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Comment by rishflab | Hacker News Reader

You can beat physics. Big cars means more energy to dissipate in a crash. If the regulators had half a brain they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass. Large cars also reduce visibility which further reduces safety. There has been a car size arms race for the past 30-40 years. Cars are getting bigger so you get an even bigger one to feel safe and have enough seat height to see around you.

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They do tax cars based on weight (in the US). If your car weighs too little, it's a personal vehicle. If it's heavy enough to be "transportation equipment" (large SUV) you can get effective tax breaks by deducting its cost from your income to a much greater degree than for reasonable passenger vehicles[0].

[0]https://bradyware.com/business-vehicle-deductions-2020/ (not a primary source but it should give an idea.)

For those surprised by this (as I was when I first heard about it), this is talking about Section 179, which allows someone to fully deduct the purchase price of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150) if it’s used for business. These vehicles are also not subject to the pedestrian safety requirements that 3-box vehicles (sedans, etc) are in the US.

> of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150)

I don't think a heavyweight vehicle has been built since the 1930s, when they started building lightweight vehicles. Today, if you see a passenger vehicle referred to as heavyweight that is likely due to a marketing spin on how well it performs or the load it can carry. Even in that sense, a Ford F-150 is marketed as a lightweight and F-250 is a medium.

150 from f150 refers to its carting and load capacity.. not its actual weight. the weight difference between a 150,250,350 is not a very significant one.

This issue is a 150 is being used outside its original use case. And dose the job a Corolla is intended for. But with twice the weight and size.

Thank you. I know what the 150 stands for. But, it is not a heavyweight vehicle. That term refers to a type of vehicle that hasn't been made since the 1920s-1930s.

The conversation I replied to was about deducting "the purchase price of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150)". A Ford F-150 is not a heavyweight vehicle.

I think in the context of this discussion heavyweight is defined by Section 179 as having a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating greater than 6000 lbs. While the curb weight of a F150 is less, the GVWR is 6,010 to 7,150 lbs.

That makes sense. Thank you.

To add to that: light trucks imported from other countries are also subject to a 25% tariff known as the the "chicken tax"[1], and if I understand correctly, light trucks are subject to more stringent MPG standards to the point that auto manufacturers won't make them. Whether this latter is "environmental regulation gone too far" or just a matter of regulatory capture by an industry that doesn't want to compete in a market where small, cheap trucks are a thing that exists is a matter of interpretation, I suppose. I lean towards the regulatory capture interpretation myself.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

I don't think anyone can look at what F150 sales do for Ford and interpret it any other way...

> "...they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass."

yes, something i also heartily advocate (or any alternative that would effectively internalize these sorts of hidden costs). it goes beyond lives (although that's most important, obviously) to things like how big our paved surfaces are, how much space we devote to parking, and how far apart everything is.

This proposed approach of taxes based on volume+mass also addresses the problem of getting funding for road repairs.

For a specific example of how much better that approach would be compared to what we have now, let me pick WA state (because that's where I live, so I am familiar with how it works here).

In WA, road repairs are funded through gasoline tax. There is one big problem with that: EVs. EVs don't use gas, so they effectively don't pay the gas tax used for funding road repairs. As time goes, more people switch to EVs, and funding for road repairs dries down. To solve that problem, WA instituted a flat EV fee that you pay along with your early registration fee. It would have been ok, but that EV fee is flat, so it doesn't matter whether you drive the newest most powerful Tesla Model S or a budget entry-level Nissan Leaf, you pay the same EV fee. That flat fee is around $150 or so (iirc from the last year). This pushes the cost of annual registration fees for Nissan Leaf up by over 50%. Which is ridiculous, given it is a small and fairly light car, and it doesn't seem fair to charge it the same amount of fees for road repair purposes as you would charge a much larger car (because heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear for roads).

However, dropping the EV fee and switching registration fees to be based off mass+volume would solve this problem perfectly and would be much more fair, since mass is pretty much the primary variable directly affecting the amount of wear and tear caused to the road (in addition to how much the vehicle has been driven in a given year, but I don't think that charging annual registration fees based on your mileage is that much of a great idea for multiple reasons).

I’m confused why you’re so willing to ignore mileage. A Nissan Leaf driven daily as a commuter car will do a lot more wear and tear on the roads than a Ford F-150 driven occasionally to the store.

We have the data to track mileage. Odometers are regulated and DMV already records mileage at various checkpoints. Why wouldn’t we use it?

Distance or Mileage involves an invasive inspection. It also runs the risk of violating privacy depending on how it's tracked.

Tracking it also just plain expensive, even if it's only required to report / measure mileage at time or distance intervals.

Arguably someone is _likely_ to drive however far they need to drive irrespective of the taxes and wear on any particular section of road is going to be roughly the same for any quantity of mass and axle count.

Speaking of mass, cargo vehicles should be taxed assuming some fixed duty load, like say 1/3rd of a year use at their maximum capacity rating, including towed equipment.

The state inspection that cars have annually in most states record mileage.

Most? I don’t recall even CA recording mileage for a smog and I’ve never had a car inspected elsewhere except after being totaled out.

MA does for an annual inspection. I'd be surprised if it was that unusual in the US.

I think only about 15 states have period safety inspections.

Despite the fact that the CA smog test is an absolute joke of an inspection (no inspection of tires, brakes, lights, etc.), it does in fact include an odometer reading.

As noted above/below, most US states already track mileage via checkpointing (at sale, recurring inspection, registration renewal, etc). I’m not suggesting they track anything they aren’t already doing. Nor is the inspection invasive: you write down your mileage on the form and signing affirms you aren’t lying.

