Big ass trucks can’t see pedestrians immediately in front and to the side of them because they’re so tall.
I own one of those trucks. There’s several feet in front of me that I literally cannot see. Some models had an optional front facing camera to address the issue.
There’s no reason for the height, other than “We can’t be shorter than other brand”. It’s less fuel efficient, less convenient for hauling things (you have to lift stuff that much further into the bed), makes it handle worse, and makes it less good for towing. Unfortunately there are no heavy duty short trucks being made. Nor can you really lower the current truck due to the design of the rear axle. You might get a few inches, but that’s about it.
I really like the Ridgeline, but it cannot handle the work we do with our 3/4 ton pickup (towing a heavy trailer).
I hope you know you’re an outlier. The vast majority of people who own trucks in the US don’t use them for things like towing or hauling.
According to this data from Axios,[1] on a self-reported survey, only 7% of US truck owners regularly use them for towing, and only 28% regularly use them for hauling.
87% use them for fucking grocery shopping.
Yes, and this is the kind of thing I hate. We have tools to use them, but get looked down on because most people are buying completely insane tools for their actual use case / needs. It also leads to the fricken “Luxury Trucks” and all around the trucks costing more and more.
Of course, we’re also privileged to be able to get a truck used, and not drive it unless we need to haul or tow something heavy. So we drive much smaller vehicles for commuting or getting groceries.
They are called pavement princesses and mall crawlers.
Lifted trucks and jeeps that have never even seen a gravel road
I think you mean “street princesses”. “Pavement princesses” seems to be slang for prostitutes.
Had a friend in tenth grade die that way, large truck hit him while he was crossing an intersection on a bike (they didn’t stop at a stop sign). Even on the bike he wasn’t tall enough to be seen over the hood.
And not just big ass trucks. I sat in a toyota highlander the other day and the hood was tall and massive. Why? Just for style. It has a small 4 cylinder. The nhtsa or whoever needs to add a car safety category for visibility. Until then massive grills and low visibility will be the norm.
Ironically pedestrian crumple zone requirements mean biggers hoods.
This doesn’t surprise me. I’m always so nervous, every driver seems so distracted. I hear everyone wants to keep their autonomy to drive, (this is in theory if autonomous driving was safe or the roads had rails for example) but they also want to look at their phones and do other shit. 😩
It’s not the drivers. I suppose you could say drivers have become slightly more distracted due to touchscreen consoles, but the real issue is vehicles keep getting larger and pedestrians no longer ride up the hood onto the roof when being hit by a car. Instead you are hit by a 5 foot tall wall (grill) and die, and the driver doesn’t brake because they never even saw you due to the enormous blind spot in front of their truck/suv
EDIT: I’m getting a disturbing amount of pushback on this comment, so I’m dropping this video here: These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us | Not Just Bikes
It feels dishonest to say it isn’t drivers. You could see them coming from the sides more if you pay more attention?
Is driving with a blind spot NOT something we are taught to check and eliminate and are the fault of the driver to chose that vehicle/not adjusting or getting mirrors, not driving slower, etc?
I think we’re lying to ourselves if we don’t think people could do better.
In theory. But how will that behavioral change be implemented? In my view this is unrealistic and often used as a cop out to avoid the more difficult infrastructural changes needed. Many countries in Europe have developed proven strategies to reduce pedestrian deaths but in the US we choose not to implement them. The carnage will continue until we decide we’re actually going to solve the problem.
You discount that we have a horrible and state-by-state driving rules and training? We do not have skilled people on the road, we have people who have no respect for the machine they are in. Do you not think the government could regulate that, too?
Some room for improvement here but many people will ignore training regardless of how in-depth it may be. So I think the bigger issue is the infrastructure that allows and encourages unsafe behavior.
If it’s going to work you’ll need meaningful levels of enforcement and punishments for unsafe behavior, including license suspension. Suspensions are rarely used today because it’s seen as “too harsh” for most infractions. The lack of alternatives to car based transit makes it an economic death sentence. So again, the solution will need changes to and investment in infrastructure.
But the problem is bad so I’m certainly open to these educational approaches in combination with other changes. What I’m not open to is the common attitude of “It’s those other bad drivers’ fault so I personally don’t need to change anything.” Until this gets better I think all road users have a moral obligation to advocate for change.
