Large cars kill US pedestrians, don't make drivers safer

YEP.

Electric cars are something we must do to halt climate change, but we need to recognize it's an example of doing the same broken thing, just better.

At the end of the day we will have a more green version of what we have now, carrying over all the existing flaws of automobile oriented infrastructure (ie. pedestrian deaths, traffic).

F-150s are huge trucks? What's a semi to you? Or even a 350? Most people who own 150s don't need them, but they're not huge trucks.

Tires go from 100% tread to 0 in about the same amount of time too, I assume?

They certainly take driver training much more seriously.

I'm not sure about that. I see cars like the Cadillac Escalade here in Austria. Not many of them mind you and almost always only outside hotels like the Intercontinental. I assume to ferry wealthy tourists around in what they are accustomed to in the US.

> This is a false equivalency.

This is a false statement. Unless you are oblivious to the current regulations, and the fact that one must remove (deregulate) CAFE as it stands before small trucks are economically feasible.

That's a factor to some extent, but not as much as the CAFE regs. Many foreign manufacturers simply produce trucks in the U.S. or Mexico. Toyota for example makes their pickups in Texas and Mexico and so isn't subject to the chicken tax.

The big 3 and Toyota all used to make compact pickup trucks. Ford has the new compact Maverick coming out next year, but even that is still 6 inches wider, 4 inches taller, and 23 inches longer than the Ranger of 30 years ago. If you look at today's Ranger, it's 11 inches wider, 7 inches taller, and 35 inches longer than the Ranger of 1991.

Average vehicles have only grown in footprint by about 4% since 2008. Weight is <10% heavier than when EPA began tracking it in 1975. [1]

Most of the weight shedding after 1975 happened in the 1980s in the immediate wake of peak oil prices. [2] Vehicle weight is just now catching up to what it was just before the ~1980 oil crisis, and current gains are far offset by fuel economy and horsepower ( there is a relationship between power, weight, and acceleration/speed available to the vehicle).

The extra 4% in outlay could very well be explained by a combination of consumer and regulatory demands for safety (all else equal, it is easier to engineer something bigger with cushion room to be safer than it is something smaller).

Ultimately it is difficult to explain away the lack of small trucks and smaller cars without accounting for the large play of regulation (safety testing, poorly constructed CAFE standards, and tariffs).

One can readily see from operators of the 125cc motorcycles like honda Grom, illegal street operators of ATV/dirtbikes, and mopeds that there is considerable demand for minimal footprint transportation. Tiny cars like the Suzuki Alto are in demand in other less regulated markets.

Our criticism should not be the presence of large SUVs and cars, who have legitimate use for large families who live off of dirt roads and those with a low risk tolerance that demands monster sized cars full of safety features and crumple zones. Rather our criticism should be aimed at questioning why the guy riding his ATV down the residential street is a criminal while the well to do person riding newly constructed 4,500 lb Tesla full of toxic metals recharged by the local coal plant is not.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut#/media/File:Nom...

I doubt its as fun to drive as a light weight convertible. The market for these super fast SUVs aren't driving purists, but those people you see who go 90mph on the freeway and drift right to left to right again with zero blinker. The people who see you trying to get over, then hit the accelerator to cut you off lest they let you get ahead of them and damage their pride. The people who merge into the exit only lane and try to hit the throttle and pass you on the right side before the exit lane barrier appears. Manufacturers are playing right into all the bad habits I see drivers do on the road.

The federal fuel economy standards have a weird calculation that incentives vehicles with a large footprint. It's the ratio of footprint to MPG that's important to the feds.

You're missing the point. Between increasing belt-lines, fatter pillars, thicker doors and smooth/aerodynamic and rounded shapes modern cars have less space than older ones of equivalent exterior dimensions. Because people want a baseline amount of interior space in any given class of vehicle the vehicles have grown. Look at the new iterations of compact cars and compact trucks (and their counterpart SUVs) for a good example. They have nearly identical interior dimensions and have grown a couple inches in every direction and a couple hundred pounds. Just because you feel your car is a good deal for what it is does not mean it is not also subject to the same regulatory treatment. An '03 Ford Escort wagon is 10" longer and the same width and weight as your car and blows it out of the water in terms of usable interior space (I could only find a spec for the 2dr coupe but it has 92.x cubic feet vs 97.x for your Fiesta hatch). It's slower and gets worse fuel economy and doesn't have bluetooth but that's just a reflection of the state of tech at the time.

