What to do about America's killer cars
economist.com
economist.com
These monstrosities are environmentally unfriendly, pedestrian unfriendly, kid unfriendly, biker unfriendly, small car unfriendly, and are antithetical to the type of walkable and bikable cities that point to healthier and happier living. I wish we could tax the crap out of these things and drive them out of our towns.
My goal is hence to make enough money to allow my family and I to live in an urban walkable environment. The venn diagram overlap of areas that have a high proportion of large trucks and how livable they are is quite small anyways.
Sadly it's politically untenable in most (all?) the US not least of which because people will just buy trucks in other states that allow them.
Couldn’t a state law decide what vehicle one can use on their road, instead of what one can buy?
I believe the Ford Motor Company CEO predicts that cars will get smaller but due to electrification, they will not lose weight.
Der Panzer für Die Hausfrauen indeed.
I'll definitely yield to my neighbourhood Komatsu 900-series. I already have to yield to the Hummer since I don't have one.
what a thought-provoking and non-inflammatory prompt you provided us
We have got to stop hand-waving things as "well other stuff!"
You're 100% right, car dependency as a whole is a big problem. One that we need to move away from and towards more sustainable modes of transportation. However, that is a big task. One part of that task is deconstructing the American obsession with ego-boosting via motor vehicle.
That means you, trucks and SUVs.
Maybe outside the US, but inside the US…these are the norm in my experience.
It seems quite possible to take a sedan and replace the back seat and trunk with a bed and still meet requirements. I'm sure that configuration is a bit less aerodynamic, but it shouldn't be a deal breaker.
Meanwhile companies like Ford are not selling any sedans at all. It seems they think it's more profitable to sell only light trucks and SUVs.
That makes me doubt that the manufacturers "can't" produce compact trucks.
These already exist, they're called "utes".
Modern compact utility vehicles are simply the North American equivalent of this concept; we simply prefer a carpeted, covered bed.
You make WAY more money per unit of work selling a truck or SUV. Sedans, in comparison, make much less money. Hence, all the ads you'll see are aimed at big vehicles.
The manufacturers can make smaller vehicles but it's a stupid idea to do so. You leave money on the table - and for what? Just make the ride higher and you can automatically mark up another 20%.
Anyone who owns horses or cows surely doesn't live in cities. The original comment appears to be talking about urban areas in particular.
The comment very clearly says anyone who has a truck for non commercial purposes is an asshole. No qualifiers on where you live. Even non profits are assholes. If OP meant something else maybe they shouldn’t use broad generalizations.
1. Forcing those cars to stop being made, or made differently
2. Require special requirements, like a new license
3. Have a special tax
It's all money and politics. Mean words mean nothing, you can't convince people to do stuff that way.
Well damn, I guess I'm a grade A asshole. I thought about getting a smaller truck, but frankly it's safer to tow my travel trailer with a superduty, since the tongue weight is over what a half-ton is typically rated for, so I kinda figured it made me -less- of a grade A asshole.
Fortunately I only drive it a few thousand miles a year, the rest of the time I drive my Tesla, so maybe on most days you won't call me an asshole.
Ultimately all motor vehicles are pretty dangerous and negatively impact the environment- it makes no sense to have a problem with people that need trucks using them for their purpose, but being fine with people doing the same with a small car.
I agree with your sentiment. Large vehicles have a lot of utility for a lot of people. I don't want to tax rural folk out of owning an important tool. But in the densest zip code in my state? I'm tired of reading about pedestrian murders in my neighborhood.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6c/a8/29/6ca8299cb79d89b811da...
... and now it looks like this...
These trucks (and some cars, to be fair) visibly project hostility. As a commenter put it in a past HN article, "Emissions requirements don't require a truck to look like it's going to beat you up."[1]
That particular truck is a special performance model, trying to look supercar aggressive, and loaded with expensive hardware typically used only on desert racing trucks. This is a long standing thing car manufacturers do- look at the Subaru WRX STI or the 80s VW GTI for example. Wildly impractical, and usually sold at small volumes to draw attention and buyers for other models.