I also don’t intend that the mileage basis would be designed to stop driving. It just seems more fair to tax that way. Right now I pay a flat tax for my EV. If I drive daily, I’m probably underpaying my share of road maintenance. If I drive rarely, I’m overpaying. Gas taxes already roughly track usage because the more you drive / the bigger your car, the more gas it takes to move it around. So again, this isn’t changing how states conceive of road maintenance, just leveling the playing field for EVs and hybrids.

One can't determine distances driven outside of the tax jurisdiction based on that.

We have geofencing set in place for fuel tax incentives in Canadian provinces. Truck operators need to report that if they want part of their fuel tax money back. In Europe it's basically the same and gen2 smart tachographs already record GNSS coordinates at the start and end of the trip along with distance, as a non tampering measure, so there's data trail that can theoretically be used against you if you misreport. You are required by law to keep the tachograph files for two years and supply them to the control authority if needed.

Can’t speak for Canada, but likewise in the US, gas taxes are paid at the pump where there’s no geofencing

Yes, you pay the tax at the pump like everybody else buy you may get a refund for certain acitvities like [1][2] in some provinces, notably Ontario.

  1. https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/bulletins/gt/1_2001.html
  2. https://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/refund/pto/index.html

Also there's the situation in some EU states where truck operators are eligible for rebates on diesel tax:

https://www.eurovat.eu/en/diesel-tax-reclaim

In this case I think they just use the vehicle and refill documents. But the truck operators still need to report the drivers' working times per EU state because of the different labour laws in each EU state [3].

  3. https://trans.info/en/key-changes-for-the-road-transport-industry-in-europe-in-2021-216319

it doesn't need to be invasive or expensive. in my state I need to get an emissions test every few years, which simply consists of plugging into the ODB jack and reading some values. just take an odometer reading while you're checking the emissions data and charge based on the difference since the last reading.

I suppose you could argue that some people do significant driving off of public roads, but that's probably rare enough that special exemptions would be feasible.

all of this sidesteps the real issue, which is that personal vehicles do negligible damage to the road. road wear from commuter traffic is almost negligible compared to large trucks.

It does however lead to a lot more tampering with odometers.

In New Zealand diesel vehicles pay a significant tax per kilometre, and so there are a lot of people disconnecting odometers. There are even people for who their only income is from "rewinding" or reprogramming electronic odo readings (using a variety of techniques, sometimes cracking ECUs etcetera). There is some incentive to reduce recorded milage to enhance resale value, but a lot more incentive to reduce taxes. Edit: I could be a victim of selection bias here because most people will happily admit to ripping off the government while fewer people will admit to ripping of other individuals.

Large commercial vehicles have government mandated secondary odometers, which I haven't heard as much about tampering: maybe because tampering happens less, or maybe because the penalties are higher, or maybe it happens but I am not in the loop. Also the likelyhood of getting caught tampering truck odos is higher because trucks are stopped far more often than cars, and trucks are checked far more carefully.

I’ve read they sell tax-exempt diesel for off-road farming equipment, dyed red to try to catch fraud.

> just take an odometer reading while you're checking the emissions data and charge based on the difference since the last reading.

An odometer reading won't say anything about where I drove that vehicle. If you take your car offroading or go on road trips a few times a year, that alone will skew the numbers heavily. With that in mind, odometer reading works fine for emission tests, but not so much for road damages. And constant vehicle location tracking reported to the government for the purpose of paying annual registration fees sounds pretty invasive to me.

But also, perfect is the enemy of the good. While the solution I proposed is not as comprehensive as the one that includes tracking mileage (and dealing with all the problems and issues associated with it), it is still significantly better than what we have now.

So tax the insurance which already invasively tracks everything.

You could just do it based on tire load index and tread wear rating, with rebates based on remaining tread depth when disposing the used tires.

Why wouldn't we just pay for infrastructure that transports all the things that we all buy and benefit from from the general fund?

I benefit when my neighbor can drive his kids to school.

I don’t think we disagree? Everybody who drives pays taxes towards road maintenance. Right now, gas taxes apply roughly based on usage (more driving / more weight translates into more taxes paid). Basing directly on weight + mileage accounts for a world where EVs/hybrids exist, and so the gas tax no longer effectively covers those drivers.

> Everybody who drives pays taxes towards road maintenance.

If I sold my car I'd still benefit from the roads.

> Right now, gas taxes apply roughly based on usage

They apply based (roughly) on miles driven, not usage. Everything I buy was someway or another on a road in order for it to reach my house.

> Basing directly on weight + mileage accounts for a world where EVs/hybrids exist

I'm saying the instinct to further this line of thought is furthering the error. The benefit that I derive from roads overall is much greater than the benefit I get from them by directly driving on them. They basically make the economy work.

I am totally ok with that too, personally. But there is quite a solid number of people in western WA (mostly Seattle area) who don't drive and vehemently oppose what you propose.

I gave up on trying to bring it up ever again irl, because I instantly get accused of "well, of course you would be in favor of that. Because you drive, so it benefits you when the costs of maintaining roads are amortized across everyone, including those who don't even drive."

Plus, the proposal of registration fees based on mass+volume seems to be better in all aspects, cause it is both more granular and more fair (which results mostly from the fact that it is possible due to it being more granular).

> Plus, the proposal of registration fees based on mass+volume seems to be better in all aspects, cause it is both more granular and more fair

It's more granular and still unfair.

Think about it this way, if all roads disappeared tomorrow, what would be your biggest problem?

In my opinion, it'd be food. I own a bicycle and live within cycling distance of a grocery store but where would they get the food?