Pretty much every product line has received this treatment over the last 20yr. Your car would exist without modern safety/fuel economy regulation. It would just look like a 2003 Ford Escort that puts down performance numbers that are more befitting the year 2021.

I still disagree that there's a regulatory need here. Are there not consequences for the drivers in these situations? Are pedestrians not somewhat liable for their own situational awareness?

Even if regulation is the only solution (I do not believe it is) there's ways with better locality like limiting access to the roads, providing better pathways for pedestrians, better guard rails, lighting, etc. Regulating the vehicle is a sweeping change that assumes that people who own these vehicles have absolutely no need for them in the first place.

I live in an area where a high clearance SUV or other large vehicle is a necessity for navigating many of the roads. Why should I, and others like me, suffer for the externalities occurring in cities (this seems to pertain to) where I will never drive?

That article doesn't say anything about regulations. The only thing I can find that relates at all to what you're talking about are the Federal Bumper Standards, which only apply to passenger cars. Minivans are excluded as well as SUVs.

Please link to the regulations you're actually referring to, not a generic article about SUVs causing more deaths.

So no real difference?

My anecdata says women are as self conscious as men, if not more, about driving minivans. I've heard numerous women say they want/"need" to sit up high when driving but that's never been a reason quoted to me by a man. My sister chose an SUV because she was averse to the equivalent minivan (no reason given other than "it's a minivan").

Generally speaking if a car comes in coupe and hatchback form factors, the hatchback is more popular among men and the coupe among women (in the USA). Since hatchbacks are unequivocally more practical, the only explanation I can see for preferring the coupe is aesthetics. This would imply that statistically, women make car buying decisions more heavily weighted by aesthetics as compared to men.

how is a sedan practical? a wagon or hatchback is practical. It also happens to be the type of car used by 90%+ of the population in certain European cities.

Still true a F250 is cheaper to own in Seattle than a F150 due to over 6k lb exception for commercial vehicles

Exactly. To be clear, I did fit three across in the rear of the Outback, but my state does not permit a carseat in the front seat (plus there needs to be room for a 2nd adult). So we had no real choice, we had to get something with third-row seating.

The practical needs of families with three or four children can’t explain the demand for large vehicles. That family arrangement is pretty rare.

> Most people don't have 4 kids though, but they are buying vehicles like they do.

Modern car seat mandates make two kids close in age a tight when travelling, doing an activity that requires supplies, etc., in anything short of medium SUV or very large hatchback (essentially a big station wagon, not that that labeling is used anymore); carseats are larger and required longer than they were when young adults these days were young kids (and weren't required at all when Gen X and early Millenials were kids), so “when I grew up” comparisons need to recognize that the constraints are different.

> Two car seats fit fine in any compact

Good luck finding a compact where a car seat, especially rear-facing, doesn't sharply limit the (often already cramped for people over median height) seat travel of seat in front of it (heck, that's often true of mid-size and larger sedans).

Another problem is that kids have friends and want to go places with them. Add 1-2 friends and it's easy to fill most cars up.

Basically it comes down to the seat position relative to the road. Many people like having a higher position and midsize SUVs/crossovers provide that. Whether or not it's actually safer or provides more visibility, some people prefer it to a sedan experience.

To be fair, looking at the guidelines now, it's forward facing car seats through age 7 and booster seats through age 12. I think my brother and I were only in car seats until about 3 and boosters until about 5. We once rode with an extended family member who insisted on putting me in a booster at 7, and my parents thought that was ridiculous. Twelve! Imagine.

In America we believe people working towards their own individual self interest is better in the long run for everyone than having Authoritarian Central Planning that through out Human history always fails