Saw a lady driving a truck which its hood was taller than my veloster and all I saw was knuckles. This old lady probably couldn’t even see the road.
Fuck these people and fuck the companies that make emLarge trucks like that should be like transports. Ya should have to take a special license course to even be able to own to prove you can drive it. 90% of truck owners can’t so they own the biggest POS to ensure their safety at everyone’s else’s safety.
I see A LOT of older people who can’t see over the dash. I bet they don’t know their seat raises vertically. their eyes line up with the top of the steering wheel, no way they’re paying attention enough to what’s going on beyond 15 feet, much less around them.
Every time I see a movie from the 90s and older, and they show a parking lot, I get sad. Everyone used to drive reasonably sized sedans. Family vehicles were wagons. Fuck SUVs and trucks.
Bumper height needs to be standardized so they match up properly. One of the biggest safety issues is how modern SUV bumpers don’t align with cars bumper bars.
My Sequoia is like 2.5x the size of my Honda fit. If I ever hit my Honda while pulling into the driveway I’ll total it.
I fully agree with your statement.
Do you like your Sequoia? I have been thinking about trading in my Explorer for one. Or an Expedition.
Know this is a hate thread about SUV’s, but those of us with large families don’t have any other options.
I have a 2012 platinum it’s amazing. I get 12-15mpg…lol yea I have a 5 person family with the 7 seater Sequoia.
Maybe this is the point, but that might cause SUVs to be prohibitively unsafe, because their center of momentum would be so high relative to impact height. For example, if an SUV with one of these low bumpers hit a barrier, it would probably perform a front flip over it 😂
“MUH FREEDOM. FUCKIN COMMIES”
I can just see the pavement princess brigade seething because their next emotional support penismobile won’t be exaggerated anymore and they will actually be able to see pedestrians and cyclists.
For the first time ever, manufacturers would be required to study the impact of test dummies hit outside of vehicles. The rules would likely change the design of what America drives permanently.
That’s all the article says about the actual rule changes. Based on this information alone, I know very little about what will actually change.
I feel like the NHTSA should do way more if they can and argue for limits on light truck sizes in their length, height, weight, and perhaps classification.
Well, for one thing, an M1 Abrams main battle tank has better front sightlines than most trucks on the road today.
And it isn’t even that much more dangerous to get hit by because of the giant flat-face front impact planes of the trucks. Used to be if you got hit by a car it would roll you up over the hood, now you just die.
I have to imagine that will impact the testing and design at least somewhat.
Edit: fixed the image link
Not sure about the second part, tanks are built to go over things. Their “negative slant” seems more likely to push things under than a car’s hood or a truck/SUV’s flat face.
Oh sure if you get run over by a tank you’re going under the treads and it’s lights out for you. No question. My point was though, with sedans or older smaller trucks, the point of impact would hit around waist level on most adults and you’d be thrown up and over the hood, which would bleed off a lot of the lethal impact damage. These days the full weight of the truck is going to hit you in the chest and shoulders and you’re not getting thrown anywhere but forward and under.
If you’re a child, you’re pretty screwed either way, but modern big trucks are way, way more dangerous in a frontal impact than they used to be just based on the shape of the things. That big flat face is like getting slammed directly into a wall at 80mph.
The other thing it mentioned was the “head-to-hood” test. AFAIK car manufacturers are only required to meet the collision safety requirements for collisions involving the same class of vehicle. Vehicles in different classes are not made to impact with each other, making, for instance, a sedan to pickup truck collision much more dangerous for the sedan driver. The only way they can still meet those safety requirements is to make the front of the SUVs and trucks much much smaller and probably lower.
Edit: I was thinking of the AP article about this.
For the first time ever, manufacturers would be required to study the impact of test dummies hit outside of vehicles
But that will reveal a LOT of corroborating information for what we know, which is how dangerous they are. It’s a good thing to have more data
I suspect the only “change” that will happen is a large amount of money changing hands so they don’t have to bother.
Double the price of petrol. That will make Americans desire small cars again.
Doesn’t matter, still need an SUV to fit the family. Not everyone here is living the SINK/DINK life.
They need to do that here too in Australia
If you’re driving a larger vehicle, you should be putting in more care.
