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Comment by drtz | Hacker News Reader

As a former driver of a full-size pickup, "hidden" is an overstatement. The safety difference really is quite obvious.

The physics of a larger mass and stiffer frame are already unsafe, but the poor near-vehicle visibility and maneuverability in a large truck make things even worse.

Anecdotally, I see more aggressive drivers in pickup trucks and oversized SUVs. But who knows which causes the other, or even if it's my own biases shining through.

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I'm a semi truck driver and I have a god's eye view over all of you people.

And I will tell you, anecdotally, that large pickup drivers are the most aggressive and intimidating. I thought that's the whole point of those things, with their big boy yellow clearance lights, giant mirror arms (I actually have to watch out for those) and fat ass dually wheel wells.

Sometimes they'll even tailgate me, trying to intimidate me into doing ... something? Which is so cute.

Then they'll finally zoom by me, roaring the engine to let me know how annoyed they are, as I trundle my 15 liters along at 1500 rpm.

I guess one could mandate cameras / ultrasound front sensors for these kind of vehicles where visibility is really bad.

Or mandate pedestrian safe designs like Europe does.

There were lots of cool experiments. https://myblackbrick.com/volvo-for-life/the-volvo-experiment... Anyway Reagan dismantled the safety bumper requirements in USA. For a time the country was a leader in pedestrian safety.

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