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There are still ways to improve safety, mostly by just slowing traffic down. These cars kill at any speed, but they are significantly less likely to if traveling at say 30km/h.

Narrow lanes, reduce visibility, add complexity and turns. Traffic will naturally slow down with drivers paying more attention. It's been demonstrated that the easier you make a road to drive on, the more people speed and play with their phones.

Thanks, those are all generally good ideas. I realized another would be to provide separate paths for pedestrians and vehicles (beyond just sidewalks), but that may be difficult to implement in many suburban neighborhoods.

>These cars kill at any speed, but they are significantly less likely to if traveling at say 30km/h.

There is literally no way in hell that you are going to get anyone in the US with a large truck or SUV to drive under 20mph

You can, switch the roads to brick/stone, and make it narrow enough that unless you crawl relatively slowly, you are at risk of scraping on things on the sides.

something tells me you are not very familiar with sheer number and miles of roads there are in the US.

I imagine only streets with pedestrian traffic would have to be changed, not inter-city roads and highways.

If you're in the Bay Area, I invite you to drive around on Middlefield Rd in the 25mph sections to see how well setting speed limits way below what most drivers would consider reasonable works in practice (most people travel ~35-45mph there).

Further reading if you're really curious about this situation in particular, there's been a lot of back and forth around Menlo Park / Atherton specifically: - https://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/8751/Engin... - https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2020/10/22/menlo-park-counc... - https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/11/17/palo-alto-eye... - https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/agendas-m... - on 85th percentile theory: https://dot.ca.gov/programs/safety-programs/setting-speed-li...

Particularly amusing is https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/30/radar-isnt-best-optio... ... where most people seem to agree that everyone drives too fast, but in order to use radar / lidar to measure speed, they'd need to comply with state law which would mean /raising/ the speed limits in order to comply with the 85th percentile rules, so instead they just stick their heads in the sand and continue to believe, despite many studies finding to the contrary, that zero enforcement and a sign that says 25mph will actually get people to drive on 5-lane roads at ridiculously slow speeds. This leads to an exciting mix of a few cars trying to actually drive the 25mph speed limit while most other people try to frantically pass them. Extra fun on sections that don't have left turn lanes, where the left of the two lanes becomes the de-facto turn lane, then combine that with the general lack of turn signal usage and you get...a very frustrating commute indeed. But what do you want for your $3m 1000sqft single-family home in those neighborhoods??

Edit: there's a lot more traffic engineering theory around speed limits vs how fast people actually drive. The last couple of points in particular are extra fun: https://www.saratoga.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/998/Setting-S...

    The rationale for speed zoning is also based on the following fundamental concepts, which are
    deeply rooted in our system of government and law:
    •  The normally careful and competent actions of a responsible person should be considered legal.
    •  Laws are established for the protection of the public and the regulation of unreasonable
    behavior by the individual.
    •  Laws cannot be effectively enforced unless the majority of people voluntarily consent to and   
    comply with them.
 
    In general, most people accept, understand, and follow these concepts. But, as mentioned
    earlier, when confronted by local traffic challenges—an increase in traffic volumes or the frequency
    or severity of car crashes in a particular area, for example—people often reject these concepts and
    rely instead on a number of widely held misconceptions, such as:
    •  Lowering a posted speed limit will reduce traffic speeds.
    •  Raising a posted speed limit will increase traffic speeds.
    •  Lower speed limits will reduce the rate of crashes and increase safety.
    •  Any posted speed limit is safer than an unposted speed limit.
 
    In fact, these commonsense notions are not supported by studies, which consistently
    demonstrate that:
    •  The speed of traffic does not change significantly after new or revised speed limits are posted.
    •  There is no direct relationship between posted speed limits and the frequency of traffic
    crashes.

Lane width vs speed is interesting to read about too: https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/review_lane_width_and_speed_pars... (tl;dr people will naturally drive more slowly on streets with street parking, narrow lanes, curves, driveways, visible foot traffic, etc, and drive more quickly when roads are visibly more open)

I haven't seen an American road like that on previous discussions about urban planning in the USA. It's interesting to compare with an urban road in Europe. It's been painted very similarly -- narrowed lanes, regular "25" numbers on the road, the unwanted lanes turned into car parking. You can find that all over Europe in places where there's not much budget but speeds need to be reduced.

