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Comment by cenamus | Hacker News Reader

In most jurisdictions they're limited to that power because they're ebikes. Above that you just have an electric motorcycle, which mandates different brakes and so on, but you can still do that. Just need a another license, more taxes, etc.

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Couldn’t you also require a higher tier license for large and dangerous cars, just like motorcycles require extra privileges?

Allow anyone to own a sedan or compact SUV with up to 200hp. If you want to own something larger, you need an “oversized vehicle” endorsement. And if you want to own something more powerful, you need a power-level endorsement. And maybe you need to pay extra to have those endorsements, and they can be taken away if you are reckless.

It could be a grandfathering system too, so not to disrupt the entire market. Automatically grant partial endorsements to people who already have those vehicles when the law goes into effect, but require testing within 5 years or when registering any new vehicle that meets those criteria.

But cars and trucks are incredibly dangerous and it’s ridiculous society has basically zero restrictions. (I own a “small” truck and would be happy to have it restricted if it means the roads start to become safer for cycling and walking)

What evidence do you have that vehicles over a certain size and power are inherently more dangerous? And what about the problem would an endorsement solve?

> What evidence do you have that vehicles over a certain size and power are inherently more dangerous?

Basic physics and historical collision data collected over decades.

But don't take my word for it! Look up your local official collision data -- how many pedestrians have killed people inside a four-wheel vehicle? What about the other way around? Now repeat for cyclists, mopeds/motorcycles, and other four-wheeled vehicles.

The heavier vehicle kills the lighter vehicle, primarily because of momentum.

> What evidence do you have that vehicles over a certain size and power are inherently more dangerous?

It's not the vehicle but the entitled douche bag who thinks they own the road while wildly speeding around, cutting people off and weaving around traffic like a drunkard. No one needs that power save for insecure men.

Sounds like the driver is the problem. A rampaging driver can do pretty much the same damage regardless of the exact car. Police should focus on driver behaviour with stricter enforcement of "road manners" type rules. Broken window theory.

Of course the driver is the problem but you can't fix stupid with police. Also realize that in the USA there has been a reduction in the amount of policing done on the roads for various reasons so don't expect much from the cops.

With less policing the problems will just get worse. The only alternative is some kind of intrusive digital nannying which is what we're starting to see.

> The only alternative is

...or you could look at what is done in countries with a far better safety record and copy it. Hint: street design has a massive effect on the speed at which drivers choose to go. Narrower lanes, curves, intersections with tight corners, raised crossings, speed humps, removing on-street parking next to intersections (daylighting), etc. all reduce fatalities.

Ah yes the "ball pit" option. Sure it probably works but it costs a lot and reduces the utility of the roads.

It increases the utility of the streets for pedestrians and cyclists by, you know, not getting them killed.

Many traffic safety measures cost very little to implement, or even retrofit. You can look up what has been done in Hoboken, NJ -- no pedestrian fatalities since 2017.

Fair enough for dense urban areas, I suppose.

My evidence is that you need a special endorsement already to drive things that are more powerful or complex than a car (e.g., taxi, semi truck, ferry, formula one car). This seems obvious.

> My evidence is that you need a special endorsement already to drive things that are more powerful or complex than a car

In Canada, a standard car license allows driving vehicles up to 11,000 kg (24,250 lbs) [0], including pickup trucks and SUVs that are larger than a WWII Sherman tank [1], such as the Ford F-350 or the Cadillac Escalade [2].

Thus, we are allowing people to drive things that are far more powerful than a car without special licensing requirements -- and without a speed governor.

So it is already pretty lax in terms of licensing requirements for vehicles that kill and maim our neighbors every year. We should be even stricter than we are.

[0] https://drivetest.ca/licences/licences-overview/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman

[2] https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/cadillac-escalade-2...

Except perhaps overall length there is no metric by which any vehicle on the roads today is larger than an M4.

No need to speculate: links with the actual data were provided; you can check for yourself that the comparison really isn't all that crazy. Both vehicles have comparable engines, but with the F-350 being much lighter it can achieve much higher accelerations and top speeds. In terms of dimensions they are quite similar as well.

ChatGPT-produced summary for the lazy:

    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
    | Feature              | M4 Sherman Tank      | Ford F-350 Crew Cab  |
    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
    | Mass                 | 66,800–84,000 lb     | ~7,000–9,000 lb      |
    |                      | (30.3–38.1 tonnes)   | (3.2–4.1 tonnes)     |
    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
    | Length               | 19 ft 2 in–20 ft 7 in| 20 ft 11 in–23 ft 11 in |
    |                      | (5.84–6.27 m)        | (6.27–7.28 m)         |
    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
    | Width                | 8 ft 7 in–9 ft 10 in | 6 ft 7 in–7 ft 11 in  |
    |                      | (2.62–3.00 m)        | (2.03–2.43 m)         |
    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
    | Height               | 9 ft 0 in–9 ft 9 in  | 6 ft 4 in–6 ft 9 in   |
    |                      | (2.74–2.97 m)        | (1.93–2.06 m)         |
    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
    | Engine               | Gasoline/Diesel:     | Gasoline/Diesel:      |
    |                      | 350–450 hp (260–336 kW)| 385–475 hp (287–354 kW)|
    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
    | Power/Weight         | 10.46–13.49 hp/ton   | ~43–53 hp/ton         |
    |                      | (8.60–11.09 kW/t)    | (36–44 kW/t)          |
    +----------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

Let me be more clear:

These are not really comparable vehicles anymore than a wheelbarrow and a sailboat are comparable. Sure you can compare them but there is no useful purpose to doing so. You are actively being dishonest and misleading by trying to push this comparison.

A Sherman tank is something like ninety thousand pounds, for anyone unfortunate enough to have read this post.

The actual data shows that some of the largest and most powerful vehicle models have quite low insurance claims for injuries to others.

https://www.iihs.org/topics/auto-insurance/insurance-losses-...

Can you provide some examples?

Because when I compare between classes, there is a clear trend in the data you provided where large four-door cars have higher rates of bodily injury than midsize cars, and it goes down again for small and mini.

And it makes sense: in a collision, the heavier vehicle crushes the lighter one.

Am I misreading the data?

Did you look at the data for pickups?

This really just looks like a proxy for social class.

Edit: though interestingly there's an uptick when you get to the ultra-ostentatious vehicles like Bentley and Lamborghini.

We already have higher tier licenses for large vehicles. However they are set such that only heavy duty trucks qualify - dump trucks, semis, and other such things. That is the types of things you drive as part of a job, as opposed to personal vehicles.

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