The regular F150 to me looks tacky, cheap, overly trendy, and faux futuristic but not aggressive. You see basically the same styling elements - lots of non functional protrusions and sharp angles - in economy cars like the Prius, it is the current trend. I think it looks awful.
Earlier this year I borrowed a family members 4 door short bed F150 with a lightweight pop up camper on the back for a family road trip where we explored offroad in desert national parks. The vehicle makes a ton of sense for uses like this- it was excellent offroad, just enough room for a family inside, and could carry gear for a week of camping in the back, without the risk of heavy items like firewood and tools hurting the passengers. We had all of the comfort of an RV with about 1/4 the fuel use, and the ability to drive and park anywhere easily. I can see why people buy them for this type of use, they are perfect for it.
These changes have generally has made new pickups designs much more of a pain in the ass to use for towing, hauling wood, feeding livestock, and harvesting crop. New trucks definitely fail the haybale stacking test.
They are now designed to be sold primarily as bro-dozers for suburban manchildren who want to LARP like they are some stereotype of macho, not useful tools for traditional rural living.
You can still get traditional 2 door trucks with a long bed… but I agree that isn’t what people using trucks inappropriately as cars are buying.
If that were the case they would be classed as Neighborhood Vehicles and so on. You can buy a golf-cart or 4x4 and drive it on public roads after all. Just not a freeway.
It literally, directly, unequivocally is protectionism and insisting otherwise is ahistorical and factually incorrect. It’s a vestige of a 1964 protectionist trade war with Japan that the US auto-industry lobbied their way into keeping even after the other provisions were lifted.
I live in Australia and am surrounded by people that choose to drive massive dual cab utes (trucks) as a lifestyle choice - they are mostly used for commuting. This is insane.
I have no problem with tradies driving utes to move supplies and tools to their workplace. But I would say at least half of the ones I see, if not more, are not used for this purpose.
Of course there are practical reasons for pickup trucks. But those are not the reasons why people actually buy them.
63% of F-150 drivers self report that they rarely/never tow:
* https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history
29% tow "occasionally", and 7% regularly.
> I grew up in the country in a house my dad built, and we got much of our food from plants and animals we raised- we needed a truck.
Fourth-fifths of the US population is currently in an urban area:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...
* https://www.statista.com/statistics/269967/urbanization-in-t...
Few people tow, and if you want to haul things a minivan would probably be most practical.
Even in construction, I think most folks would be better served with a van, as you can lock up your tools more securely and any supplies won't be exposed to the elements.
How often do you tow your utility trailer? If you do it every day because you need it for work, then having a big truck probably makes sense.
But if you're like many people who have trucks, you probably do this once a year, if ever, but still feel like you "need" a truck for these occasions.
It's like the people in Australia who live in the outback and need to drive 800km every few weeks to drive to a town to buy supplies. Yeh, sure, maybe a diesel ute with a 200L tank is the right choice for you. But it doesn't mean EVs are a complete waste of time for the 90 percent of Australians that live in cities.
Most people aren't hauling around a trailer every minute.
Nope.
We're in Australia, we have a 35 year old home over built double axle heavy steel frame trailer built to handle off road conditions in the north west; it's got heavy duty leaf springs, slaved brakes, can take some serious load tonnage and gets used weekly (still, and has dome for 35+ years).
It gets pulled by a six cylinder sedan car with a Hayman-Reese tow point and tracking anti sway bars.
It's done well in excess of 3 million km now (been stripped down to frame and rebuilt twice now (new wiring, new brakes, refurb'd springs, etc)).
Don't need a big "truck" (oversized Toorak Tractor).
Well, save for hauling wheat and cattle etc. but we have prime movers + semi trailers for that .. and for fire fighting we have an ex military heavy chassis truck modified to carry 5 tonne of water off road .. but that's a bigger beast than US SUV "trucks".
Congratulations on being part of the 7% that uses their pickup truck to tow "regularly":
* https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history
As opposed to the 63% who self report rarely/never, and 29% occasionally.
For your question, the first detail of import would be what weight capacity do you need to handle?
* https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/articles/best-minivans-towing
Currently available small trucks aren't very small and aren't very truck. To get a 6 foot bed, you need to buy a big truck, and a 6 foot bed is IMHO an essential quality of a truck.