But the main difference is the length, and the straightness.

I'm afraid I don't have any solutions.

Possibly it's still a bit wide -- the middle could be painted as a 0.5m wide hatching rather than just a single/double line, or maybe bike lanes could be fitted between parked cars and the existing kerb, but that is probably tight.

We could take these vehicles off the road.

They have to be registered with the state department of motor vehicles.

Either charge them a differentially higher vehicle registration fee, or ban them outright.

Another front is questioning whether car insurance rates reflect the real legal liability that drivers of these vehicles incur?

If they truly kill kids then shouldn't their car insurance rates be exorbitantly higher?

Exponentially scaling property taxes and especially moving violation fines for heavier vehicles seems like a great way to align incentives. The heavier the vehicle, the more-strongly you're encouraged to drive safely (which makes sense, as heavier vehicles are more dangerous); if you have multiple vehicles, it encourages you to use lighter ones unless you really need a heavy one for a given trip; and they'd remain a viable option for safe drivers who really need one (but even those drivers would be encouraged to get the smallest one that'll get the job done).

Private car insurance companies are pretty sophisticated, so they certainly know if a certain vehicle is causing higher claims and will price accordingly.

But, IMHO, the legal minimum liability insurance policy is way too low. A serious car accident could easily cause millions in personal injury damage. Most US states require only ~$50k personal injury coverage.

35K in CA.

So don't hit that Rolls in Los Angeles.

"if they truly kill kids then shouldn't their car insurance rates be exorbitantly higher?"

Typically the dead child is held liable.

We could take pushbikes off the road. It's too dangerous for our soft squishy bodies to not be encased in faux leather and crumple zones. Since most people need to get from a to b in a shorter time and potentially carrying goods, maybe its safer to remove cyclists from the roads for their own protection. After all its not just SUVs that pose a danger to cyclists. Don't worry though, we will still be able to ride our bicycles at dedicated bike parks where motorised vehicles aren't allowed.

We could take these vehicles off the road.

That’s a political non-starter in the U.S. You’d have better luck taking away personal firearms.

I don't disagree with you, but there is nothing in the Constitution that protects one's right to own and drive a car (there is for owning firearms). But car ownership is seen as a right, rather than a privilege, and that comes with it a hugely entrenched feeling of entitlement, privilege, and exceptionalism.

A way to feel this is to go car-free for a week in the US. Some places are easier than others. But compare this to going car-free for a week in Europe. It will probably be a much different experience for most places in Europe, as compared to the US.

Driving at all is specifically and overtly considered a privilege and not a right by the law. We are told that more than once on our way to getting a license.

I would be in favor of governments taking that more seriously.

It takes a lot to lose one's driver's license. You can be found guilty of vehicular manslaughter and the idea of losing a license is seen as inhumane - as if that's what's going to ruin one's life. "How will they get to work? How will they do any other daily activity? We couldn't do that to them!"

What makes you think that rights come from “the law”? Do you think that because some people you never met wrote something on a piece of paper, it becomes right or wrong? What if those people that wrote it believe that killing babies is good for the environment? Is it okay now?

You're conflating two different things -- the law, and the concepts of right and wrong.

But the majority of the things people think of as "rights" do, in fact, come from the law. "The law" is just us collectively deciding what the rules we live by are.

There is a small set of fundamental human rights, but that's a bit of a different thing and I think it's very hard to argue that driving a vehicle on public roads is one of them.

I reject that anyone else can tell me what rules to live by. I only respect other peoples requests if they claim and show that my actions are causing harm. Otherwise, the “collective” is just a bunch of people I never met ganging up and telling me how to live my life at the point of a gun. And they don’t even have the courage to hold the gun themselves in most cases but go crying to father government to punish people they don’t agree with.

I define “rights” as what I may do morally, not a code, act, statue or “collective” decision. Words can have multiple meanings. What you are calling rights, I am calling arbitrary rules made by other people against my will.

Edit to reply to below: I am that I am. I don’t take titles like anarchist, but sure, that’s a decent title if you insist.

