seats. Strollers are also huge (the latest trend is for newborns to lie flat in a bassinet, which is basically a mini-crib in a stroller). It all adds up, much faster than you would expect.
It's true. I don't know why you're getting downvoted.
You simply can't put carseats/boosters three across in most smaller or even mid-sized vehicles. They're too wide. To stay legal (meaning use carseats/boosters), you have to get a vehicle with a third row or something enormously wide.
Exactly. To be clear, I did fit three across in the rear of the Outback, but my state does not permit a carseat in the front seat (plus there needs to be room for a 2nd adult). So we had no real choice, we had to get something with third-row seating.
Even with two kids it starts to add up. Two car seats in a compact car basically means you can’t fit an adult in the third row. It means you can’t squeeze in a third seat for play dates or carpool. With a double stroller you’re going to be hard-pressed on packing space for even a weekend vacation or camping trip. Most of the families I know with two kids (myself included) have one smaller car for the daily commute / school, and a second larger car or SUV for road trips and weekends.
Even 4-person households cannot explain the popularity of large SUVs in the U.S. The majority of households have either 1 or 2 people. 78% have 3 or fewer people.
I don't know how you concluded that from the given information. It should be clear that with 128 million households and 328 million people, the average household size cannot be 4.38.
Most people don't have 4 kids though, but they are buying vehicles like they do. I grew up in a sedan, it realistically wouldn't have been any different if we were sitting in some huge SUV instead. When we would go on a road trip we would usually just rent a full size van. Everyone I knew with a minivan didn't use it for its 7 seats or whatever, but just as a place to stick bags of soccer balls or hockey equipment and random sweatshirts rather than bring them inside the home after practice or a game.
> Most people don't have 4 kids though, but they are buying vehicles like they do.
Modern car seat mandates make two kids close in age a tight when travelling, doing an activity that requires supplies, etc., in anything short of medium SUV or very large hatchback (essentially a big station wagon, not that that labeling is used anymore); carseats are larger and required longer than they were when young adults these days were young kids (and weren't required at all when Gen X and early Millenials were kids), so “when I grew up” comparisons need to recognize that the constraints are different.
I have two kids and we just went with 3 kids and 2 adults on a short weekend trip in a peugeut 308, so I don't buy your argument.
Moreover, if people would actually use station wagons or vans we wouldn't have the problem. It's the SUVs that have the weight.
One example Volvo XC 60 SUV weights 1,869 to 2,225 kg, the equivalent class station wagon V60 is 1,761 to 2,091 kg and the trunk volume (not sure what the correct term for this is) is 483 L (XC60) vs 529L (V60). So the SUV is heavier and smaller inside (I have driven both and the XC60 is also smaller for passengers). The we need larger insides argument really does not stand a serious test.
But that would be an argument for people movers like e.g. the Ford s-Max and others, but instead we see SUVs which don't really add more space (I'm always amazed if I get into an SUV and find the internal size smaller than a station wagon). Moreover it doesnt explain the whole category of minisize SUVs, like the VW t-roc or the Volvo XC 40.
Finally if you have 4 kids close to each other, realistically the oldest will be at least 4.5 by the time the youngest is born, so there is not much time they all need a car seat (maybe 2-3 years, after that booster).
Basically it comes down to the seat position relative to the road. Many people like having a higher position and midsize SUVs/crossovers provide that. Whether or not it's actually safer or provides more visibility, some people prefer it to a sedan experience.
The Outback seats 5 so it makes sense that you wouldn’t use it with 4 kids. Still I get the sense that 1-2 kid families are going overboard. Two car seats fit fine in any compact.
Good luck finding a compact where a car seat, especially rear-facing, doesn't sharply limit the (often already cramped for people over median height) seat travel of seat in front of it (heck, that's often true of mid-size and larger sedans).
While true, families with 4 kids of car-seat age are rare. The average American household is 2.5 people and about 15% of households have children (of any age).
To be fair, looking at the guidelines now, it's forward facing car seats through age 7 and booster seats through age 12. I think my brother and I were only in car seats until about 3 and boosters until about 5. We once rode with an extended family member who insisted on putting me in a booster at 7, and my parents thought that was ridiculous. Twelve! Imagine.
Look at the Radian car seat, supposedly can fit 3 in the back seat of most sedans, although I have never tried it. I am experienced with most of the seat on the market, and the ones that are the most expensive/safest seam to fall apart the quickest, will all of the styrofoam falling off and seat covers poorly securely.
