The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stunned safety advocates by proposing new vehicle design rules that it says will help reduce pedestrian deaths. The rules will likely change vehicle design permanently.
  • workerONE@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 minutes ago

    Why do little cars have to withstand a collision with a huge truck but trucks just get bigger and bigger? The new Hummer is over 9,000lbs (4,090 kg)

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
    291·
    5 hours ago

    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.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      131·
      1 hour ago

      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.

  • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    372·
    6 hours ago

    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.

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
      142·
      5 hours ago

      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?

      • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
        3·
        3 hours ago

        …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.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          1·
          6 minutes ago

          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

        • socphoenix@midwest.social
          1·
          52 minutes ago

          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.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
        2·
        5 hours ago

        Why do you need a 4x4 lifted 3 feet and you live in the suburbs?

        Penis issue

        • cogman@lemmy.world
          91·
          5 hours ago

          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.

          • dafo@lemmy.world
            61·
            4 hours ago

            But it’s still blocking the view for us in normal sizes cars.

            I don’t know how many times I’ve had to hope for the best and carefully inch forwards/backwards when being next to a minivan/SUV/pickup. I’ve been close to being in an accident a number of times because of, well mostly, SUVs.

          • niucllos@lemm.ee
            71·
            5 hours ago

            Additionally, the raised and blunt hood height makes a full-body impact with no force dissipation much more likely, particularly for shorter people, where a more traditional hood shape allows a struck pedestrian to roll over the top and avert some of the force of the strike

          • thefartographer@lemm.ee
            21·
            4 hours ago

            20-foot lifted vehicles would probably be considerably safer:

            1. They’d easily have the clearance to safely navigate over most pedestrians in their path.
            2. Any attempts to balance them well would be incredibly expensive and you’d likely have many drivers whose cars would fall over from insufficiently sized tires or whatever.

            Hmmm… 🤔 Now that I think about it, maybe we should subsidize these lift kits to make this a self-solving problem

  • LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee
    91·
    5 hours ago

    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.