Anarchy isn’t a system. It’s just a word. It means no rulers. I don’t think that we should abolish the government (nor could we, it doesn’t exist), I just wish people would grow up morally, so we (conscious beings) didn’t feel the need to play ruler and ruled. I wish to see a world where each being understands morality and what is right and wrong “to the bones” or “from the soul”, so the idea of abstracting away and externalizing our morality and violence was no longer the accepted normal.

So you're an anarchist. That's fine. But, at least right now, that's not the system we have.

Rights don’t come from the constitution. They just are. If someone is not causing harm, then there is no harm being done. Doing (or threatening) violence against people you may think will cause harm using “the government” seems to be more and more popular every day.

Edit since I can’t reply further down: “Reproductive rights” as you call them are also something that doesn’t come from laws or the constitution, whether the constitution protects it or not. Regardless of one’s moral standing, it is never up to other people to decide what is right or wrong for me. That is for me to decide. My rights end when I cause harm to another being, as as defined by the other being who claims to be harmed. No government or papers are needed.

Well, I wrote rights protected by the Constitution. Reproductive rights aren't protected by the Constitution, and look what happened there.

"Doing and threatening violence" seems to encapsulate the American fetish for pickup trucks nicely.

Haha you’re not wrong. That gave me a good laugh. I do wish fewer people would operate such large machines in cities.

The narrator describes the US as a lost cause and expresses hope that Europe at least has the sense to regulate for gigantic vehicles.

You're right there aren't any quick fixes, but regulation can change things over time. While there may be tons of SUVs on the road now, we could incentivize different vehicles and within 10-15 years the balance would be completely different (as it was not that long ago). Grandfather in whatever has already been sold, and require a different standard for the future. This is the exact pattern we use for emissions and safety standards.

I would be OK with this if it was a bylaw for urban environments. You need to realize that these vehicles actually serve a real purpose outside of the cities.

There should also be an exemption for overlanders who otherwise live in urban environments for whom the truck is not a daily driver.

> Any ideas?

Not really. They're more lethal and will kill thousands of people in the US.

The only hope is for the fad to somehow go out of style.

It seems hopeless but maybe there is a marketer somewhere who can convince Americans that more practical vehicles are also cool. Ford has just reentered the small pickup market with the Maverick, for example, and I believe they are doing well.

Electrification could also push people to smaller vehicles, if the range benefits are real.

In Australia the Nissan Patrol was rebadged as the Ford Maverick in some cases.

Isn't this advantageous as it pertains to climate change though? The less people, the less pollution there will be, especially if the lethality is applied earlier in life before the person has the chance to release a lot of carbon.

> They're more lethal

Are they really? A quick search for "US pedestrian deaths by vehicle type" and I came across this 2005 study [0] looking at pedestrian fatalities per mile by vehicle type (and I'll admit some has changed in the nearly 20 years since the study was published). What surprised me was motorcycles caused more pedestrian fatalities than light trucks per billion miles. Urban buses had the highest kill rate, nearly 4 times that as light trucks.

Happen to have anything with more current statics?

[0] https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/injuryprev/11/4/232...

Urban buses spend almost all their driving time on roads with pedestrians.

The statistic needs to be vehicle type in accidents in urban areas.

The article splits out stats for urban and rural areas for all vehicle types.

Notably all vehicle types become more dangerous in urban areas but even buses on rural roads are more dangerous than light trucks on urban roads.

Thanks, I had not scrolled that far down.

Buses have flat fronts (at least to a typical chest/head height), so they're terrible for pedestrian collisions. The typical American school bus from 2002 is horrendous -- huge blind spots, a high chassis, and the typical user being well below adult height. To European eyes, they look like some sort of off-road military transport vehicle.

Though other than buses, I think the paper supports the video:

> The increased risk associated with light trucks is attributed to several factors: their greater mass; greater vehicle speed of collision with pedestrians, and their front end design.

It doesn’t help that the type of young male that would buy a truck like this isn’t likely to make safety a top priority when driving.

Have you seen the flags they use on motorobikes in sand dunes? Its like a orange fluoro flag on a pole. That would be useful I'd bet.