NotJustBikes just posted another video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRbnBc-97Ps) about the speed limit but touching on the same issue - less speed x less mass = safer environment -> less need for physical barriers (they even removed some street lights). Honestly, there wouldn't be that much need for bollard is majority of cars would be city-car like the one in 4:39 min (https://youtu.be/JRbnBc-97Ps?t=279)
That said, two cars hitting each other's large crumple zones is probably safer than a car hitting a bollard or something else unforgiving.
> It's a symptom of american culture being highly individualistic and selfish.
Your comment is a bit on the nose.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/1994-_Mo...
See also this chart: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit...
Showing per capita deaths coming down from a car-boom peak of 27 in 1969 down to 11 by the 20-teens.
Vastly, vastly, safer.
That's not even getting into how things like energy absorbing bumpers have turned low speed collisions that might have results in injuries 50 or 60 years ago are now non-events. (probably no seat belts, certainly no shoulder belt, and the dash is full of chrome and zero padding)
Clearly not: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/road-users/pedestr...
And again, prior to the covid years the numbers show a DECREASE from 1990 up until 2019.
So, what was the point you were trying to make here exactly?
Typical HN anti-car sentiment without hard grounding in facts.
Regardless, here's a different source, search for "Pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people by age, 1975-2021": https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...
The 2021 death rate is 2.2, that's the same as what it was in 1993. Looks like it's only gotten worse since then too: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians24
The point remains the same, vulnerable road user deaths are the more important statistic and it's not looking good whatsoever.
The Car Obesity Crisis in USA is related at least partially to tricking NHTSA regulations related to mileage (IIRC), which take into account platform size of the car, which in turn drives other design concerns.
Car manufacturers had a lightbulb moment and started making regular cars FUCKING HUGE, thus slipping into the magical weight bracket.
Twenty is plenty and I don't see why that can't apply to rural roads too. For too long we have had motorists be able to terrorise any other lifeform off the road in the countryside.
If you have dedicated car only infrastructure then that is one thing, but everywhere else, twenty is plenty. This might seem absurd given the lack of cyclists on the road, but it will foster growth of lightweight EVs rather than monster tanks.
As a cyclist I want to see all the speed bumps, traffic lights, bollards and much else banished. Bring back trees, hedges and greenery. Whenever I see footage of places in China I see fantastic landscaping and wonder why we have to have broken glass, graffiti and rubble.
I am with NotJustBikes all the way.
A Smart car starts around 1500 lbs without driver. Something like a Smart fourtwo can be as much as 2300 lbs.
No person or bike is going to stand a chance against a vehicle weighing an order of magnitude more, even if they look visually smaller.
The idea that Smart car sized vehicles would remove the need for bollards is not realistic at all.
You also can’t judge vehicle safety by appearance. There are a lot of lightweight, small, low front end cars that actually have poor pedestrian crash ratings because the low front end takes people out at the knees. The Honda S2000 is a classic example.
A lot of the internet anti-car anger likes to idolize things like Smart Cars as solutions to everything, but the reality is that any time you have a vehicle weighing an order of magnitude more than a human capable of traveling at 40mph in a matter of seconds, humans don’t stand a chance against it in an impact. Smart cars are great for parking and fuel efficiency, but the idea that they would automatically solve pedestrian safety issues as well is just fantasy. Marginal improvement? Sure. Solution that removes the need for bollards? Definitely not.
Not disagreeing with your overall point, but vehicle size and weight still contribute an awful lot to the >40000 vehicle fatalities in the US each year.
About half of all pedestrian deaths are caused by drunk driving, so that's another relatively low hanging fruit we could aim for if we really had the political will to do so.
But other comment suggesting to lower it to 20mph (or 10??) is egregious. It's standard for a pendulum to swing from an extreme to an extreme I guess.
If you want to step on it, leave the city. Most non-access roads in non-built-up areas are 50mph, and more for motorways. Some major urban thoroughfares are also 45mph.
If there is a tree between me and a speeding car, I would much rather it be a Smart car than just about any other car.
