751
Feds target SUV, truck size to save pedestrian lives — ‘one of the last frontiers of vehicle safety’
(chicago.suntimes.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
751 points (99.2% liked)
News
23300 readers
4867 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.
Most other countries I've been to, all the trades use these, and seem to have no problem getting projects done.
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.
Good point.
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.
It’s almost like that it isn’t the intended purpose of these vehicles.. you don’t need 19ft long 10ft tall super duty ford f-250s and up to pull a 4klb trailer though… a 70s f150 half that size could do it just fine and modern engines in that size vehicle would be even better
Kei trucks and vans are the perfect vehicles for most jobs and most tradesman not hauling loads meant for real trucks not light truck frames
Most tradesmen DON'T use a 250 Super Duty unless they really need one. They prefer the standard 1/2 ton base models because they are cheaper and "good enough".
Kei trucks, while they do have their place and uses in some cities, are NOT the "perfect vehicles" for most tradesmen in many parts of the world. They do not carry enough items and tools for most tradesmen to make all the repair calls they may need to do in one day. They often need to drive well over 100 miles a day to get to all the appointments they can have. And the design of the those little trucks are patently unsafe at highway speeds.
Vans are sometimes popular, but they are just weird looking trucks. And they can be difficult to access tools and items from. Requiring you to either unload a bunch of stuff to get at something or you need to crawl over everything.
Fair point. Though if they weren't needing to go up against oversized trucks, it wouldn't be as much of an issue.
Not to mention longer term cost of maintenance and insurance.
"15 minutes could save you ~~15% or more~~ 100% on car insurance"
(by leaving the scene of the accident as rapidly as possible. 'Geico'? No no, 'Guy, Go'.)
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.
The Americans don’t, but Volvo, Benz, Audi still do.
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.
Cruise control is hardly luxury, most cars have had it for a while
I love cruise control. Get on the highway, set it and go. Ideally find someone driving the same direction and speed, and follow along behing them. No more stressing that I'm going to get a speeding ticket.
Im mostly joking that most of the cars ive owned havent had cruise control. Gotta love old base model jeeps.
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 get that its just the concept disgusts me, but then again my Scottish ancestors would rise from the dead and kill me for wasting money on such superfluous things. Profligacy is quite literally killing the planet, ya aint gonna catch me wasting money on stupid pointless shit too often. My grandmother though aint bound by such ancestral limits and it annoys me.
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)!
I'm with you. I want my car to have three pedals, a steering wheel, and a stick. Air conditioning, heat, and one cigarette lighter socket. That's it.
Toddler core behaviour
I had a student get just the worst giant diesel truck that was constantly breaking down so she could "stick it to the libs".
Girl was 18. Future of the nation?
Yeah, at some point we’re going to have to crank up gas prices
budgeting and foregoing food to own the libs
Ironic, considering how much gasoline is taxed.
Barely at all?
It depends on where, but it can be quite a bit. Typically goes towards road maintenance and whatnot.
They've been getting confused after Elon turned into a giant-ass bigot, so now some of them are considering Tesla.