Supersizing vehicles offers minimal safety benefits – but substantial dangers

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/supersizing-vehicles-offers-minimal-safety-benefits--but-substantial-dangers

by rntn • 1 year ago

41 11 1 year ago

ggm• 1 year ago

Current state planning obligated parking bay, lane width, cycle safety lanes, are all built to expectations of dimensions in common use. We do not expect panel vans for delivery, inter-modal container width cars to routinely park in domestic setting and when they do, its hugely disruptive and dangerous on many levels. We even stipulate times such as 4am to 6am for delivery in the city, precisely to try and minimise this risk.

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"

tmnvix• 1 year ago

I sincerely believe that one of the fundamental problems of our time is individuals' sense of entitlement. That is, 'if it is is possible, there are no laws against it, I can afford it, and I want to do it, then I will'. Consideration of collective concerns are less significant.

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.

m463• 1 year ago

I wonder if the safety tops out because of the safety tests.

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.

yellowapple2• 1 year ago

I'm wondering the same thing. Specifically on my mind are the Bollinger B1 and B2, a vaporware electric SUV and pickup (respectively) that notably didn't bother including airbags because they were so heavy that airbags weren't legally required.

theGnuMe• 1 year ago

I mean just drive a school bus at that point..

pentel-0_5• 1 year ago

This is already known. Giant SUVs are more prone to rollovers and then crushing themselves and their occupants. Mid-sized and large sedans are far safer for 2 reasons: 1. structurally, they have smaller forces to contend with over a smaller surface area which makes building a safer passenger cage area easier and 2. American safety regulations for cars are more stringent than those for SUVs and pickup trucks. Instead, it's a Cambrian explosion where megafauna race to be the largest thing on the road, and screw everyone else and fuel/battery economy.

amanaplanacanal• 1 year ago

No mention of the poor pedestrians here. If you aren't in a vehicle, sucks being you I guess.

andy81• 1 year ago

No mention of crash frequency, non-car collisions (roll etc.), or handling either.

Despite the title, the entire article seems to have missed the mark and become a marketing piece for SUVs.

metalman• 1 year ago

Driving a bigger....more powerfull vehicle is a lot of things, and comes with the resposibility to be considerate and alert. last week I was faced with braking on fresh snow, with glare ice, my choice was the quickly closing rearbumper of someone ahead, or the ditch, I aimed at the ditch, which the responding RCMP commented "and you hit it" ha ha truck stayed upright, and survived the ditching and subsequent recovery, with zero damage, in spite of ending up high sided on the frame. my personal preference is vehicles, are do everything truckasauruses, I loath running empty and light, its stock its cool, and fun, usefull, dependable, makes people look, easy to work on but I get grief, because so many of these are exclusivly used a symbols rather than for work my last truck got rear ended while stopped for traffic by a 1ton cube van, that was going full highway speed, lawsuits, and trouble is still falling out from that, but as I was in a w250 long wheelbase diesel(heavy, tough), I am more or less ok.....they cut him out of his truck....alive .....but so my point or question is, where do you draw the line? or how? there is millions of tons of random stuff, going where it needs to go, right now, and forever, in "light trucks", and many millions of people in those trucks as well, getting stuff done, sometimes its a bloated show truck, othertimes its just a working war waggon cant realy tell them apart at 100 feet

FooBarBizBazz• 1 year ago

Just get a bus pass and you'll be in the biggest passenger vehicle on the road.

Supersizing vehicles offers minimal safety benefits – but substantial dangers

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