I edited my post to include a video I highly recommend you watch as it will better explain what I was saying.
Here’s one of the comments on the video:
We know someone who’s 4 year old child was killed in a crosswalk. They were walking as a family and their daughter was walking just behind the dad. The SUV thought everyone was through the crosswalk and drove right over the child and killed her. She didn’t see her. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
Oh wow. One event! Definitely clearly we don’t have a road full of people who were teens who halfassed their license in big vehicles they likely should have more license to handle.
But you know. We currently dont have a federal standards for regular class C i am sure we can definitely just get smaller cars made, that’ll fix underqualified drivers.
You tell me a story of a driver who doesn’t pay attention to the number of people who enter and leave the walkways and the car is the issue?
it feels more like everyone in the entire society is more stressed and desperate and that’s reflected in the driving
I remember seeing studies in the US[1] that showed that wreckless driving had drastically increased during the pandemic… and stayed high afterwards.
Everyone is at the end of their rope. The problem is that everyone is also taking that out on everyone else, even though everyone else is in the exact same position.
I’d rather meet the consequences of being late, then being an unsafe driver.
Just take a moment to slow down, and look out for pedestrian crossing signs. Drive the speed limit, You will make it to your destination, it’s not a race.
Mandatory in-person yearly testing for drivers over 59 and those numbers will plummet
I understand the reason people say this, but… This country runs on making individuals take care of themselves. A lot of people who reach that age literally have nobody else. We don’t have a sufficient public transit system to accommodate the people who really shouldn’t be driving.
So I’m not really sure about this one. In a way, it’s just punishing lonely old people with no extra money and no one to do errands for them, and leaving them to possibly die from being unable to take care of themselves.
I’m not saying the way things are is okay. We really need more support for the elderly in this regard (especially in regards to public transit), because this is why a huge number of them continue driving beyond when they should be: because they literally have to because they have no one else they can rely on but themselves.
Also, it helps to read the article which references many reasons this is happening, and none of them are the elderly.
From the Fucking Article:
Pedestrian deaths have been climbing since 2010 because of unsafe infrastructure and the prevalence of SUVs, which tend to be more deadly for pedestrians than smaller cars, according to Martin. When the pandemic arrived, there was an even greater surge as empty roads gave way to speeding and distracted driving.
The pandemic has waned, but cases of reckless driving — and subsequently the number of Americans killed while walking — has not. The new data, released on Friday, shows the U.S. continues to lag in its effort to improve road safety, even as experts say some solutions are within reach.
Nary a word about elderly drivers making an impact. I’d suspect the NHTSA probably has more data about this than either of us do, so I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it’s “not the fucking elderly.”
I actually did read the “fucking article”, and others besides. Also, if you’re going to be condescending to people on Lemmy, at least stop talking like you’re narrating the next 2am chili. It is the judgment of this court (me) that you have posted cringe.
Anyway:
https://siegfriedandjensen.com/passing-the-test/
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813266
https://www.iihs.org/topics/older-drivers/license-renewal-laws-table
Example 1, New Mexico:
- While New Mexico allows you to renew your license every 4 or 8 years as a personal option, drivers 71–79 have to renew every 4 years
- Drivers 75 and older must prove adequate vision every renewal and must renew in person
- Drivers over 79 must renew every single year
- NM is rated as the 10th most difficult state to get a license
- New Mexico was one of only four states to post a decrease in road fatalities from 2019 to 2020
Example 2, Ohio:
- While Ohio allows you to renew your license every 4 or 8 years as a personal option, drivers over 65 have to renew every 4 years
- Drivers over 65 and older must prove adequate vision every renewal and must renew in person
- There are no additional restrictions past 65
- Ohio is rated as the 2nd-easiest state to get a license, eclipsed only by SD
- Ohio posted a 6.7% increase in road fatalities from 2019 to 2020
Conclusion? Being too old to drive has even more of an impact on road unsafety than giving out drivers’ licenses in cereal boxes does.
I feel sorry for old people who have no other way to get around, I really do. Letting blind people with dementia unsafely operate motor vehicles so they can run people over while trying to get to grocery stores and medical appointments isn’t a solution, nor is it an acceptable stopgap till public transportation can pick up the slack. It’s gotta stop right now.
I feel sorry for old people who have no other way to get around, I really do.
