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Comment by sam345 | Hacker News Reader

Interesting and hopefully engineers can continue to improve on cars form factors in this regard. But the main reason fatalities are up is simple and obvious: cell phones and increasing use of mind and mood altering drugs in all their forms, of which legalization of marijuana has played no small part. The impersonalization and disconnectedness of modern life, and reduction of family and community connections, has also led imo to general recklessness and disregard for humanlife by a certain percentage of drivers who needlessly risk the destruction or maiming of others in street racing or other criminal recklessness so they can get a short lived adrenaline rush. E.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56154795

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Yep and this is precisely why I drive a big pickup. Not because I need it, not because Im trying to flex, but because it weighs almost twice as much as regular cars. My wife works in a hospital, she sees the victims of drunk/distracted driving everyday where they are not the ones at fault. If it was plausible, I would drive an even bigger one.

Once cars are fully autonomous or have mandatory drug tests to be able to start ignition, or we have more severe punishments for driving accidents, then ill gladly sell my truck. Until then, if you hit me with a regular car, you are gonna get fucked up, ill be mostly fine.

This is a very interesting attitude. Have you at all considered your impact on others?

Parent comment embodies the spirit of "me first" almost perfectly, even though it is disguised as some sort of self preservation hack.

There is a whole bunch of factors that make the the risk of someone crashing into me is much higher than me crashing into them. The first one being that I spend more hours riding my ebike than driving my truck. And before the ebike, I was riding a motorcycle a lot, technically putting myself in a whole shitload of danger.

So overall, I have probably contributed less risk to drivers around me over my hours commuting then they have to me.

His impact will be essentially zero if he's a responsible defensive driver. I've had a license for 30+ years, have driven millions of miles, and have never, not once, been at fault in an accident.

Even so, there are still ways that it can make streets more hazardous for others. For example it's pretty hard to see around big vehicles, sadly.

This is true. But from a moral standpoint, I have to deal with the fact that anyone has the ability to ingest alcohol and get behind the wheel of a car, and there is nothing I can do about that. So others just will have to wait a bit to see around my big truck. Thats the social contract we are making.

And this is precisely why I fly the Supermaneuverable Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker E Advanced Fighter [1]. Your puny truck stands no chance. Man up and dogfight me.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7YVxLLIuGM

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