https://twitter.com/lloydalter/status/1395326192908218371?s=...
Plus the added visibility is nice and certainly would increase safety, I would think.
People walk in rural areas, too; and those roads are often not designed for it and these accidents tend to happen at night. There's a significant percentage of pedestrian deaths that happen out of the city under these circumstances.
Trucks and SUVs are on average newer than cars and at a higher price point, which means more newer safety features like object detection and driver warnings. I also suspect the feeling of mass in driving a larger vehicle makes you take driving more seriously.
I think it's the opposite. Also larger vehicles feel slower when you drive them even when you are doing 80.
https://www.wthr.com/mobile/article/news/investigations/13-i...
My yelling at one driver who was staring at her phone while driving out of a parking ramp and across the sidewalk where she nearly hit me, probably woke her up enough to avoid driving into traffic and being hit by a bus!
No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
They could also just add mirrors as has long been standard between concept and production motorcycles. (Example [0][1])
[0] https://2yrh403fk8vd1hz9ro2n46dd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-... [1] https://i2.wp.com/www.asphaltandrubber.com/wp-content/upload...
[0]https://www.wthr.com/article/news/investigations/13-investig...
people being distracted isn't a new feature; people being given distractions in the cabin is.
I'm not sure exactly what your argument is, to be quite frank.
Are you insinuating that less visibility isn't hindering the ability to drive safely?
There are additional devices commonplace in vehicles to make up for the lack of visibility -- pedestrian detection/auto-braking/switching cameras for example -- but surely a car would be safer to both pedestrians and the passengers if it had those types of features along with increased visibility..
>No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
As a former auto mechanic, maybe i'm over-exposed.. but :
1) car interior design changes yearly, and it's usually to sate consumer desires rather than for safety/usability/efficiency.
2) mechanical failures aren't rare. mechanical failures that may end in injury or loss-of-life aren't rare, either.
The DoD has done tons of usability studies with regards to UI/UX. If auto manufacturers wanted a safe/repeatable/efficient environment then the interiors would probably share a lot of features with fighter jets; tactile buttons, audio cues, correct information density, etc.
They don't look anything like this -- this is a clue to the consumer that there are different priorities in mind at the manufactures' HQ, namely lately ICE (in-car entertainment, not internal combustion engine; sorry for possible confusion) and technological glitz like RGB lighting.
Because of high crash incompatibility, more overall damage and death occurs because of SUVs (and other similar vehicles).
You can always find a subpopulation where some effect is large; that can't be good reason to make rules that constrain the entire population.
Regulation: cars should be safer
Impact: All vehicles continuously increase in size and weight year on year, decreasing the safety of older vehicles and non-vehicular road users
unless the form factor has some very significant upside that I'm not seeing, preventing deaths should be prioritized over people's aesthetic preferences.
>It's clear consumers in the US value the large truck format and are willing to pay for it.
no, it's clear that consumers in the US don't value the lives of pedestrians, and therefore we cannot trust the free market to determine what types of things get made.
Nope. "Deaths should always be prioritized over aesthetics" is a clearly bad rule because it is innumerate. You must always trade off how many deaths for the preferences of how many people. Otherwise all design of everything is dictated solely by safety.
> no, it's clear that consumers in the US don't value the lives of pedestrians, and therefore we cannot trust the free market to determine what types of things get made.
No, you need to read about externalities and Pigovian taxes. The entire point of the proposed tax is that it does not require the car buyer to care about pedestrians whatsoever.
Pedestrians are the ones who should be the first to reach zero deaths IMO, since they weren't the ones who decided to drive around in a deadly machine in the first place and are usually completely innocent in their own danger.
Commuting on a scooter I've seen more than my fair share of pedestrians on phones walking out into traffic and idiots on bikes blowing through red lights. Sometimes everyone involved can be at fault.
How is this acceptable??
Cities should start taxing the size of vehicles too if they're going to let people park on the street. Smart cars are a fantastic utility vehicle for example, but are not incentivised enough.