The next thing that gets brought up is something like, "well, if it weren't for all those people driving that aren't shipping goods, road maintenance would be much less." That's true except I also benefit from commuters being able to work. All those commuters are busy driving to their jobs _at_ all the places that supply me with goods.

The idea that only the people that drive on the roads themselves are the ones using it is incredibly surface level thinking. In fact, we all know that the vehicles that do the most damage to roads are the large trucks shipping goods and the only reason they exist is to bring me stuff.

>We have the data to track mileage. Odometers are regulated and DMV already records mileage at various checkpoints. Why wouldn’t we use it?

Because it's a regressive tax and you can't even minimize it by driving a small economy car like you can with fuel taxes.

I’m suggesting mileage and mass both be used as factors, so your small economy car would certainly minimize the taxes.

Road damage follows a power-log rule based on vehicle mass/volume. The vast majority of road damage is caused by the largest of vehicles. A Nissan Leaf driven daily as a commuter car and an occasionally-driven F-150 both cause relatively little wear-and-tear on the road.

But, the few times the F-150 is driven, its mass is substantially more likely to cause road damage than the Leaf. [1]

https://streets.mn/2016/07/07/chart-of-the-day-vehicle-weigh...

The WA EV fee is actually 2 fees, one 150$ and a new 75$ so 225$ total.

Thanks for correcting me. I initially typed "something around $250", but I decided to google it first, and it turned out articles from about the $150 fee, without ever mentioning the $75 one. So I changed it to $150.

But after your comment, I went to check my most recent registration fees I paid last year, and you are fully correct. The total of all EV fees indeed comes out to $225.

The articles you read we're probably just from before the new fee was enacted. WA who's governor ran for president by calling out other candidates for not being green enough has the highest EV fees in the nation disincentivizing EV ownership. The irony is palpable.

> because heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear for roads

That is true, the fatigue damage to the road goes up as the cube of the weight. What this means is that cars don't cause much fatigue damage to the roads - it's the trucks that do. A semi loaded to the legal limit causes 9,000 times as much damage as a car.

Really, the heavy loads need to go by rail, not highway.

It really puzzles me, even as a rail fan, how it is said that America’s freight rail is the envy of the world, but in every town there are abandoned tracks pulling right up to downtown warehouses.

It just seems like we let good infrastructure go to waste. It’s probably a tax thing, iirc the rail companies pulled up half their mileage because they were on the hook for property taxes on all that acreage (turned lots of double tracks into single tracks, and old single tracks into recreational bike trails)

You're right. The railroads have to pay all the costs associated with the tracks, the truckers shifted those costs onto everyone else.

> old single tracks into recreational bike trails

This is rampant in Seattle. They've not only torn up the tracks and turned them into bike trails, in order to install light rail, they've had to blast new right-of-ways at incredible cost.

Couldn't the government lay and maintain the network of tracks and lease them out to the freight companies ?

At least with a bike trail, its much easier to turn it back into rail if needed.

> the fatigue damage to the road goes up as the cube of the weight

Slight correction - damage per axle is proportional to 4th power of load per axle. In practice it means slightly less than 4th power of weight (due to semis usually having more axles).

https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-heavy-...

I believe the Washington state gas tax charged to standard internal combustion vehicles is much a lot about volume + mass; moving more stuff around less efficiently is going to inherently take more calories & therefore more tax will be paid.

That said, I've been really disappointed with the way the Washington state EV tax you reference was implemented. I mean, I'm just fine paying my fair share, but I should be taxed in the same manner as any other user of the same resources.

To that end, we have vehicle inspection stations & using those to check odometer readings on an annual basis would make for fair taxation.

As it is, I stopped paying registration, insurance and left our Leaf sitting in the driveway since the pandemic started because of the way this tax is levied.

> Large cars also reduce visibility

Buses and vans are huge, yet their design helps with visibility ahead. I propose we force trucks to be designed like vans.

You’re right. It’s not so much the cars are larger that lowers visibility. It’s the design with the massive fronts and massive grilles that are higher than the average male’s height.

Some of these cars are really insane and it really worries me for the kids in these people’s houses.

"It’s the design with the massive fronts and massive grilles that are higher than the average male’s height."

This seems sensationalist unless you're talking about class A or B vehicles. Especially with your think-of-the-children remark. Do you have data to back it up?

I don’t mean this rudely — have you been around many trucks recently? They’re fucking massive. The newer F-150s, while maybe not 6ft tall at the front, easily obscure a child or a short person.

I have personally seen extremely close calls at gas stations/grocery store parking lots multiple times because of this.

"The newer F-150s, while maybe not 6ft tall at the front, easily obscure a child or a short person."

Which is not what the parent is claiming.

Edit: people are really downvoting factual statements now?

Okay, so new trucks don’t exclusively have a hood height of 5’9”+.

I still think the broader point of “it’s really hard to see people, even adults, right in front of you” is 1) demonstrably true 2) extremely scary.

“it’s really hard to see people, even adults, right in front of you”

Then they should say that instead of sensationalizing it.

"1) demonstrably true"

Do you have some evidence of this? 1) If you have awareness, you should see objects before they move into any blind spot. 2) Driver height in relation to the hood height plays an important role in visibility, which means that you can see things shorter than the hood height depending on the distance from the vehicle. 3) Many new larger trucks come with 360 degree cameras now, so the blind spots are not an issue.

I own a Dodge Ram 2500 and I can say that it's much harder to see things in front of you simply because the vehicle is so large. It's tough to park, tough to take through a small town, and hard to see out of in short-sight conditions. But it hauls a trailer, so it has a purpose.

