I swear the number of car-brained people who have told me (when discussing a pedestrian or child death in a car):
Well what were they doing in the road???
Why the FUCK does it matter what they were doing in the road. I don’t care where the parents were. I don’t care what they were doing there. There is no excuse, I don’t care if it’s the freaking freeway, if you see someone you stop. But these people can’t even see over their hoods so they have no clue there’s even someone there, so they’ve shifted all blame to the other person. It couldn’t be my fault, it must be there’s!
Fuck I’m so mad at them, and the auto industry is also to blame for promoting that way of thinking. "If you’re in an auto accident, your family will be safe. Just fuck those other people right?)
It’s America’s selfishness, just blatantly on display.
The 93 ford ranger was perfect. I hate these fucking abominations we have now and I think industry grossly underestimated the demand for a sensible pickup
Yep, first gen Tacoma is perfect in my mind. The new tacos are bigger than the F150 was! Why!? It’s ridiculous.
And no modern truck owners remember those little trucks. They think being a truck owner means you have to have the biggest most ridiculous truck out there. Personally, I’d love it there was a smaller ranger sized EV truck. I’d buy one of those tomorrow if they gave up on massive monsteosities
That’s pretty homophobic
It’s hard to let people know you’re looking if they can’t see/hear you
The old Ranger wasn’t a sensible pickup though. Those things are for people that want a pickup shaped object but don’t want a full size.
If a 4x8 sheet won’t fit flat in the bed it’s just a toy designed to carry other toys around.
What percentage of F150s have the maximum bed size for that vehicle which is 8 ft?
How much drywall do you think has been moved with a pickup with a box shorter than 8 ft?
What percentage of pickup trucks do you see without a single paint scuff in the box?
It’s not the size of a truck that makes it a toy.
@Windex007 @scrubbles
My dad had a white '68 Ford Ranger. I loved that truck. He later put a camper on it and drove us all around the contiguous Western U.S.
Eh. The road is for driving. Plenty of idiots also drive. Whaddyagonnado.
I watch Berm Peak (formerly seths bike hacks) and he recently did a video on a large expensive cargo bike intended for commuting with two kids.
He commented on the high price and safety features, and the large amount of time and resources spent on design to make it safe for anyone you might run into (as it’s large, unwieldy, and heavy as hell compared to normal bikes) and he in passing comments “but no-one wants to spend on keeping anyone else safe” and my jaw just dropped.
Everyone. Everyone wants to spend on that. Everyone who isn’t a goddamn psychopath who ignores the fact that you or someone you care about is just as likely to be on either end of such an accident.
Is that really just the default way to think in the states? I’ll spend on my survival, but no-one elses?
The rules announced this week would update the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), the government’s bible for everything that’s required in a new vehicle before it’s sold — from steering wheels to rearview mirrors — to set testing procedures to simulate head-to-hood impact, with the aim of reducing head injuries. If enacted, automakers will have to test their vehicles using crash test dummies representing adult and child pedestrians for the first time. NHTSA says the changes could save up to 67 lives every year.
And they expect people to stop making trucks because of pedestrian crash testing? Seems unlikely.
At least this isn’t relying on sensors or some other nonsense. Though it might be nice to require things like visibility requirements so people driving Rams could actually see the children they’re flattening.
The full size pickups today have horrible sight lines. I own two pickups, one is a '95 F150 and one is a '05 Super Duty. Even the 10 years between the two of those trucks brought a huge difference in sight lines, but surprisingly the situational awareness is better in the '05. Harder to see a child in front of the truck but much easier to see anything to the sides and rear. Camera and backup sensors on the '05, in addition to MUCH better mirrors.
I’ve driven a modern pickup and it “feels” as big as it is. I think the hood height was nearly 4ft. Situational awareness is OK in them because of good mirrors and a camera but that front profile is insane.
I just went and measured the front of my F250 and was surprised it was 49in tall. That’s 1.2m+. The '22 I drove is only a few inches taller but it sure seemed bigger. Maybe it had a lift in the front, I don’t know.
quick edit: that drawing seems a little off though, the LOS drawn assumes the driver sights directly down the hood and being almost 6’ tall my eyes view the side window about 3in below the top frame of the door. I can’t go check how far out my first view of the ground is because my driveway is sloped.
If there isn’t a weight limit, nothing else matters. Limit truck to <3500lbs, ban cameras and require ~130 degree unobstructed view for all mirrors.
@PowerCrazy @return2ozma I like where you are heading. Probably better to define being able to see a set of targets around the vehicle. Easier to define, harder to game.
I wouldn’t ban cameras, but I would require the visibility be obtained without them. Cameras can give vision that is useful and implausible without them.
I wouldn’t ban cameras, but I would require the visibility be obtained without them. Cameras can give vision that is useful and implausible without them.
Yea this is probably the better play. But too often with modern cars they use the existence of the camera’s to make the sight lines impossibly dangerous (the infamous front facing camera on the f150 for example).
@PowerCrazy Yeah.
And why aren’t they putting in more useful cameras. My new car has at least 6 exteria cameras, but why isn’t their a pair of cameras at the rear pointing sideways? Getting that view when reversing out of a perpendicular parking space would be *really* valuable.
But that also mean truck can’t electrify. Tesla Model 3 weight around 3500lbs, a Ford F150 Lightning weight 6500lbs. That’s mean a “small” pickup truck like Nissan Navara/Frontier, which weight around 3500lbs, when turned into electric vehicle it will be around 4900lbs. A toyota Hilux 1998 also weight around 3600lbs.
It can electrify, it just can’t be carrying around batteries that will give it 300miles of range. A ford Ranger from 1990 weighs <3000lbs.
Yeah, but it would be pointless without the range considering these thing are made for off-road.
Cars didn’t used to weigh that much and the safety regulations can still exist, it just requires car manufactures to fix their safety issues without adding more weight ultimately making everyone less safe.
A 1990 Ford Ranger weighed <3000 lbs.
I’m of the opinion that vehicle registration should be by mass. I think that adding extra for use case and for expected hauling is also reasonable. We can allow the gas tax to slowly fade into a carbon tax while making registration be both the way we fund roads and a progressive tax on those who do more damage to them. We can even have different vehicle categories with different weight costs for incentives.
I like the title, I like the framing, but unfortunately it’s a nothing burger. They need to close the SUV/truck loophole and regulate vehicle size directly.