I think there is a difference between 1-2 kids and 3-4 though? If you have 3-4 kids of similar age that needs car seats it becomes quite a bit more justified to get a large car for that reason. Not saying there is a need for a justification to get a large car.
Honestly it's more the lack of sidewalks and spread-out houses. I used to walk everywhere as a kid, but we lived in a dense semi-urban area. Now I live in a spread out suburb, where no one bothered to have sidewalks, where the road has steep hills on both sides in many places, and where the cars drive very fast and don't expect to see people.
(I don't mean to be defending SUVs here. In my view most people who need that size of vehicle would be better off with a minivan. But I was unable to convince my own wife of that...)
Agreed. I grew up with a Pontiac 6000 that was 190"x72"x54" and 3100lbs.
A current Honda Accord is 192"x73"x57" and 3400lbs. Not a massive difference and I'll assume the added safety equipment makes it safer overall even for pedestrians.
And a Hyundai Santa Fe (typical mid-sized SUV) is 188"x75"x66" and 4200lbs.
A new F150, the best selling vehicle in the US, is even more massive at 209"x95"x75" and around 5000lbs.
It takes a lot of safety equipment and design to overcome nearly 1600lbs of mass (over the current Accord), plus the visibility impact of such a large vehicle. To put it in context, 1600lbs is about the weight of a vintage VW Beetle.
There may be a weak correlation here, but the author doesn't seem to explore it. Other factors to consider when analyzing accidents: Age of driver, Was the driver intoxicated, and (incredibly important for pedestrian accidents) what Time of Day was the accident and what Type of Road was the accident on?
The last time I looked at the data, the 2015 FARS data set, the biggest factor in pedestrian deaths seemed to be pedestrians walking at night along roads without a dedicated sidewalk. This happens in rural areas far more than you may think.
The author not only correlated the increased number of deaths with the increased number of large vehicles around, but also found that there is cities with larger increases in vehicle size had a correlated larger increase in deaths. So essentially there is a correlation on different levels, which is a much stronger indicator for causation.
If you are saying this is a spurious causality you should suggest alternative reasons why we should see the correlation. To me it doesn't seem that there should be any reason why cities with increased vehicle sizes should also have increased number of people walking on the roadside without sidewalks.
Moreover considering the large numbers we are talking about i would imagine intoxication for example would average out.
Night drivers are the worst. I occasionally jog at night and have a stretch of road where there is no sidewalk. I have reflective gear and a headlamp on. I had someone have the audacity to stop and honk their horn at me because I was jogging in the left lane...which is the lane your supposed to be cause you can see the oncoming traffic.
I remember looking at the same data some time ago and reaching the same conclusion about accidents at night. Another factor was that the pedestrians themselves are very likely to be intoxicated.
This is just another externality. Sounds like we need a body count tax for large vehicles like this.
Edit: BTW, I'm honestly serious about this. These vehicles clearly come with a significant cost, and while it's a bit callous, that cost (in the form of human lives) can be quantified in financial terms and then incorporated into the price of these vehicles in the form of taxation.
Doing so sends a price signal to the market: if you want a big truck, then you have to pay a large fee for the privilege, recognizing you're more likely to kill someone crossing the street.
The alternative is trying to legislate the size of vehicles or other safety features, which is absolutely an option. But speaking for myself, I'd prefer to discourage the purchase of these monsters in the first place by raising their prices so much as to render them unattractive versus smaller, safer vehicles.
I dunno, this seems akin to making murder legal but taxing it.
Currently you're basically allowed to murder anyone by hitting them with a car, as long as you are sober. Let's remove the sobriety loophole. I'd favor harsher criminal and civilian punishments for killing/injuring pedestrians, which should naturally discourage people from driving larger vehicles.
The 2014 paper "Pounds that Kill" by Michael L. Anderson and Maximilian Auffhammer looked briefly at pedestrian deaths from vehicles, but focused more on multi vehicle collisions and estimated driver and passenger deaths in relation to vehicle weight.
The OP estimates $100/yr external cost of light trucks to account for the increase in pedestrian deaths. This paper estimates a cost several times higher to additionally account for driver and passenger deaths.
