Sure it’s got the pop up logo triangle, but the front is still overall better.
Great viability, check out that dome. The design choices naturally focus the server outside the car rather than on instruments.
Back seats also have a big dome to look out and realise there is a world outside the car, it’s not just an iPad screen to fast-travel. Again, the focus is on what’s outside the vehicle, not in it.
On screens, there in not a single screen in that car.
Low-loading height, height clearance, deep truck. Probably more on par with a van than an SUV.
Low laying headlamps with standard incandescent bulbs, nothing that can temporarily blind people.
Sure it has rear-view viability issues, and the horn (and multitude of horn buttons) is problematic. But the Homer Simpson car is a good people and stuff mover. Could probably do without the shag carpeting though.
I’m from the EU and sadly this has become more and more the norm here. I remember a time when we had very little SUVs here but now they seem to be everywhere. And it’s a really busy capital city, so the streets are narrow. I can’t understand why people would buy big cars here…
Its not just SUVs in western Europe, EU crash regulations for cars hitting pedestrians have forced cars to be higher and taller at the front. Unless the seating position also rises then you lose visibility of the very front of the car. If the seating position has to rise then so does the roof and this often means the floor rises too.
Sure, these ridiculous American trucks are far far worse, and SUVs are just generally bad, but its normal cars as well.
Sadly, we cannot really ban them as they are utility vehicles that a small portion of the population needs. However, I still see freakin’ ads that frame them as fancy cars.
Czech ad for Amarok V6
“The new Amarok V6. Pick-up truck for every day. Powerful and comfortable”
I suggest making it illegal to have them in any color other than matte excavator yellow (for construction) or green camo (for hunting and forestry).
As someone with a utilitarian need for a truck in the US, you are correct. I m7ch rather drive a Fiat Panda than my 2013 Tundra. However, I try to keep my lights low (they are adjustable from inside the cab) so as not to blind others when on the road.
Still, there should be a federal ban on these stupid things, annd these, not to mention a federal law regulating how high headlights can be from the road (looking at you Ford F-250)
Shit happens. No one means to hit a pedestrian. Sometimes people with actually clean records hit pedestrians. It’s not called an accident because it was on purpose…
As is the case with every sane driver on the road. All the same, pedestrians are hit by vehicles every day.
With the volume of car travel in the world, it is a statistical certainty that people will make mistakes, be it distraction, complacency, fatigue, whatever the cause. An abundance of these high up, flat-fronted vehicles create a scenario such that WHEN those mistakes DO happen, they’re far more likely to end a life. To suggest that people should just be better drivers is essentially just wishing the problem will solve itself.
Vehicles with higher, more vertical front ends pose greater risk to pedestrians
I think that’s more accurate. Vehicles big, small, tall, short, electric, or gas powered… makes no difference. There’s no greater risk to pedestrians than multi-ton moving vehicles.
EDIT: Guys, I didn’t mean one size car vs another doesn’t make a difference to the safety risk of pedestrians. It absolutely does. I mean that vehicles around pedestrians are a risk to pedestrians, regardless. This is #fuckcars, right? Stop all the down voting.
Not true, there’s a lot of differences between a car and a ute/suv. The high, square bonnet of a ute both makes it harder to see pedestrians and makes it much worse when they do hit. Cars are designed to hit people on the lower legs and toss them onto the bonnet, while utes hit people on the upper body and knock them over so they end up underneath a moving vehicle.
Cars aren’t great, but they’re so much better than utes and suvs.
You are correct, and I agree with you, but it’s still incorrect to say there is no difference when research shows there is. I understand what you’re trying to go for, but stating false information won’t help to convince people.
Even if the number of cars on the road remains the same, but utes and SUVs were swapped to lower vehicles (when possible), then there would still be positive outcomes of fewer pedestrian fatalities (even if the number of accidents remains the same) and reduced carbon emissions.
Removing most cars would reduce these even more, which I assume is your desired outcome, but even just reducing the proportion of utes and SUVs would have positive effects
but it’s still incorrect to say there is no difference when research shows there is.
Just to clarify, I said “no difference” in that “big, small, tall, short, electric, or gas powered” vehicles ALL cause severe injuries and death to pedestrians.