But do you really need to see things immediately in front of you? How would they even get there if they didn’t approach you from the front or sides, where you can see them? Most new vehicles also have sensors warning you of objects behind or in front of you, that beep loudly and warn you.

My truck does not have those sensors, and it is still large. When driving through downtown, kids and people like to jump out from between parked cars. That’s hard enough to catch in a sedan. I could definitely see myself accidentally hitting a pedestrian and not even noticing it.

I would say yes, you need to see things immediately in front of you. I’m not sure how that’s even a question. Beeps and sensors don’t save you in busy pedestrian environments, and being aware of your surroundings is absolutely crucial.

"I could definitely see myself accidentally hitting a pedestrian and not even noticing it."

Is this more hyperbole? I don't know how you could not notice hitting someone. You should feel/hear it, even for animals or objects way smaller than a person.

"I would say yes, you need to see things immediately in front of you. I’m not sure how that’s even a question."

How do you handle the normal blind spots in all cars? You handle this the same way - mental object tracking and awareness. It doesn't matter what car you're in, you can't see the pavement immediately in front of the tires, yet you can still avoid potholes.

Edit: why downvote?

Failure to check blind spots is the cause of many accidents on the road. They’re called blindspots for a reason. Large trucks, like mine, have blindspots closer and lower. I can mentally track as much as possible, but if a small person leaps out from between a parked car, they’re likely ending up getting squished. In a smaller car, lower to the ground, you can see small people without having to peer over the sides of the vehicle.

Even after years of driving it, I still have issues time to time with the size of the truck and curbs. The reality is: the larger the vehicle, the more space you have to watch out for, and the greater the chance that you mess up and hit something.

I’m glad you feel confident driving your truck, but you can’t deny the reality that bigger trucks are more challenging to manage in pedestrian environments.

"In a smaller car, lower to the ground, you can see small people without having to peer over the sides of the vehicle."

That's an incorrect generalization if you've driven some if the newer camaros or mustangs.

I have no trouble at all in pedestrian environments. I really don't see why so many people have trouble with it.

People here seem to be obsessed with the 2-3 feet directly in front of the trucks, but comparing my truck to my wife's car, I can promise that I have much better visibility in many directions and fewer blind spots- between towing mirrors, sitting up higher, and perhaps most importantly, the windshield design doesn't leave gigantic blind spots at the 10 and 2 positions from the steep angle of the A pillars.

I have a 1500 sized newer truck. I don't have any problems driving it in small towns or in big cities. I mean, you just have to take off the ham antenna and take it easy in the parking garages.

Edit: why downvote?

Except they have front, rear and side cameras. Our new F150 has 360° of visibility at low speeds. There are also proximity sensors that tell me if something outside the field of vision is coming my way from behind. It's also very liberal with the automatic braking, trying to stop in situations I'd barely slow for. And the automatic cruise changes based on GPS and stored speed limit data. It's by far the safest car I've ever driven, for both my family and those around us.

My friend's new Chevy 3500 has twice as many cameras as our F150. We both tow heavy things (I move large pets and rescue animals in various trailers.) and my bed is often filled with dirt or rocks.

What are you driving and how many pedestrian detection and collision avoidance systems does it have?

If there was going to be a regulatory move in this space, it's proximity & awareness systems and better visibility that seem to make more sense, than a tax of some kind. These will actually contribute to safety, while a tax would at best be a very minor and indirect influence on market forces.

Generally, trucks do get taxed more through higher registration fees, and indirectly through fuel taxes.

That's all pretty irrelevant because most of that ends up going to various sorts of highway maintenance or general operating budgets for states, not making cares safer.

Regardless, let's see how that plays out in actual taxes: Where I'm at the difference between registering an F150 and a Honda Accord is about $20. (personal, non commercial) Looking at California it's not much different. In Texas they're the same cost, but let's say the average is $20 and do some back-of-the-envelope math:

Registration Fees:

--About 11M vehicles sold each year classified as a light truck (pickup/SUV) = $220M in reg. fees.

--About 40M used cars sold each year. About 50% of Carvana use cars are pickups or SUVs, so that's another $400M.

--Total: $640M

Fuel taxes:

--Average tax of $0.35/gallon

--average of 13,500 mile/year driven

--MPG for Honda Accord = 38, 26 for an F150 for a difference of about 164 gallons/year.

--About 230M eligible drivers in the US. About 88% own a car. About 30% of all vehicles on the road are SUVs/light truck = 61M on the road.

--61M * 164 gallons * $0.35/gallon = $3.5B

Total taxes: $4.15B in taxes extra collected on larger vehicles across the entire country, but none of it goes towards making large vehicles safer.

Even if that was doubled, what would the government spend it on to make cars safer? I can't think of much.

Meanwhile it's becoming harder & harder to find cars that don't have various automatic sensors & safety features, and all manufacturers have agreed to add AEB by 2022. Browsing manufacturer site & dealer inventory, a very large # also have rear-park-assist (which detects pedestrian) either by default, or as an upgrade that is already included on most vehicles in dealer inventory.

If we combined these trends with requirements for greater visibility as well, the combination would do a lot more than an increased tax .

That's all great but it's of little help with a driver that is zoned out looking out the window in the wrong direction. About once a week I have a close call stepping into a crosswalk while a driver is in a hurry to make a right turn but is looking out to the left at the (stopped) traffic and ignoring people trying to cross the street. I live near a freeway on-ramp and as soon as the light goes green many drivers seem in such a rush to take off that I wonder if they are already mentally imagining themselves pulling onto the freeway.

> That's all great but it's of little help with a driver that is zoned out looking out the window in the wrong direction.