But they don’t seem to here in Australia. They’ll park badly and put less effort into fixing it than a small sedan
It’s tiring that this is even still a thing
It’s like a negative feedback loop I want an SUV because of a truck or another SUV hit me. I feel like I might be able to survive that but if I’m in my geometro, or a small compact car. I don’t think I’m coming out of that alive if a giant trucker or suv hit me And I know that’s not gonna change. They’re not gonna suddenly recall thousands of oversized pick up trucks those trucks are gonna be on the road for the next 10 to 15 years to come, even if something changes soon. It would take a while to phase them out.
I just want public high-speed rail everywhere 15 minutes cities please
Yay we will have the return of small trucks. These behemoths are good for towing and work, but not everyday driving.
Most of the behemoths aren’t even good as utilitary vehicles…
I’ve got a 15yo Renault Kangoo which could beat almost any oversized suburban pedestrian flattener in all metrics except price.
Hey buddy! Without a Ford F150 that’s taller than the average elementary school student and a box that can barely fit an average grocery store trip, how else am I supposed to tell people I have a tiny penis?
I want so much to ditch my Jeep Grand Cherokee for a truck (I drive to work once a week but pull a camper on the weekends), sadly a lot of them might not fit in my 1970’s garage.
There should really be a redistribution gas tax, another dollar per gallon on gas which then goes back split evenly to every American. Incentivizes less gas usage while avoiding the regressive nature of a sales tax. Canada has something like this.
Ruinous politically so it would never happen but it would be a good plan.
It’s the carbon tax and carbon rebate in Canada. When paired with a carbon tariff, it’s a great market friendly solution to reduce emissions. Beware though, it really really triggers regressive petrosexual conservatives and the ones in Canada keep trying to trigger an election over it so they can get rid of it ASAP and pollute more.
I’m Canadian… avoiding tax??
Hahahahahaha I want what you’re smoking.
We literally get taxed on tax
As was designed by the people who actually wrote those laws, the lobbyists. More profitable cars to sell as America moves farther and farther away from reality with car prices.
My dream car: An EV version of the 1955 Nash Metropolitan, seen here in this silly ad photo:
(Sorry, it’s hard to find pictures that give a true indication of the smallness of the car. Also, mine would be the red and white two tone variety.)
I just want a tiny electric hatchback, like, Honda fit sized, that has like 150+ mile range, and doesn’t use an outdated charging standard. I’ve considered a Nissan Leaf but they are still sticking with the chademo charger port, which is way less common.
Yes!
Even that was in an era or needlessly ego-boosting giant cars, going utilitarian to get a better product, better lives on average, even save resources - amazing (but with the cardinal sin of not being expensive enough and thus not as financially profitable).
For the same reason I would love to get a normally viable car of much smol.
Like a bit more modern version of Figaro:
Or a sexy mid-engine Autozam:
Kei cars are qewl!
I want a neat little 600cc kei car. I haven’t had any luck finding one.
If you want one that’s more than 25 years old, you can get those legally imported to the U.S. from Japan.
https://www.japan-partner.com/keicars.html
How stupid a law is that?
Some states won’t register kei trucks. They aren’t fast enough for freeway use or something like that.
As it is the US has no pedestrian safety standards at the federal level. I’m pretty sure if GM wanted to put out a truck with running chainsaws all over it then it would be perfectly legal as far as the NHTSA is concerned, although some state regulators might have a problem with it which is probably why it doesn’t happen in reality.
You’re in the process of describing a Cybertruck, just the misfitting panel ‘teeth’ aren’t rotating
I have a Honda Fit (compact 4 seater) and absolutely LOVE the little car, plus it’s easier to park. But holy shit looking for a compact is hard! Everything is a fucking SUV or truck these days! Just count the number of sedans vs SUVs next time you’re out and about. My favorite cars, the 2 door Mini Cooper and VW Buggy, aren’t even made any more.
Even the small cars have been progressively getting bigger over time, it’s horrible
Some of that is crumple zones and airbags, but yes there’s pretty much nothing for “small” cars (10 to 14 feet long) in the US.
Since the fuel efficiency standards are based on the vehicles footprint, going a few inches bigger allows for a slightly more powerful but also slightly less fuel efficient engine. So the car is roomier, more powerful, and doesn’t get penalized for lower mpg.
Small trucks are penized for not being fuel efficent enough. I really wish that lead to smaller electric or hybrid trucks like the Maverick, but people have been conviced that those smaller efficient trucks are bad.
I wish the standards were not based on size, but by vehicle type. Same end result for trucks being popular, but at least smaller trucks would be viable alternatives to sedans again.