I’m not trying to argue that there’s no measurable difference in the amount of damage a larger vehicle can cause vs a smaller one, as I completely agree that there is.
My point is that they are all too dangerous to be around people, so a fatality by a car is “no different” than a fatality by an SUV.
I agree that a fatality by a car is no different to a fatality by an SUV. But I would say that there is a difference in accidents involving cars vs SUVs because the fatality rates differ, which is what is being discussed.
I might be misinterpreting your argument, but my understanding is that you’re saying because both cars and SUVs can cause fatalities, they are all too dangerous to be around people. But many things can cause fatalities, even bikes. We’ll never be able to reduce accidents entirely. But there’s a rate at which the fatalities become too high compared to the benefits. So that’s why I believe talking about the rates of fatalities is more useful than talking about whether something can cause a fatality at all. In this case, I think your acceptable rate for fatalities is at a level where all motorised vehicles clear the threshold, so that’s why you’re saying there’s no difference. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Replacing tall-fronted vehicles with short-fronted vehicles would reduce fatalities, which is why I believe there is a difference and we should try to do that where possible.
That’s actually surprising. I would think damage to lower extremities (delicate knee joints) would be far more severe from a concentrated impact area than a large area impact distributed over the entire body - when it occurs with a low speed impact.
Lower-fronted cars may cause more severe lower body injuries, but likely cause less severe injuries overall because the point of impact isn’t the torso (which is where humans keep a lot of their important bits and bobs).
I guess that’s the question. For low speed impacts the body is pretty well protected compared to the lower extremities because the energy of impact is more readily absorbed without serious damage.
There’s nuances here, but in principle you are incorrect. A car can be assumed to be infinitely heavier than a pedestrian. That means that every part of their body that’s in contact with the car will be accelerated to car speed. So it’s not that with a larger area the force is spread out, there’s actually just more places that have force applied. In other words, a low car will break your legs, a high car will break your legs and torso.
I tend to agree with you, of course, but I wonder if the large study were re-run with mass as the cause it would show similar distribution against the 6000lb+ vehicles. Mass tends to reduce braking deceleration and I didn’t see that as an explicit parameter. The “cause” is more salient to the second, smaller study which shows the “kneecap and hood carry” physics reduced hip and head injuries compated to the “body block and throw” mechanics of the flat- fronted cars.
Not to defend the Mack-Truck styling - I don’t disagree at all with the smaller impact study - I question the original implied hypothesis that the prevalence of large flat fronts as the cause of increase in deaths following the nadir in 2009. Of course anecdotes are not evidence, but I live in a college town and have since 2000 and the actions of pedestrians have changed substantially over the years. Specifically, the advent of smartphones has resulted in risky behavior both in pedestrians and behind the wheel. In 2009 less than 20% of phones were “smart.” Few of those were connected to the internet and fewer still to social media and entertainment services. Since then, the prevalence has increased to 80% and the consumption of media by orders of magnitude (measured by data usage and hours engaged). The original study implies the increase in pedestrian death solely due to nose geometry, but the quantity of impacts and conditions may not be as causative as the article seems to claim.
I get where you’re coming from, but without context your point comes across as more of a “all cars are dangerous therefore we shouldn’t bother regulating oversized SUVs” rather than the “Yes SUVs are particularly dangerous but let’s keep in mind that all cars are dangerous” that you were aiming for.
“all cars are dangerous therefore we shouldn’t bother regulating oversized SUVs” rather than the “Yes SUVs are particularly dangerous but let’s keep in mind that all cars are dangerous” that you were aiming for.
Oh, geeze. Yeah, I really didn’t intend for it to sound like the first part. I 1000% believe that larger vehicles NEED to be regulated, like yesterday.
A train fits that statement too. So do planes. And boats.
Trains run on tracks, and you can’t get hit by one unless you put yourself on those tracks.
I’m not aware of pedestrians and cyclists getting hit by planes. I’d be interested to hear about this trend.
Boats aren’t typically found on city streets, and pedestrian fatalities involving boats is how common?
City and suburban streets should have fewer cars on it, not more. These are pedestrian areas, and perhaps we can learn a thing or two about how to actually prevent pedestrian fatalities by looking at European city planning and design.