That will be the case with any vehicle, no matter the size. All the visibility in the world won’t help if the driver is looking in the wrong direction.

Thanks to peripheral vision, that's not true.

If I'm riding a bicycle, I am unlikely to hit a person coming up on my right no matter how focused I am on the traffic from the left. The bigger the vehicle, though, the easier it gets because there's less and less visibility of the pedestrian to pull my attention back.

If it's a visibility issue, then this really has nothing to do specifically with larger vehicles. Many small cars have less visibility than older ones due to smaller windows, larger pillars, and even lower perspectives. Take the newer mustangs, camaros, etc.

This is also my experience in my wife's small Mazda. The window placement or something makes it hard to check my right hand side blindspot. I had an easier time in a bigger / boxer Mitsubishi. I'm not really quite sure what it is but it feels like I can't see a spot I should be able to.

Granted I should be using the little blindspot mirror anyway.. but old habits

That's definitely not my experience. Maybe I'm just used to smaller cars, but when I am above it all, I feel more above it all. But familiarity aside, a higher nose objectively hides a lot more of a pedestrian, making them harder to spot.

The proximity sensors make a loud sound that’s hard to ignore so I don’t think the zoning out is as much a problem in newer vehicles. In many vehicles the car also takes action automatically to brake.

As a frequent pedestrian I also show some caution around vehicles. For instance I don’t charge out in front of a vehicle unless I’ve made eye contact with the driver. I don’t walk right behind vehicles while they’re pulling out in a busy parking lot. And so on. If you’re worried about safety there are many strategies to keeping yourself safe.

I'm really curious why you are being downvoted...

Edit: and now this is being downvoted...

I can't make eye contact with a driver who's not looking my way, and it's not my responsibility to delay crossing the road for drivers who DGAF. Perhaps the proximity sensors do make a loud sound, but I've found that yelling 'hey' or hitting the car is sometimes the only means of getting some drivers' attention. It seems to me that if someone wants to operate a large heavy machine on wheels it's their responsibility to be alert while they're operating it.

You are of course right that the driver needs to be alert while driving.

But that is not going to do you any good, if you get hit while walking or biking.

As an example there are sadly too many accidents involving a truck making a right-turn and a person biking.

Being extra careful when walking/biking is the reasonable thing to do, even if that means waiting at the red light.

It is indeed reasonable to careful since a motor vehicle easily outmatches a person, but if you look upthread my original point what many drivers are careless, and the cool technology like peripheral cameras does not always mitigate that.

I think that the trend towards larger vehicles may exacerbate the number of casualties caused by careless driving, and I wonder if all the safety features unintentionally foster a sense of complacency.

Just keep getting bigger. My first truck was an 88 ranger. That thing is smaller than most new sedans today.

I have a newish 'midsize' truck that is as large as or larger than fullsizes of the 90s.

You're not wrong, they're massive.

But the person he was replying to was being over the top sensationalist.

I think you should strap a GoPro to your belt some time and walk around a city. It's not think-of-the-children, not being able to see past vehicle fronts is what life is like for children.

"not being able to see past vehicle fronts is what life is like for children."

This wasn't being discussed. Driver visibility was the topic. How do you feel children not being able to see past the front of a vehicle affects their safety? Presumably they are crossing at crosswalks and intersections which would not have cars parked immediately around them and provides visibility.

> which would not have cars parked immediately around them

Something tells me you haven't visited an urban downtown lately. Vehicles are often parked right up to the edges of blocks, and that can make safe visibility difficult for adults, let alone children.

Well then maybe the police should do their jobs and start towing people parked within 15 feet of the intersection. It's a bit ridiculous to advocate for more laws when the current ones aren't enforced.

Edit: why downvote? In my opinion city design has more of an impact on safety than vehicle design.

But that parking is usually legal. Nothing to tow over, unless the intersection specifically has markings ("daylighting") prohibiting parking.

Where do you live? Most states I know of have laws that specifically prohibit parking within 15 feet of intersections or hydrants regardless of if the curb is marked. It's not only for visibility but also for larger emergency vehicles to navigate.

In California it’s 15’ from a fire hydrant/station, 3’ from a wheelchair curb cut, and don’t block a driveway/crosswalk/sidewalk. If they want no parking at a corner they mark it red.

I guess it's mostly an east coast thing, as most of those states prevent parking within a specified distance of an intersection (or stop signs/lights). Or perhaps the cities in CA set it independently from the state.

Yeah, except for SF (which is a maze of confusing parking signs) most cities around here tend to have much wider streets.

It's hyperbole, but not by much. For example, a current model GMC Sierra HD Denali straight from the factory floor, before even considering aftermarket lift kits, has a hood line about 55" off the ground. Someone in a wheelchair or an average 10-year-old would be completely hidden from the view of the driver.

The parent said F150, which is a different level of truck and lower. They were also talking about full size adult males. Their statement was factually inaccurate.

Edit: why downvote? Should we just leave fake information circulate?

It's pretty close, though.

The closest proxy to this that I could find ("inside height" of the truck bed plus "open tailgate to ground") is 57.4-57.7" for a 2015 4x4, while the average adult male in the US is 5'9".

https://www.fordfseries.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/2019-...

I don't know about you, but if you looked at the top 1.3" of my head, you'd just see hair.

edit: as pointed out, I am bad at math apparently.

I think you need to check your math. 5'9" comes out to 69", giving you about 12" visible inches (more dpending on driver height and distance from vehicle).

It's OK to point someone is being hyperbolic but you are nitpicking many posts on the topic, with 16 comments so far. Maybe just ease back the reply button a bit.

