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Those monstrosities should be f*ing illegal (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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[–] 21 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Trying to ban them would be extraordinarily difficult. A potential solution would be to push to reclassify them as trucks, under trucking regulations (I'm unsure how this is done in the US). Once you need a tachograph and a requirement to keep driving records, it would cut back on sales. It also still allows "legitimate" usage. This would weaken the argument against the change.

Basically anything where you can't see a 5 year old within 0.5m of your bumper should be under "truck" rules, not "car" rules.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

    For this purpose, it’s not a question of banning them, but adding pedestrian safety regulations. You can still build these monstrosities while also providing better visibility and less likelihood for victims to be run over.

    It’s just banning the “wall” of the front. That’s only required as a style choice and style should not trump safety

    I’ve actually been paying more attention lately since my brother bought a Chevy Behemoth Silverado EV. As a big and tall guy I’m used to being bigger than most people I encounter, but looking at the “wall” at the front of these vehicles, it is also well above my center of mass. I would also be thrown down and run over. It’s not just children but there really is no “big enough” to survive getting hit with those

    (And yes I will keep giving my brother a hard time. After All these years of owning a house and large property where he could have argued he needed a truck, he gets one after he gave up that property. He bought this monstrosity to commute alone and do road trips alone. Nothing to tow. Nothing to haul.)

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    “Nothing to to tow, nothing to haul.” is so typical. And when they do it’s something even a sedan could pull or a van would have been better for. And then they’ll claim they want winter safety even as I comfortably rip by them in a blizzard with my goddamn BRZ(partly because I actually bought winter tires and they think their frozen “all-terrain” tires are good enough).

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I know a guy who's like 250 lbs and like 3 feet wide at the shoulders and he has driven an early 2000s honda fit hatchback for two decades with a family of four. He has a work truck he borrows sometimes to haul things, which he does way more than anyone I know with a truck (farmworkers excluded). Nobody needs one of these shitty ass giant trucks.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    100%! It’s all ego and/or stupidity. I’m 6’-5” and get in that BRZ no problem. People ask me how I fit and it’s like…”easily?”. It’s really not that big a deal!

    Some old coworkers of mine rode motorcycles(most of us did, it was a bike shop) and the two sales guys who had been to the track once bought F-150s for the purpose(not a trailer, they were going to use the bed). The poorer parts guy had a little Ford Transit that fit his Ninja and the guy who made MotoGP parts on the side and raced semi-professionally had a Mercedez Metris that he could keep locked up tight. My Ninja just rode on a trailer when it needed to move.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    We fixed the problem with SUV blindspots by putting rear view cameras on cars, I almost wonder if the solution here is more cameras. Front-facing would get much dirtier tho.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    Maybe, but why not

    • bumper must be a specific height
    • headlights must be a specific height
    • hood must be sloped so a standard driver can see X
    • front face must be lower than center of mass for X, so they are more likely to go over than under
    • hood must deform on pedestrian impact (I believe this is required in parts of Europe)

    You can do all this to greatly improve survivability of your victims and it only impacts style choices. You can still drive your monstrosity while not killing other people

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    @BanMe @AA5B Cameras do nothing for people who are hit with the vehicle because the driver is operating it negligently or to reduce the environmental impact (in fact they increase it by using more energy & rare earth minerals). Cameras are a very expensive harm reduction strategy, not a full solution to the problem of oversized vehicles.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    I'm feeling similarly. Require a minimum sight lines for shorter humans in front of the vehicle, and lower weight/size limitations on vehicles for a standard Class D license, and a short 1-2 year grandfather period for folks who already own a vehicle that they'll require additional licensing to continue driving so that they can either trade it or get their ducks in a row and continue driving their vehicle legally.

    These gigantic trucks and SUVs are unacceptable on our roads and they keep adding extra wear to our roads due to the increased weight, require larger parking spaces and of course are far more deadly to those outside of the vehicle in any kind of collision. They need to be regulated back into the niches their classes were originally designed to fill.

    And for those saying "oh but I need a bed for this that and the other" guess what? you can buy a trailer. Drive around an efficient vehicle then hook up an 8 foot trailer (bigger than basically any truck bed these days!) when you need to haul shit

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