In Denver, a cyclist died in a collision. And then, the bright, white-painted memorial bicycle at the site, surrounded by candles and flowers was crashed into by another vehicle!
My old Honda has a low and slanted front end (kind of like a wedge). At the time, Honda was crowing about enhanced pedestrian safety and how the wedge would scoop the pedestrian (or cyclist) up onto the hood rather than tossing them under the car.
Dunno about that, but I can say it is far easier to see over the nose of that old Honda than over the damn nose of newer cars I’ve driven.
I got hit (T-bone collision) by a work van this summer and it had a slanted nose so that the point of contact was between the bumper and the side of my front wheel. But because of the lever action between the traction of the wheels and the sideways motion at the point of contact, I was thrown sideways onto the ground in the direction the van was moving. If the nose was taller, I probably would’ve broken my arm or my leg due to a higher impact on the side. But a lot of my bruises (no broken bones yay) were where I touched the ground or where the bike was violently moved between my legs (my body colliding with the bike seat and the frame).
Outside of the US the kinds of people that drive these stupidly large vehicles are generally speaking entitled pricks or men who need it as an extension of their ‘manliness’ or a combo of both. So I am always extra vigilant around them because you know they won’t be signalling or paying any attention to other road users 90℅ of the time.
Crossovers are becoming way more popular than sedans in Europe. And crossovers also have a high front end. It’s not just the SUV driven by agro men that are a danger for cyclist.
And at least in Germany a SUV usually is a car without a reason s to exist and the other are cars that at least have a purpose in some cases. You might drive to a far off weather station up a steep climb in a Range Rover. You’ll only roam your neighbourhood in a Nissan Puke.
And I’ve nearly been hit by a soccer mom in a SUV last week in Germany. I honestly don’t care about the driver’s gender, aggression level or colour of the car, they are stupid and I don’t want to get hit by them.
Outside of the US the kinds of people that drive these stupidly large vehicles are generally speaking entitled pricks or men who need it as an extension of their ‘manliness’ or a combo of both.
That’s weird, it’s often true inside the US as well. Generally its an oversized truck/SUV that has had some sort of mods or acceessories put on it (Lift, lights, wheels that stick out, artificial plastic testicles, etc) that are driven by the problem people. A plain, basic F150 or whatever is probably a company truck.
I doubt companies buy F150s because of the reduced carrying capacity (the side walls of the truck slope inwards) and the danger to other road users. Unless the bed of the truck is modded to have toolboxes or a crane or something.
my bane are the 30 something women that seem to have a very well earning husband, drive around the SUV to drop off /pick up the kids at school and do groceries when normal people work.Telltale sign is them wearing huge sunglasses no matter the weather and often being distracted on a phone call while driving with one hand.
I had a lot of close calls with thse kind of scummy drivers, more so than men. But it could also be because my way to work goes through the posh quarter and i avoid the main streets. Did i mention in thos that the streets have cars parking on both sides, so there is only 1.5 lanes in the middle, where small cars can pass each other, but big brain big car drivers regularly shout at each other that the other one should make way for them?
Yeh, you are describing exactly the kind of person I meant under the “entitled prick” moniker. Driving their special edition Range Rover supercharged V8 to do the school run each day whilst bitching to Candice on their phone and not paying much attention to the road beyond confirming they are still moving in a vaguely forward direction.
I’d love it if cars in the US got smaller again. People everywhere else in the world get by ok without having a pickup the size of a semi truck. Don’t know why it’s so accepted in the US.
I would love if the US had kei cars. Or a class of smaller cheaper electric cars (the kind you see on Alibaba/amazon) with a top speed of forty mph en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car
Microcars don’t really work in the US because nearly all road development is designed around allowing everyone to get anywhere in a very big very fast car.
What is the benefit to owning a small or slow car in most parts of the US?
That’s why I would like it to have a top speed of 40mph. I would like a small car that I can ride the rather short distance to work or a store in all weather and be able to keep up with the average speed limit of 30.
Congress passed the bill back in the 70s. They’d have to pass another bill to undo it. With corporate lobbying from the auto manufacturers it’s very unlikely. They make bank on SUVs and trucks. Hell, the only model Ford sells that isn’t a truck or SUV is the Mustang.
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