Can you give me an example of the nitpicking? Mostly I've been pointing out incorrect information or explaining my prior comment because someone misread the comment or didn't read how it relates to the context set by the parent.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28272188

I'm asking a legitimate question (like that you provide the data for your claim). Where is the nitpicking, or are you just trolling?

I don't agree. Most of the questions you are asking are narrowly pedantic, and you're essentially trying to judge your own case. At this point you have 51 comments out of 341, almost 15% of the thread and most of them trying to disqualify the opinions of others, often using rhetorical fallacies - whether you are aware of this or not.

You might find it helpful to re-read the HN guidelines about comments, and not approach every interaction with the strictness of an automatic parser. I will not be replying to further comments in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I own one of these and it's past ridiculous, and it's purely cosmetic. Yes the vehicle is large, but the styling is clearly responsible for a solid 6-12" of that height. Unfortunately if you need a vehicle to tow heavy loads, all new large trucks have this imposing front end.

I will also say I am rather disappointed in the technology at least on the GMC. For example, it has 360 degree cameras, but they don't show what's in front of you when you put it in drive for the first time. With the hood height of the thing, there's real risk that my kid is in front of the vehicle when I first start out. If GMC gave two shits about pedestrian safety they'd at least have an option to flash the front camera for 10 seconds after initially shifting into drive.

I don't know where you live, but in north america, trucks are getting ridiculously huge. They aren't sold like that, but aftermarket lift kits are extremely common; I fear that there's nothing sensationalist about GP. I live in Vancouver and trucks like this are quite frequent. In places like Texas and Alberta, they're downright common.

Speaking of children... little ones can walk directly under these trucks without bonking their heads

"They aren't sold like that, but aftermarket lift kits are extremely common;"

The parent was talking about the design of new trucks. Aftermarket modifications would be a different topic.

I'd agree, if they weren't so damned prevalent. Their dominating presence on the road absolutely factors into the real and perceived safety that is driving the race towards ever larger cars

But then we would be discussing a different topic - forbidding or further restricting aftermarket modifications instead of the current discussion about all trucks and larger vehicles. It seems the stock designs are reasonable and pass various safety considerations (stability, braking, etc) that the extremely modified versions would not.

No, that's not a different topic at all. If tax is based on vehicle size, then that tax should increase with aftermarket modifications to the vehicle's size.

Likewise, if an aftermarket modification violates vehicle regulations, that should be punished accordingly.

Would be nice. The majority of US states don’t mandate safety inspections.

Is there any evidence that annual inspections prevent accidents? If I remember correctly, there's no significant difference in accidents cause by mechanical failure in states that have and do not have inspections.

I am sure they probably do not, crashes are mostly human error.

I was suggesting that I think it’s unlikely that a prohibition on any type of modifications could be effectively enforced when nobody is inspecting the vehicle.

If it's physically obvious stuff like that, the police can pull people over for it (varies by state).

The tax is usually based on weight and/or axles. Ride height generally isn't taxed as it doesn't affect those attributes.

Really seems like you're being deliberately obtuse here. We're talking about how the tax code might be changed to reverse the incentives that result in pedestrian deaths. The fact that this change hasn't happened already is not news to anybody here.

I have a full sized van. The viability out the front is good, back not so much. I helped a friend move some of her mothers stuff to storage. My friend rented a truck. Driving it my impression is the tall hood results an unacceptable blind spot. Is a child or a short women was in front you wouldn't be able to see them and that's not okay in my book.

That said viability of all cars is getting worse due to low slopped roofs and phat A pillars. As a friend says they're making cars safer for the driver at the expense of everyone else.

Commercial vans like the Ford E-150 are large, but actually have very good visibility, much better than cars. This is due to the sloping nose, and the big fat side mirrors.

It makes sense, as business drivers using those vans often need to get in and out of tight spaces.

Taxation alone isn't enough. Larger pickups and SUVs should have much more stringent licensing requirements akin to a CDL.

I currently drive a pickup - my first truck in the 25 years I’ve been driving. There’s no need for more stringent licensing - people just need to pay attention to the road and stop behaving like they’re on a formula 1 track. My soon to be 15 year old daughter has been learning to drive my pickup (crew-cab F-150) and has no difficulties at all driving it responsibly.

There's no need for any sort of law enforcement, people just need to be nice to each other.

If you see her texting and driving what will you do?

Take her out back and shoot her, obviously.

Driving and texting in a full size car or a crossover isn’t any less dangerous to pedestrians than texting and driving in a truck. Full blackouts (the effect of driving and texting) means full speed hits and reduced visibility is irrelevant.

Full speed hits are a greater threat to other people when you're in a larger vehicle. More mass means more force to impart at the same speed.

> More mass means more force to impart at the same speed.

technically yes, but the effect of more mass in a vehicle-pedestrian collision is asymptotic. a small (3000 lbs) sedan is already 15-20x the mass of a typical human. the vehicle loses a very small fraction of its initial velocity to momentum transfer. it really doesn't make much difference if you double or triple the mass of the vehicle.

try playing around with a momentum calculator to see what I mean: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/conservation-of-momen...

Totally agree. My dad bought an airstream and an F150 big enough to tow it. Driving that thing scared me. The thing was huge, visibility was poor, and consequences of error were magnified.

Driving an F150 super crew may seem scary at first but as someone who bought one 4 years ago (first truck) coming from a CRV, I found no problems with visibility.

Take a driving class then? If driving a truck scares you because you’re not used to it, how is that any kind of argument against other people driving them?

If you think the vehicle requires a special class to drive it well, then it seems like you agree with TheCoelacanth that more stringent licensing is required.