I think you meant Hyundai Santa Cruz?
(Sorry they don't seem to have the Windstar on carsized, but the honda odyssey is a pretty close match).
Station wagons and SUVs are different vehicles. SUVs are basically extended-cab sedans, whereas SUVs are built with higher ground clearance and a higher-center of gravity, many on a truck frame.
that's an interesting comparison tool!
but yeah my point is more related to size and capacity than things like chassis. the fact that the windstar is comparably sized is the point I was trying to make.
it's a fair point that the hood is significantly different though, and I think that seems to be one of the biggest takeaways from the discussion here, that's specifically problematic and dangerous as a design element.
and if your point is that a truck chassis overall increases the weight and so on, and just makes it a heavier, more dangerous vehicle... that's probably true to some extent too, although a van chassis was never exactly "light". I still don’t fully agree with the implication that there’s a meaningful difference between a windstar or Astro van and a traverse as far as vehicle classification. They’re all utes really.
Weight matters for a vehicle -vehicle collision, but for a vehicle-pedestrian collision, it's nearly irrelevant. (This is because the physics goes like M/(M+m); there's an asymptote, and once M>5m it's practically the same as infinity).
But height (especially of the front hood) is very dangerous, both for collision interactions and visibility. That's more or less why the chassis matters from a pedestrian safety perspective. Vehicles getting taller makes streets more dangerous, even if they weren't getting heavier at the same time.
Other than the cybertruck, larger vehicles have been trending more and more towards adding pedestrian safety features. However, the same vehicles are taller than they used to be, making them less safe, and generally worse.
Who wants to lift crap an extra foot into their pickup truck bed, and need a frigging step to get into the side door? The days of “reach into the side of the truck” are long gone, except maybe for basketball players.
Recently I heard some new cars detect imminent collisions, and emergency lift themselves a few inches so they win the game of “who gets to be in the other driver’s lap after the crush zone is exhausted”.
Speaking of the cybertruck, I realized it’s the same height as our aging 1500 class truck (which barely meets clearance in some parking garages). Current year models are even taller.
Motorcycling youtuber fortnine offers a good view on some other aspects of the situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU
Cafe could not exist, and we would still be in the same situation. The root cause is too low fuel prices (meaning too low fuel taxes).
Remember the tiny Ford Ranger or Chevy S10? If they were produced today, they would be expected to have a very high MPG, which would require an engine unsuitable for the task as a truck.
The end result is that vehicles are forced to be unnecessarily large to get put in the class where low MPG engine can be installed.
https://tailoredtrucks.com/blog/2011-ford-ranger-towing-capa...
It was caused by the legislature undermining progressive regulation. Congress was the one that required the EPA to establish different standards for “non-passenger automobiles” and allow SUVs to classify as light trucks.
It’s the only thing that saved the American car companies from bankruptcy post oil embargo shakeup so now its too entrenched a policy to remove.
I’ve noticed in cities with tighter roads, like San Francisco and Seattle, these kind of massive trucks and SUVs aren’t popular.
A lot of state and local regulations create minimum sizes for roads and other auto infrastructure that’s simply too big.
The author doesn't elaborate if the statistic they're referring to is really only considering car occupants, otherwise I'd say that people should rather look around for pedestrians and cyclists (if there are any in sight of course), because those are even more vulnerable than people in smaller cars...
My own policy has two drivers with a long flawless history, and several vehicles, including a heavy duty pickup truck and a compact crossover.
The truck policy prices for bodily injury is 8% higher than the crossover, while property damage coverage costs 20% less for the truck.
There appears to be a material difference in conclusion between my insurance underwriters and the producers of these studies on the danger of these vehicles.
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/01/18/why-car-i...
I drive an SUV now and I plan on driving a bigger safer car once I have a family. It is an arms race on the road.
If your vehicle causes the death of someone, that death should be considered pre-meditated.
The only way to fix this is to Iron Fist it. We need to attack people with legislation and taxes, not with words.
Clambering into your APC loses you visibility, gain stopping distance and mushrooms any impact force. Your kids are going to be walking and cycling out behind these tanks. There isn't an arms race; a bigger pair of shoes or magic helmet that's going to protect them from this insanity.