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Feds target SUV, truck size to save pedestrian lives — ‘one of the last frontiers of vehicle safety’

https://chicago.suntimes.com/transportation/2024/09/18/pedestrian-suv-truck-design-regulation

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stunned safety advocates by proposing new vehicle design rules that it says will help reduce pedestrian deaths. The rules will likely change vehicle design permanently.

Feds target SUV, truck size to save pedestrian lives — ‘one of the last frontiers of vehicle safety’

34 comments

workerONE

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Why do little cars have to withstand a collision with a huge truck but trucks just get bigger and bigger? The new Hummer is over 9,000lbs (4,090 kg)

BeMoreCareful

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The last frontier, that showed up like forty years ago.

GiddyGap

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I have conservative family members who deliberately go for the biggest SUV with the lowest gas mileage available just to "stick it to the government." If the government told them that they couldn't drive a small car, they'd be out there shopping for a small car. It's incredibly childish.

Ghostalmedia

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Yeah, a lot of stupid culture war crap is now tied up into the car your own.

If people actually prioritized performance, handling, visability, cost to drive, and cabin features, then a LOT of people would probably be better off with a sedan.

If you don’t need the space, you can get so much more bang for your buck with a smaller car. The $10k more you spend on the larger form factor could go toward a nicer power train and cabin luxury features.

Maeve

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Not to mention longer term cost of maintenance and insurance.

Voyajer

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BlueLineBae

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The whole chart is rather fascinating and eye opening: Vehicle visibility

brbposting

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An articulated quarry hauler is barely worse than a pick-up truck

‘murca

brbposting

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Thanks, embedding:

TownhouseGloryHole

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Astounding. Hummer H2 beating the Sierra by 3m is incredible. A truck designed almost exclusively to express how selfish you are and it has better viability.

Cadeillac

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This chart is eye-opening...I always thought Hummers were made by...Hummer...

kobra

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I will gladly trade my SUV in for a gently used M1

affiliate

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what if the M1 doesn’t have a touch screen though

Blackout

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Only 20 gallons to the mile, not bad

nothing

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This is actually a good point. And here's a video discussing the issue.

https://youtu.be/YpuX-5E7xoU?si=cmwWAFTUyAFt40mL

tal

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That's not to mention the optics.

https://www.quora.com/Where-does-the-M1-Abrams-have-the-optics-of-its-main-cannon-I-dont-know-anything-about-tanks

#4 is the optic for the RWS. This cannot be used to aim the main gun, but it can be used as an alternate form of CITV, especially since it’s so damned high off the ground, it may be able to see over obstacles. Not as good as CITV in the thermal range, though.

That being said, some civilian vehicles are gonna have their own camera systems too, so...

spyd3r

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This is misleading because being higher up you can see much better further ahead, and over obstacles and barriers. Your special awareness is much better at distances that are relevant for avoiding collisions. If something is 1.5m away its too late anyway.

The angle is also incorrect because they are putting the eyes of the driver straight in line with the hood, which is not how its been in any vehicle I've ever driven, the head should be higher or further forward.

Voyajer

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The origin of the line is at head height...

Also these vehicles gain in distant visibility at the expense of everyone else on the road, blocking their views.

billiam0202

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GOP judge declaring NHTSA unconstitutional in 3... 2... 1...

Samvega

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Humans have quite literally invented cars that are better at killing people, especially children.

"I don't want children to die in accidents," say people as they drive huge masses of metal that might do just that.

ThePantser

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I'll keep driving my PEV Minivan that has 360 cameras and I can see in front of me easily. I care about children's lives, unlike bubba in his lifted pickup truck. Why do you need a 4x4 lifted 3 feet and you live in the suburbs?

skuzz

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...you know what they say about guys with big lift...

Funny thing is, the people I know with large vehicles around here always bemoan how difficult it is to park, yet don't want to solve the obvious problem because twice a year they want to haul a fridge to the dump or pick up something from the home improvement store rather than have it delivered or rent a truck for an hour.

gamermanh

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always bemoan how difficult it is to park

I've made multuple older men incredibly upset by laughing at them when they say this

They get pissy and respond with "well you're some skinny long haired hippie who drives an EV so what do you know?" Which, yeah, all of that is true

But then I pull up the pictures of me 4x4ing in the rain and snow through fire smoke at work, pointing out that I drove a RAM3500 fully kitted out and lifted with a giant set of 4 110g tanks in the bed blocking anything other than my mirror and cam view, yet I only had issues parking when people didn't know how to stay in their own lines, and that I regularly had to squeeze my truck into areas with an inch or less of clearance in order to do my fucking job on a construction site, and I never hit anything but a rock (downhill, someone left a fucking rug out on some dirt in the rain and when my truck hit it I just slid til I hit the rock, company deemed me blameless)

They usually get flustered and change the subject p quick at that point

socphoenix

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Counting the differences in cost (loan, gas, expected maintenance, insurance etc) it came out to where I would have to use the truck to haul something at least a very weekend possibly more to break even with a much newer car vs just renting a truck once or twice a year. Pickups are almost universally owned by people too stupid for middle school math imo.

Nougat

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Why do you need a 4x4 lifted 3 feet and you live in the suburbs?

Penis issue

18_24_61_b_17_17_4

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Your minivan is huge too...

cogman

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Yes, but mini vans aren't lifted 20 ft off the ground with absurdly huge hoods for no apparent reason.

The reason trucks and SUVs are killing kids is because you can see a 4ft tall person that isn't standing 100 yards in front. These are the only vehicles with this problem.

dafo

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But it's still blocking the view for us in normal sizes cars.

I don't know how many times I've had to hope for the best and carefully inch forwards/backwards when being next to a minivan/SUV/pickup. I've been close to being in an accident a number of times because of, well mostly, SUVs.

niucllos

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Additionally, the raised and blunt hood height makes a full-body impact with no force dissipation much more likely, particularly for shorter people, where a more traditional hood shape allows a struck pedestrian to roll over the top and avert some of the force of the strike

thefartographer

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20-foot lifted vehicles would probably be considerably safer:

They'd easily have the clearance to safely navigate over most pedestrians in their path.
Any attempts to balance them well would be incredibly expensive and you'd likely have many drivers whose cars would fall over from insufficiently sized tires or whatever.

Hmmm... 🤔 Now that I think about it, maybe we should subsidize these lift kits to make this a self-solving problem

LilB0kChoy

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It’s out of control. I drive a 2019 Kona and I moved to that from my 2013 Elantra. Last time I was at the dealer was looking at the new Konas and they’re bigger, too big for me.

RestrictedAccount

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If you guys could stop trying to take away things, people love six weeks before the election that would be great

ValorieAF

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Why is driving a big heavy piece of crap so important to you? It's not like there aren't other cars or smaller SUVs you can drive. And it's not like guns where there is technically a valid use case for them.

Fridgeratr

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I love pedestrians not being killed.