Death Rates by Vehicle Model
iihs.org
iihs.org
People were dying en masse within ten years of the auto reaching critical mass. It baffles me how the US was just totally fine with both allowing citizens to get licenses after a simple (and moderately easy to cheat) written exam and a practical that takes less than an hour to complete, and not requiring any re-examinations afterwards!
The older I get, the more I hate driving as a concept.
It also baffles me that we have speed limits but also allow car manufacturers to market cars based on speed and raw thrills.
[1] https://sethwadleydodge.com/blog/2024-ram-3500-4x4-crash-tes...
Anecdotally, a lot of the worst drivers in the bay area are driving beaten-up Nissan Altimas, and indeed the data shows that Altimas are high up on the most deadly list.
One other confound to consider is safety features: more expensive vehicles tend to have features which can prevent or reduce fatalities no matter who is driving.
To me, thats pretty obviously because big cars come out on top when colliding with smaller or equally sized cars than smaller cars on the same playing field. And that isn't to say bigger cars are a good thing, it's simply a consequence of the automotove industry arms race for larger, wider vehicles. One that is very difficult to walk back on now that those large vehicles are so prevalent. There are stats in there about luxury vehicles, but note that the ones appearing on the lowest list are all midsize or larger (anecdotally, midsize luxury cars seem huge to me vs equivalent vehicles from 30 years ago, but I don't have evidence to support that)
In other words, all that blood is on the auto industry, not poor people.
the aesthetics attract young men who don't have a clear path to hegemon social status, where those brands were associated with immigrants in the 80s and 90s, and they have been picked up by the current wave. fuzzy dice and plastic covered seats have been replaced with Khalistan and AK-47 decals, but the behavior on the roads is mostly the same, maybe with a few cultural variations. the cars are products designed to exploit young men's poor impulse control.
I don't really worry about the power of cars at all, teslas are farcially fast, and I'm a motorcyclist, but if there were something to be regulated, banned, or punitively taxed on environmental grounds, I would say it's subwoofers and aftermarket exhausts as they exist only to disrupt the way of life of others. they export poverty from one place to another and degrade every place they go. a lot of racism would disappear overnight if we stopped equipping young men with ever cheaper and more technically powerful ways of harassing people. of the opportunities our societies could provide, the opportunity to not turn your host societies against you seems like the most cost effective.
the car models exploit an underlying issue that is much older, and there are reaonsable policies that could mitigate most of the current issues with them. bass frequencies of subwoofers and exhausts have specific properties that could be solved without a lot of pain or effort imo. it would encourage people to drive like they've been in a car before.
https://www.smartcarofamerica.com/threads/updated-smart-acci...
They do sound fun to rip around in. You used to be able to rent them with an app around my city. I think it was helpful for a lot of people
Glad to see no Toyotas on the "Highest rates of driver deaths" list and the Corolla didn't place on any of the lists.
https://www.theverge.com/23742425/kia-boys-car-theft-steal-t...
There's also the whole Kia challenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kia_Challenge
I looked up images of the vehicles you mentioned and they all seem to have a relatively aggressive slope on their front ends, which got me thinking that they may end up acting like a sort of ramp in a collision and cause the other vehicle to become airborne or roll over.
Edit: that's for driver deaths. Scroll farther down and it's the opposite for "other driver" deaths, which is not too surprising I guess.
[1]: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/driver-death-rates-remain-h...
The least safe cars in terms of fatalities caused to others (you may be safe but your vehicle killed someone else) are very large pickups.
The Dodge Charger HEMI 2WD and Dodge Challenger 2WD were on both lists. High fatalities to its driver and high fatalities to the other-driver/other-car.
The various Jeep models also featured prominently on the other-driver fatalities list. They are built solidly and do more damage to others?
Anything built like a wall is going to increase the number of pedestrians going under the vehicle, and the off-road aesthetic tends to involve things like bull bars which significantly increase the risk to pedestrians. It probably doesn’t help that Jeep has a solid appeal to young men, who statistically tend to be aggressive drivers.
Yes, the electric HUMMER is crazy heavy. But electric cars are sold by range, and weight kills range, so the EVs that sell well are the lighter models.
Which is a shame, because the i3 was a lovely, light EV.
Plus the EVs drive better - better acceleration plus regenerative braking (so you can always slow down without wasting the energy/fuel thus driving more defensively more naturally), so you're much more in control of the situation. For example EVs are much better at doing the STOP correctly - as the low speed torgue is high, so you're really comfortable doing the real legal STOP.
There is a reason EV insurance is that much more expensive than ICE.
But it's also not a truck people buy as a suburban fashion statement. They usually go for smaller pickups, like F-150 with a short bed.
I'd much more like to see total deaths by car model.
In many (but far from all) driver death crashes, the driver was at fault. But pedstrians, occupants of other cars, and occupants of crashed cars are much more innocent victims.