I think the EV Hummer is going to be interesting test case. It's something like 9 thousand pounds and a thousand horsepower, 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds.

Society generally accepts small, fast sports cars and slow, heavy trucks, but fast, heavy trucks are something new. Sports cars are accepted I think in part because they're not designed like battering rams. If a sports car is in a wreck it'll probably take severe damage, and the driver is at a pretty high risk of injury too even if the car has sophisticated safety features. With this new Hummer, someone could sneeze and plow through three lanes of traffic and come out unscathed. The consequences of risky behavior are falling disproportionatly on the people who don't drive big trucks.

(This argument applies also to EVs like the Model S to a somewhat lesser degree. They're also fast and heavy, but they at least don't look like something you'd smash through a roadblock in some action movie with, so they kind of get a free pass.)

Requiring a CDL for certain vehicles that are heavier, more powerful, and with high risk of damage or injury to others seems like a reasonable option to me.

"Larger pickups and SUVs should have much more stringent licensing requirements akin to a CDL."

Why only them? The basic driver test is a joke. They should make the testing more strict for everyone. The license requirements for a CDL are probably more strict than you think (health, alcohol, etc).

I'm aware of the requirements. I think it would be completely reasonable that you should be required to not be on the verge of going into a diabetic coma and not have BAC of .07 while driving an F-450.

BAC need to be under .04. It's worth mentioning that any marijuana use is instant disqualification, even if it's prescription. All sorts of medical conditions can be disqualifying. Even stuff like high blood pressure or COPD.

Then you have things like one must be 21 to cross state lines, and 18 to get a learner's permit. Some criminal history, like felonies, will prevent you from getting a license.

So it's a bit more than not being on the verge of a diabetic coma. And if those restrictions are a good idea for personal vehicles, then why not do that for everyone?

EVs come with a mandatory increase in vehicle weight (for equal range), no?

For equal range at equal volume, but there are of course lightweight designs that are good people movers, just can’t throw a bicycle into the back. One example is Aptera

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/1/22358355/aptera-ev-three-w...

> they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass

Taxing status goods can be paradoxical (Veblen good): if people buy cars to show off their wealth, then many people may still buy large vehicles because they are a symbol of high wealth.

I guess it really depends on what was done with the extra taxes - there are a variety of ways money could be spent to reduce accidents (although the cynic in me says any extra tax wouldn't be used that way).

Additionally, penalties for moving violations should be proportional to GVWR, at least for non-commercial vehicles.

Why? You can kill a pedestrian, bicyclist, or motorcyclist just as easily with any of them. Why not improve the drivers test to actually test people? That should cut down on accidents across the board.

F=ma.

I agree that U.S. states should provide far more driver's training and have much stricter testing requirements before issuing licenses. We also need additional tiers to our licensing.

"We also need additional tiers to our licensing."

What and why?

Two examples: In my state, a sixteen year-old with a newly minted standard car driver's license can by themselves legally operate a loaded 26' box truck, including one towing a trailer. With a motorcycle endorsement, they're permitted to pilot a bike with an engine of any displacement.

Ok? The motorcycle endorsement is already a separate tier. I don't think there's anything wrong with operating a box truck on a regular license. There's not that much difference in vehicle operation (still hydraulic brakes, etc), just some additional emphasis on load distribution, engine braking, and speed/braking distance - which is still important in many smaller vehicles. I do think the regular license test should be more rigorous, since it doesn't even cover these topics sufficiently for the smaller vehicles.

> Enough seat height to see around you. Almost like they are trying to help with visibility for pedestrians.

No, vehicles should not be taxed based on size. There should be an even and fair road usage tax. Traditionally, that has been in the form of fuel taxes. Furthermore, vehicle sizing has been driven by safety features inside and out, crumple zones, improvements for side-impact, and airbags tucked in every interior crevice. Those vehicles that work in a city are not the vehicles that work for the 95% of the US landmass that is considered rural.

Safety features for the people in the vehicle, at the expense of those outside of it*

> Traditionally, that has been in the form of fuel taxes.

The fuel tax has three major issues:

- the US one is a flat fee not indexed to inflation and has not increased since 1993, so the purchase power of it has gone down as well as its percentage of the sale price since gas prices have risen a lot since 1993. no politician at the federal level is brazen enough to suggest actually raising the gas tax and hitting Americans in the pocketbook. In fact the fury is so bad that Massachusetts voters repealed inflation indexing for its state gas tax, because everyone wants the better roads but no one wants to pay for them.

- the wear and tear on the roads is not linear with weight. The federal government estimates that one 18-wheeler causes the same amount of road damage as 9,600 cars. The relationship between fuel price and road damage (which is what ultimately impacts the maintenance expense) is not reflected in a gas price even if trucks are less fuel efficient.

- the decrease in gasoline needed. Fuel efficiency is very good, and transitioning away from fossil fuels even better, but those cars and trucks will end up paying less money while causing the same amount of road damage as they did before.

> fuel price and road damage is not reflected in a gas price even if trucks are less fuel efficient

It’s almost like you’re saying a fuel tax shouldn’t incentivize fuel efficiency. I am saying it should. Broadly, heavier vehicles do definitely burn more fuel, hence why diesels are more prevalent with heavier workloads.

well it depends on what the gas tax is for. If the gas tax is to pay for road maintenance, then ideally the gas tax for a given vehicle should be commensurate with the amount of road damage that we then have to pay for through maintenance. the correlation however is not nearly strong enough between the tax and road damage, so the tax for heavier vehicles should be hiked significantly.

if you want to charge a carbon tax to dissuade burning fossil fuels that's another thing entirely, but the gas tax has never really been designed to do that, it's always been for road maintenance. Electric vehicles don't just become weightless on roads.