This is a problem POV however. It’s like - I don’t care about old people. Just like the pandemic in fact - those olds should count for less than anyone else. I could make a similar stupid comment like “I feel sorry for these people who choose to walk near roads where it’s dangerous, I really do.”
Do you see how insane that sounds?
I don’t have a solution, but saying as soon as you retire (turn 65) you should be locked in a house and out of cars because now you’re dangerous is wrong too. I personally think the most likely solution politically and realistically is going to be self driving cars. Cause I don’t see you forcing elderly out of driving in the US.
I do see how insane that sounds. Stuff usually sounds pretty insane when you jump to conclusions and make shit up. For example:
Clearly you don’t like it when old people get their keys taken away. After all, when you retest driving aptitude more frequently and catch more unsafe drivers, it’s exactly like when we were testing for COVID too frequently and finding more cases, just like President Trump said. Really all you’re doing is viciously and violently trampling on the elderly individual’s God-given right to drive their car—possibly through a farmer’s market—for the lame-ass reason of “protecting public safety” or some liberal bullshit like that. Just like how the deaths of the immune-compromised and elderly were a necessary sacrifice, collateral damage to ensure I had the FREEDOM to go see Transformers 14 in theaters in 2020. Fucking with the rights of the individual to protect public safety? What’s next? Telling people they can’t go up in Target without a vaccine card or at least a mask on their face—a muzzle, really—or even worse, telling me I’m not allowed to take a dump on the sidewalk? Those fucking Commies. Thanks for agreeing with me on this, we’re anti-vax bros for life!
Do you see how insane that sounds?
This is why we don’t jump to conclusions. I never said that the “olds should count for less than anyone else”. Wanna know what I did? I spent the pandemic yelling at people to be safe and unselfish so that my immune-compromised spouse doesn’t die, and listening to them scream at me that her death is a price they’re willing to pay. I lost my job over it. At no point did I put words in their mouths or deliberately misinterpret their words in order to try to “gotcha” them on a forum, those monkeyshines were beneath me.
Consider the following:
I don’t have a solution, but saying as soon as you retire (turn 65) you should be locked in a house and out of cars because now you’re dangerous is wrong too.
I agree, which is why I didn’t say it, or imply it, or even leave that open to interpretation. I write carefully. If you got at least Bs and Cs in the Language Arts classes where they taught context and context clues, you are well-equipped to read what I write, reading it as it’s written, and taking it at face value. To put it more directly: the right interpretation for what I say is the one I’m writing for you.
Now that we have that straightened out, here’s the spoon-feeding version of my point, just like how you feed the people you apparently believe are cool to drive 15-foot Buicks at highway speeds (hope you don’t mind my jumping to conclusions again, you did it like 20 times).
When people can’t drive safely, we don’t let ‘em. Because it’s not safe. When people age, their eyesight goes. They can’t react as fast. They can’t brake hard enough, or in time. They can’t check their blind spot because they can’t turn their head. Not all of them, but many. Which is why I propose we at least just take that test we use, with the eye chart down at the DMV, and make it so that you have to do that more often when you get older. Once you hit your 60s or 70s, every year. People who are still capable of driving safely would be allowed to. People who can no longer safely drive wouldn’t be allowed to. Is that such a bad thing? Is it prejudicial to deprive those who cannot drive safely of the privilege of unsafe driving? In the interest of public safety, you have to infringe on individuals’ liberty at times, because your rights end where another person’s rights begin. That’s why we have compulsory vaccination to attend school, that’s why we don’t let people with untreated epilepsy fly airliners, and it’s why we make people take a test to make sure they can see with their eyeballs before we issue or renew their drivers’ license. There is one alternative: knowingly allowing people to stay on the road whom we know wouldn’t be if we checked to make sure it was safe. And that’s it. There’s no other way around it.
I meant it when I said I feel bad for them. I have empathy, I’m not a monster. I hate it, it sucks, but objectively it’s better to make sure unsafe drivers are off the road than to inflict false mercy.
Now youre the one being condescending. How about you reevaluate your hypocrisy
I really don’t know if “no u” is a very compelling argument.
??? I was pointing your behaviour. I’m not the guy you were arguing with.
I have no idea why you’re thinking I’m anti-vax. I’m pro-vax. I’m also pro proving you can drive to drive, but we don’t do that in the US and the reason is in large swaths of the land, if you can’t drive you’re going to die alone in your house due to lack of food, medicine or other needed things. Because the only way to get them is to drive to the darn store.
