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Comment by sonicanatidae | Hacker News Reader

110% agreed.

There should be a tax applied to excessively large consumer vehicles. They have an outsized affect on the roads, on the safety of others, and cause stupid things like not being able to see past them when they are in front of you.

They should also pay much more for insurance, since they, again, will consume an outsized portion of it, compared to others not driving a penis replacement.

For pedestrians, I suspect it's no different. Whether you're hit by a Kia Soul or one of these Canyoneros, you're still quite likely to die, assuming the vehicle is going faster than 5mph.

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The big difference is height of the front of the car. For pedestrian safety you want them to end up on the hood or at worst go over the top of the car. Trucks and SUVs have pedestrians end under the car, which is more likely to be immediately fatal.

That makes perfect sense. Thanks!

Not only that, it would take only a minor change to have a huge impact and reduce deaths and injuries: https://youtu.be/YpuX-5E7xoU

Most states used to have per-axle weight tests and taxes that reflected that. Most of the carve outs for "light truck" that consumer vehicles were able to sneak through were often implemented as carve outs meaning that the weight taxes are still on the books, the states could reduce or eliminate the carve outs and actually try enforcing those taxes again.

I'm still surprised California hasn't tried enforcing weight taxes again given many residential streets even still have weight limits posted but not enforced. I'm not surprised that so far no other state currently has the political willpower to upset consumers like that (or to deal with federal complications against a congressional atmosphere and regulatory capture that thinks such taxes are unfair to inter-state commerce).

You actually are much less likely to die if a small car hits you. If a big car hits you, you're kind of screwed.

Speed is a factor. If you're a pedestrian, and the vehicle traveling at 35mph, the size matters much, much less. You're going for a ride, regardless.

Yes, but the small car will bounce you over the hood and dump you back down again, worse for wear, but presumably alive.

The bigger vehicles slam you down and then drive over you, for a much less pleasant experience.

Or you accelerate to 35 mph basically instantaneously. That's a lot of Gs.

according to the prior poster, they just walk away from all those Gs, unharmed. lol

Getting hit by a Fiat 500 at 35mpg will just have me roll onto the hood, slow my speed, and allow me to either roll over the car or roll off the front again. With most of the initial impact affect my legs and thighs. Getting hit by a Hummer EV will have my head and torso (y'know, the juicy, sensitive bits) getting hit first, with no ability to slow my speed by rolling onto anything, I just get thrown forward into more traffic, or end up underneath the vehicle where my juicy sensitive bits are now able to get run over by a comparative weight of a small elephant.

at 35mph?!?!

You'll be sent into the air. Not 400feet or anything, but you will not simply be rolling gently over the vehicle, then hop off and continue your day.

How high do you think someone can fly without cracking your skull when you land on pavement?

Where did I say I'd hop off and continue my day?

Where did I say I'd be rolling gently over the vehicle?

I'd much rather have the chance of rolling, flying, or at least something that will allow my body the chance to lose momentum. Rather than within 1 second find my skull under the wheel of a 9,000 lb vehicle.

The pedestrian mortality rate for a 35mph collision is 10%.

With my (admittedly anecdotal) data point of having been hit by a small car while crossing at a crosswalk, this is definitely true. Car drove around 35 mph upon impact. Bounced my posterior right off the front of the car and landed on the windshield - not even a concussion.

Even at 23mph, a pedestrian's chance of death in a collision, in the US over the years 1994-1998, was only 10%: https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-seve...

I don't mean to imply that that is a low risk, only that speed is quite a crucial factor.

Oh, I agree 100%. Speed kills.

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