Supersizing vehicles offers minimal safety benefits – but substantial dangers
iihs.org
iihs.org
Despite the title, the entire article seems to have missed the mark and become a marketing piece for SUVs.
I hear that some (ford? gm?) high-volume pickups have extra cross-bracing, while lesser-volume trucks don't.
Or said another way - maybe lighter vehicles have necessarily extra safety tech to help with tests, but heavier ones have a limit on safety tech investment.
I wonder if a heavier volvo would have safety scale all the way up with the weight.
But we also permit people to buy oversize, overwidth semi industrial vehicles and drive them in domestic contexts, irrespective of their dimensional impact on the street and on other users of the streetscape, and on infrastructure decisions like parking bay size, minimum heights for multi storey carparks, cycle lanes with paint only barriers to entry.
To be blunt: it's fucking nuts. It's minimal regulation of a commons driven (sorry) to a ludicrous outcome. It's mad.
Add high intensity LED lights. I mean why not. Glare? Boomer problem.
I've been in big vehicles driven by naive drivers. It's truly scary. People gave very poor understanding of their lateral width, lane occupancy, other vehicles. Vision is massively restricted. And we don't seem able to say "wait.. how about if we don't do this"
I think it is related to the rise of neoliberal politics. Individual rights over collective rights. The 'loss of community' is real and leads to actively harmful choices.