The SUV craze peaked in the late 00s. We've on average been moving to smaller crossovers since. Boxy 90s iterations of midsize SUVs like the 4Runner Cherokee, Durango, Explorer, etc and fullsize pickup based SUVs like the Armada, Suburban, Expedition, etc (regardless of age) have become much rarer than they used to be and the crossovers that displace them tend to be built for sale in other parts of the world with much more stringent passenger safety requirements.
I'm very suspect of any analysis that doesn't try to account for smartphone use. They came onto the scene in the 2010s and were instantly and obviously bad enough that they became a known issue and subject to regulation in short order yet the author doesn't even mention this.
I wonder what the numbers are on accidents caused by lack of visibility through suv's
I get why people prefer being higher up...but if everybody starts driving this big cars to compensate for the increase in big cars we're back to where we started but with a much larger environmental impact.
I don't know if it's just me, but the increased height of these large cars greatly increases their headlight glare and causes me to feel less safe around them at night. If one is
directly behind me, it's usually blinding.
I think this is a large part of why these cars become popular. If you’re in a normal sized sedan it feels like you’re surrounded by giant aggressive death machines. I’m also absolutely convinced people buy them because they want people to feel that way.
Vehicle weight increased more before pedestrian deaths skyrocketed. His wording is correct, but headline readers will infer that the correlation fits across time, to before smartphone popularity.
Pickups, SUVs, and minivans are wider on average than other cars. Could they just be simply hitting more people per car, because they're sweeping more area? (Can't access full paper.)
1,100 extra deaths from 2000-2019 doesn’t seem like that much. I would’ve expected it to be higher. In 2019 there were 36k total fatalities in 33k accidents. IMHO, the flat front fad in many new model trucks is going to cause more issues than bigger vehicles.
Was there a claim that shifting to larger cars is safer
I drive a large vehicle for many reasons, #1 being comfort. I am a tall, large person. I want a vehicle with lots of leg room, and a ride height that does not require me to climb down into the vehicle. SUV's and Pickup trucks fit that bill. Cars do not.
They are safer for the vehicle's occupants, and the article agrees with that, but not safer overall. The risk is moved from the vehicle's occupants to pedestrians and occupants of smaller vehicles, it seems.
In America we believe people working towards their own individual self interest is better in the long run for everyone than having Authoritarian Central Planning that through out Human history always fails
If you're Andrei the Giant, for sure. But if you're just 6 foot and change and under 300 lbs, virtually any modern sedan has plenty of room and isn't hard to get into.
I'm (not op) 6'6" and ~240 lbs. I have a seriously hard time finding cars that are comfortable to drive. That said, there are plenty of smaller cars that are just fine, and plenty of large cars that are seriously cramped. I fit just fine in an Impreza (at least 10 years ago I did), but I cannot fit in a 4runner.
There’s a difference between being “leg tall” and “torso tall”. If you’re the latter, it’s hard to predict what cars will actually fit unless you sit in them, especially if they have a sunroof.
For me they are much more uncomfortable to get in and out of. Once you are inside sure, but compared to a SUV or Truck that have a ride height that places the seat almost exactly parallel to my standing height, making getting into them like sitting into an office chair Vs the standard car that is a good foot or more lower than that making it awkward to get in and out of
In a collision the more inertia you have compared to the other car the better off you will be. The contest between a big SUV and a Geo Metro is going to go much better for the SUV driver than the Geo driver, unless the Geo is going Mach 2 or something. That's the reasoning I've always heard for why SUVs and pickups are supposed to be safer. Safer for the driver, anyway, not safer for who or whatever they hit.
The headline seems to be lying. I quote the article: “ The rate of pedestrian deaths has been increasing recently, even as driver/passenger deaths have fallen.”
So it seems to be safer for the passengers and drivers. The link makes no defence to not making the driver safer.
If the driver/passenger death rate has dropped similarly in, say, Toyota Corollas and Mini Coopers - which I suspect is the case - the article's headline remains accurate.
The headline is inaccurate, that is correct. The term "lying" doesn't make sense here.
There's plenty of data that larger vehicles make the driver safer...which is common sense. eg the number of tank drivers that die in accidents when in a tank.
The abstract says "I find no evidence that the shift towards larger vehicles improved aggregate motorist safety." That driver deaths have fallen doesn't imply SUVs caused them to fall. Occupant safety has improved across all vehicle types.
Regulators badly need to reign the car makers in.