But the other thing that isn’t teased out that I can see is how that riskier driving interacts with cities. That is, NY data is by population overwhelmed by the NYC area, and maybe Buffalo. But that’s by land area - you know, places people might drive - like 1% of the state. So when you’re likely to be the only car on the road, or one of a few - how does the risk change there from a public policy perspective?
So - we should compare fatalities from potentially poor driving to expected fatalities from being unable to get necessities where they’re living because they can’t drive. I’d argue if the latter is higher, then they should keep driving from a safety perspective across a state population.
Now, because I like arguing on the internet, I’ll pick apart your reply to me.
Letting blind people with dementia unsafely operate motor vehicles so they can run people over while trying to get to grocery stores and medical
You talk like most elderly drivers ought to be in an assisted care home - that they probably can’t manage to put on pants in the morning. Or would forget that they’re actually driving. Sure, for that extreme I agree, they’re a danger to themselves just living alone, forget about driving.
nor is it an acceptable stopgap till public transportation can pick up the slack. It’s gotta stop right now.
Ok, so if you read that - we’re going to take away the only form of transportation for these people and worry about fixing it later - that’s what lead to my initial reply. Do you dispute this? Am I making an unfounded leap of logic that many people need a car to get to a store and bring back food? And these people tend to not be in heavily populated areas.
I feel sorry for old people who have no other way to get around, I really do.
I think this part is way too broad a statement. To me, it reads like you mean anyone that could be designated as old. You certainly were not as clear in the first post. I’d argue your problem is you’ve been focusing on age rather than driving ability in all your replies. There are plenty of younger unsafe drivers. And instead of acting ageist, you could have focused on tested driving ability. But you didn’t initially, and are now pivoting in the second post like I should have read this out of the first post, though also berating me from reading into your posts.
Note too that there’s a lot of waffling between your stats on being 65+ and your various characterizations as dangerous. I imagine if you actually defined your terms there I might agree more with you. I really thought your characterizations
Letting blind people with dementia was hyperbole because if that is what you mean exactly - I don’t think we actually let blind people drive. By policy anyway, IDK about enforcement - and in any case that’s so anodyne a point as to make me wonder why you even posted. So I was left inferring from the stats you posted, which again all seemed to be completely about age and not at all about ability.
I firmly believe the reason the US makes it so easy to get and keep a drivers license is because the states don’t think there’s an alternative for enough people that trying to change that would get them voted out. So not having a solution to offer is also just saying you want to complain into the internet that the world isn’t perfect according to you. Again, no shit.
I have a quick question before I rip your comment to shreds: are you intentionally misinterpreting me, or are your reading comprehension skills just super, super bad? Because I read your entire comment and it’s abundantly clear that you missed the point completely. Like, you’re not even close. If English isn’t your first language, that would probably explain it; is it?
I’m generally considered to have good reading comprehension and English is my first language. Given the other posts below you, have you considered you are really bad at writing clearly?
You are making a lot if assumptions there, and a lot of factors go into those numbers outside if age and easy of getting a license. Not saying you are wrong, and it certainly is something we should be addressing, but this doesn’t prove your point.
It probably isn’t good enough for an official NTSB report, but it is good enough for a reasonable person—i.e. someone who isn’t trying to emotionally argue backwards from their pet conclusion—to draw a conclusion from it as long as their scope is conservative.
People have been driving like goddamn maniacs ever since the pandemic. It’s like the lack of traffic hit a reset switch and made everyone forget how to behave.
I was about to ask whether they were killed by car accidents or by drive-by shootings
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The growth of SUVs and big ass trucks with big ass blind spots in front of them are major factors in this.
You’re sure? I’m not from the U.S. I heard you better pay close attention to the cars or you might get run over. Your best bet is to buy a large SUV or truck to be safe inside that thing on the roads. The article also says that. I’m not trying to be overly sarcastic here. But normally, people who operate heavy machinery are the ones supposed to be attentive and look out. There are countries where people walk or drive bicycles and it kinda works. Also whole big cities like NYC where people live without driving everywhere themselves.
When I walk along a street, I count the number of drivers I see using their phones. It’s been a consistent 50%. And the ones who aren’t on their phones tend to be elderly. So what’s surprising about an increase in pedestrian deaths?