Also, bumpers on pickups are actually pretty low. Any normal bollard or concrete planter is going to be pretty effective. No pickup is going to drive over something like that.
The scenario I was discussing is when there isn’t a bollard but some other barrier specifically designed to stop a vehicle.
A higher center of gravity and larger wheels will certainly help get over many obstacles that would otherwise stop a smart car.
If you had to bet which car was more likely to be deflected by a curb strike and which would not, I have a hard time believing you would put your money on a truck vs a small car.
This is another area where looks can be deceiving. Those large vehicles also have large frontal areas and large crumple zones to absorb impacts.
Those small smart cars have small frontal areas and relatively rigid frames because they can’t crumple on impact.
It’s not hard to imagine scenarios where a small, narrow smart car would literally slip between obstacles where a larger vehicle would get hung up on them. This is especially true for typical bollard spacing.
> If there is a tree between me and a speeding car, I would much rather it be a Smart car than just about any other car.
I think you’re overestimating the difference it would make. Like I said above, the smaller area of a smart car makes it less likely to actually catch the tree (by definition) and the relatively rigid frame isn’t doing much to dissipate the energy it’s carrying.
Looks can be deceiving. I know everyone wants to believe smart cars are super safe alternatives, but any of these thousand pound vehicles isn’t going to be good to go up against. The differences are more nuanced than your eyes would tell you.
I would love to see something more than conjecture about a VERY unintuitive idea.
Newton was pretty adamant that an object weighing 5k lbs (an F-150) would impart quite a bit more force than an object weighing 2k pounds (an economy car).
If all of the force is being imparted into a planter, a tree, or the front of a 7-eleven, I'm still inclined to believe that more force, higher off the ground, is going to matter a whole lot more than a few extra square feet. One way or another the energy is going somewhere, and there is A LOT more energy in a pickup truck.
Also, keep in mind, the crumple zone protects the passenger compartment, not the object being hit. The bumper of an f150 is right in front of a ladder frame to which several thousand pounds of iron machinery is bolted.
I'll still take the smaller, faster stopping, more maneuverable, less energetic battering ram.
You'd think with the massive size compromises you'd get a lot better mileage tradeoff. Maybe they'll release a hybrid version and get some real impressive mileage.
Yes, colission with Smart would still be probably quite nasty but probably way less than with F-150.
Just for the kicks of it: https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/smart-fortwo-2014-3...
In case of Ford it is like hitting vertical wall while in Smart case you have angle which limits impact surface.
(and last but not least: with city-cars (and not oversized bulky pseudo-suvs) you can actually see over the car, as they tend to be lower, to orient yourself better on the situation on the street)
"Across 2000-2019 I estimate that 8,131 pedestrian lives would have been saved if all light trucks had been cars. The reduction would be equal to avoiding 9.5% of all pedestrian deaths"
https://www.justintyndall.com/uploads/2/8/5/5/28559839/tynda...
Other countries who have seen large increases in SUV ownership (i.e. other parts of the anglosphere) have still reduced pedestrian fatalities.
https://www.ft.com/content/9c936d97-5088-4edd-a8bd-628f7c7bb...
And the NYTimes found that pedestrian fatalities only increased at night, not during the day, suggesting vehicle size isn't the primary factor.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/11/upshot/nightt...
Even a microcar still weighs 350kg
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/microcar/microcar-...
Even a circa 1995 era car moving at 32mph has a 25% fatality rate on pedestrians.
https://aaafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2011Ped...
Even at 23mph there is still a 10% fatality rate. At 16mph there's a 10% risk of severe injury. So you'd need to have residential speed limits something under 20mph and probably under 15mph. Right now residential speed limits in the US are 30-35mph in most jurisdictions. With some places making it actually illegal to go slower than 20mph. And those speed limits largely unenforced anyway, as anyone with children who play outside can tell you.
Wales did a 20mph in all urban areas thing and it's been a bit mixed I think. Some people ok, some changing back.