Or hell, just base it on straight up fuel efficiency. If there’s a small car that’s already more fuel efficient than everything else on the market, there should be no disincentive to sell more of them, even if that fuel efficiency doesn’t improve over time.
A larger vehicle is only better if it’s being used to move more people (that would otherwise be using another vehicle). Maybe instead of mpg (miles per gallon) it should be pmpg (person miles per gallon), where it not only depends on the vehicle itself but how many people are expected to ride in it regularly (which the manufacturer can add seats for but is more dependent on the owner).
Going by seats would encourage the already annoying four door pickup trend since it means every truck needs to be longer to compensate. I mean, wouldn’t a smaller two seater truck that gets better mileage be an improvement over a full size four door truck?
A small two door pickup that gets mileage close to a similarly sized hatchback would be awesome. But it would be hard to do in the US right now because of mpg standards being tied to size, which are also the reason so many tiny cars are underpowered to squeeze out that last few mpg.
That’s what I meant about it being more dependent on the owner rather than the number of seats. You can’t tell at the point of sale how many people each buyer is going to be transporting regularly, but it plays a huge role in how efficient that vehicle will ultimately be.
A four seater truck is horrible if it’s just the owner riding alone in it, but pretty good if it’s full and being driven instead of 4 single occupier trucks.
Though a 4 seater sedan is even better, so I was referring mostly to higher occupancy vehicles, like vans that can seat 7+. One of those could replace two sedans if filled to capacity. Or a 50 seater bus, or a 300 seater train (or whatever capacity mass transit options have).
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.
Toddler core behaviour
Ironic, considering how much gasoline is taxed.
They’ve been getting confused after Elon turned into a giant-ass bigot, so now some of them are considering Tesla.
Barely at all?
It depends on where, but it can be quite a bit. Typically goes towards road maintenance and whatnot.
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, 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
Fair point. Though if they weren’t needing to go up against oversized trucks, it wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
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.
Not to mention longer term cost of maintenance and insurance.
“15 minutes could save you
15% or more100% on car insurance”(by leaving the scene of the accident as rapidly as possible. ‘Geico’? No no, ‘Guy, Go’.)
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, at some point we’re going to have to crank up gas prices
budgeting and foregoing food to own the libs
The whole chart is rather fascinating and eye opening: Vehicle visibility
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.
Same here. Going from a 1990 VW Passat to a 2009 Yaris was wild.
Thanks, embedding:
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.
This chart is eye-opening…I always thought Hummers were made by…Hummer…
The H2 was just a Tahoe with a different body on it.
Now my mind is really blown. I’m aware of this happening, just not with the H2
GM marketing. They purchased the hummer brand from AM General. OG Hummer (later renamed H1) was based on AM General’s military Humvee design, but released to the civilian market. H2 and H3 were designed by GM for mass marketing. Can be seen in the price. H1 nearly 10x more than H2 and H3.
Also, the H1 was 10x better for what it was designed for than the H2 and H3.
The H1 was not designed for commuting to work.
I’m not sure what it was designed for. It doesn’t have a lot of space for hauling compared to its size. It’s not great for offroading. It’s a plastic money extraction machine.
The original was designed to play military at home.it was not a pickup truck or a dedicated and modded offroad machine, and yes it was a money pit. But it was perfect for pretending with a civilian version of the vehicle manufacturrd on the same line as the real thing.
H2 and H3 models were just mediocre rebranded SUVs with hints of the original hummer body lines.
Oh, neat. Thanks for all the information
An articulated quarry hauler is barely worse than a pick-up truck
‘murca
I will gladly trade my SUV in for a gently used M1
Only 20 gallons to the mile, not bad
Absolutely nobody will cut you off in traffic, though. At least nobody who wants to see the next sunrise…
what if the M1 doesn’t have a touch screen though
It actually does, but it’s a hundred times more useful. It helps make things go boom.
good
touchscreens should be banned from vehiclesTouch targeting
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.
Ugh. Too true. Cars would be 100% better if they weren’t a mass market necessity.
This is actually a good point. And here’s a video discussing the issue.
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.
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)
You need one with a hand on the end, and the motor that drives it is strong enough to pimp slap people out of the way.
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.
Also, an astounding proportion of fatal pedestrian collisions happen at low-speed, close to home where these sightlines explicitly matter.
The best way to avoid getting into an accident is to see it long before you get there. But situational awareness is not something the vast majority of drivers actually practice or have…
