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Comment by throwworhtthrow | Hacker News Reader

Humans are mauled every day by cars. I think general awareness of this is lower than it should be, as is the desire to do something about it.

Perhaps this hyperfocus on the Cybertruck will help jumpstart a larger shift in public opinion on general automobile-pedestrian safety?

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My bet is on them working their way into being put into a vehicle classification that allows them to do whatever they want.

I can see some enterprising Tesla lawyers propose that because of weight and towing power its actually a tractor if they just add some special legal connector.

Cause it’s electric they would wedge it into some newly defined class of “electric tractors.”

I’ve seen crazier

> I can see some enterprising Tesla lawyers propose that because of weight and towing power its actually a tractor if they just add some special legal connector.

That be great, tractors are banned to be used within cities and on highways (in many places).

That’s no problem, city and suburbs are already full of Teslas

The idea is to go after the f150/raptor/ram market and that’s mostly exurb and suburb

> That’s no problem, city and suburbs are already full of Teslas

As I said, I'd be very happy about it being classified as a tractor because then it won't come close to any pedestrian-heavy areas like cities, which this machine seems to purposefully be as hostile to as possible.

Elon asks for an infinite torque mode and shoots a video of the cyber truck pulling a tiller followed by dual anhydrous ammonia tanks, turns to the camera and says "America Needs Farmers" to make sure the pandering is effective. Now it's definitely a tractor, no argument possible lol

> Perhaps this hyperfocus on the Cybertruck

What hyperfocus?

Do you spend a lot of time on social media? If so then these platforms will be feeding you more of what they think you want to see, which will result in you having a faulty perception that there is some hyperfocus on the Cybertruck when it reality there isn't.

I visit Hacker News regularly, but no other social media at all.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&query=cybertruck...

There's a lot of Cybertruck news on the HN front page in the past month. Which is what I meant by "hyperfocus".

A collection of links posted to a minor website that is historically obsessed with all things Tesla is not representative or indicative of any kind of "hyperfocus" in the broader world.

59 in a month (many with not many points/not many comments) does not seem to be a lot.

OpenAPI having 1122 results in the last month seems like a lot.

Tesla has more Cybertruck articles on HN than it has Cybertrucks on the road.

So it's "not very many" versus "not very many". Hardly a compelling case for "hyperfocus".

I dunno. My neighbor across the street's license plate is something like "CYBRTRCK" but they're driving a Tesla. The r/san_francisco subreddit is absolutely vicious about them, too -- rampant cheering and encouraging people to tow them at any chance.

The public perception has actively discouraged me from wanting one - even though I find the design cool.

> Perhaps this hyperfocus on the Cybertruck will help jumpstart a larger shift in public opinion on general automobile-pedestrian safety?

I have bought over a dozen cars in my adulthood, and not once has the thought of pedestrian safety ever crossed my mind. Nor will it factor into my decision if I buy a dozen more. I am pretty much going to assume that no matter what vehicle I buy, if I hit a pedestrian going anything faster than a crawl, I am going to do damage to that person.

I am in a heavy moving object made of sturdy materials larger than the pedestrian. They are not going to have a good outcome.

This isn’t a thing that makes sense to regulate at an individual level, like how BP tried to pass off the fact that they are destroying the environment on regular people for not using reusable bags or whatever. Left as is car manufacturers would be happy to put up a “Pedestrian fatality footprint” for cars and it would have 0 impact on sales. If we want those changes in how society works they need to be mandated by economics or political policy. You should not be able to insure a car that poses over a certain hazard to pedestrians for road usage.

All that seems to me is some sort of pie in the sky activist notion to try and get all cars off the road. It’s not serious, reasonable, or able to be implemented.

All cars pose a fatality hazard to a pedestrian.

Reducing cars in large cities would be a good idea but a more basic thing is just to enforce pedestrian safety standards on vehicles. Eg. If you hit someone with a car they need to go over the hood instead of just being smashed by the front and drivers need to have sufficient visibility of pedestrians.

I don't want to strawman, but I also can't read your position as anything other than "if the risk can't be reduced to literally 0, it's not worth trying to reduce/avoid increasing it at all".

There are obviously levels to risk. At the limit, I'm guessing you probably oppose someone attaching a running chainsaw to their front bumper.

No. I am against any regulatory, government legal action, or mandate that will have zero measurable effect on the problem it tries to solve.

> and not once has the thought of pedestrian safety ever crossed my mind.

Neither should it, just like you shouldn't have to worry that the car is going to catch fire because of a minor fender bender. The thing that keeps you and pedestrians safe should be a sane bunch of regulations that car manufacturers abide by to meet safety requirements.

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