Or alternatively focus on smart safety features like automatic radar-triggered braking and pedestrian recognition.

Unlike the general self-driving that needs to be 100% accurate, "brake when on a collision course with what appears to be a pedestrian" will save lives even if it works in 50% of the cases. And if you only engage it on straight road when the driver is not actively maneuvering, it will nicely cover the "got distracted" cases and won't cause any new crashes by braking when you are changing lanes or passing.

It depend if that braking produces false positives and cause additional accidents, like eith Tesla's early phantom braking .

The other issue is that due to the crumbling state of U.S. infrastructure, normal cars with ~5.5 inch ground clearance are basically impossible to drive without ruining them by bottoming out all the time. I have zero desire to have an SUV or crossover with ~8.5 inches of ground clearance, but unfortunately there are very limited options with 6.5 or 7 inches.

Most SUVs or crossovers (especially crossovers) don't even have very good clearance compared to smaller cars, it seems.

> ruining them by bottoming out all the time

My daily driver has a spec of 5.9” ground clearance. In 21K miles, I don’t think I’ve ever scraped the bottom (except on snow piles, which aren’t an infrastructure issue).

My wife's daily driver is a kia optima with 5.3" of ground clearance. Road quality has never been a problem and we have driven it to at least a dozen states, and to get to our house requires driving 1/3 a mile of gravel road.

Where do you live? My factory spec 4-door sedan has 5" clearance at the front and I've never had a clearance issue. It's pretty low but it's not even a sports car

Connecticut. To be fair the most common issues I have are where the bottom of driveways meets the road, and also going over manhole covers during road milling. In the latter case you can obviously also just go around them, but it's much safer if you can just drive over them rather than swerving erratically between lanes.

So basically impossible = on private driveways or when they're doing improvements? This seems like a mindset I see a lot of thinking you need more car than you really do

I mean don’t most people use private driveways and milled roads on a near daily basis?

I drive a Hyundai Veloster with 5.6in of ground clearance and in five years of ownership I've never bottomed it out once in either urban or rural driving. I'm not sure this is a reasonable characterization.

Isn’t it kinda weird to simply charge more money to allow people to be more dangerous?

That’s literally how all well functioning insurance products work.

Yes indeed. We weren’t talking about car insurance, where prices are (at least somewhat) based on risks.

The idea is to disincentivize the dangerous thing without outright banning it, or imposing complicated regulations such as assessing whether a person has a legitimate need for the dangerous thing.

Also think registration fees shouldn't just be based on a year of a car. If someone has a 2020 Toyota Corolla why is registering it just as much as registering a 2020 Mercedes S63. I think generally economical cars should cost the lowest amount to register regardless of age.

It varies based on state. The more progressive states have a portion of their vehicle tax (aka registration fees) based on weight of the vehicle.

In one state where I lived, part of the car tax was a property tax based on some estimate of the value of the car.

> If the regulators had half a brain they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass.

Higher taxes on fossil fuels would have more easily accomplished this, along with killing many more birds with one stone.

> Cars are getting bigger

Really? My old Dodge is a giant compared to modern cars, though it was of modest size in its day. Parking slot sizes have shrunk considerably over the years.

Parking slot sizes have not shrunk, it is the cars parked in them that have grown bigger. This is well-documented.

I don't believe that. I've seen it myself when a store will restripe their lot to squeeze more parking in. I never had to grease the sides of the car to park it in the 70's.

That store may well have been the exception, but I'm still curious: what process did you use to come up with the idea that the restriped slots were smaller?

My car's fit in them.

You have a car from the '70s? And this is not when there are more modern cars next to it that make it feel more cramped because they are bigger?

Taxing vehicle volume without regard to other factors unfairly penalizes families and carpoolers.

Volume / Passenger Capacity

With a lower limit and some way of subsidising a portion back for verifiable, occupational need.

Does taxing more on big cars stop pedestrian accidents? Where does that tax go? Improving crosswalks? So they say. Who oversees that actually happening? Can’t trust the government to do that efficiently and effectively.

Should we also tax pedestrians who look right at moving cars and summarily dip their toes into the crosswalk, expecting said car to slam brakes on for their stroll?

It’s a two way street, pun intended. Drivers need to watch the fuck out and slow down in high foot traffic areas, and pedestrians need to make sure it’s safe to cross. You know, like when we were 5 years old. Look both ways. Only now, do that and put your smartphone in your pocket for the crossy street journey.

"Large cars also reduce visibility which further reduces safety."

This is a flawed mindset. Anyone who has taken driver's ed knows that the proper solution is to leave more following distance if you can't see.

"There has been a car size arms race for the past 30-40 years."

Actually, car sizes have been getting smaller over that time frame. However more people are opting for larger types of vehicles like trucks or SUVs. You can't find a car today that has the same capacities and space that my old 89 Caprice had.

Edit: why downvote?

Edit 2: I guess there are a lot of bad drivers who won't leave proper following distance and don't want to admit it by commenting. It's always someone else fault when they can't see or otherwise safely operate their vehicle...

> the proper solution is to leave more following distance if you can't see.

The article is about collision with pedestrians and cyclists. How do you leave more distance with them?

Stop shorter of the intersection?

They were talking about larger vehicles blocking the visibility of people in smaller vehicles. Visibility of pedestrians by someone in a large vehicle is not really an issue (it's a small blind spot that one should be tracking objects/people as they move in/out of it, just like for the other blind spots).

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