Personally, I think the "electric SUVs are bad for pedestrians" is just there to replace "SUVs are bad for the environment". Basically, this isn't a real argument, just a vibes thing, where big trucks are conservative coded and smaller cars are liberal-coded.
In the grand scheme of things the difference in MPG of an SUV vs. a sedan is minimal when it comes to climate change, and the difference in pedestrian danger from large car vs. small car is minimal. That is: all kinds of cars are dangerous to pedestrians! All kinds of ICE vehicles are bad for the environment! People are splitting hairs trying to turn vehicle body type into a shibboleth for good vs. bad person.
> I think the "electric SUVs are bad for pedestrians" is just there to replace "SUVs are bad for the environment". Basically, this isn't a real argument, just a vibes thing
Actually both of those statements can be true. Trucks have gotten larger and more dangerous for pedestrians and so it has become more common for people to point out vehicle size as a concern in addition to environmental issues.
> the difference in pedestrian danger from large car vs. small car is minimal.
I am not an expert here but from what I have heard, this is false.
> Personally, I think the "electric SUVs are bad for pedestrians" is just there to replace "SUVs are bad for the environment". Basically, this isn't a real argument, just a vibes thing, where big trucks are conservative coded and smaller cars are liberal-coded.
It's not a vibes thing, SUVs are more dangerous to everyone on the road, doesn't matter if it's electric or petrol, they are heavier, causing more road wear, they are taller, killing pedestrians more easily; being heavier also means they carry much more energy at the same speed than a smaller car.
> and the difference in pedestrian danger from large car vs. small car is minimal.
Well, and this is a "vibes thing", all the data shows the opposite, you'll need some supporting data to make this statement.
SUVs are only better for their owners, consuming more space, more road, and more lives than other types of smaller cars...
Not everything is "wokeness" and "muh liberals", there's objectivity in the basics of motion physics, just run the numbers for weight and velocity. Check any study on pedestrian safety regarding cars with much higher ground clearing, it's pretty obvious what the data says.
You may personally think that, but traffic safety data is unambiguous. The higher the front end and the heavier the vehicle, the more likely pedestrians are to die.
Sure, there is a difference, but I'm talking vs. "no car". Driving any car increases chance of killing pedestrians above bike or walking. If you kill 5 pedestrians per million miles in a sedan and an SUV kills 6 pedestrians per million miles, we are splitting hairs.
My point is the people yelling about dangerous SUVs are discounting their own car use as zero harm, rather than considering themselves to be doing something harmful and SUV drivers doing something slightly more harmful.
> Hampton Clay Gabler, a professor in the department of biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech, [ ... ] described the vulnerability of pedestrians when struck by an SUV as a geometry problem of sorts because SUVs and pickups tend to be tall compared with pedestrians and have a blunter front end. That positioning is more likely to put someone’s head or chest in line to be struck during the initial impact with a vehicle. “(Not to diminish leg injuries but) serious head and chest injuries can actually kill you,” Gabler said in a telephone interview.
(It is probably true, though, that most vehicles this heavy are tall as well, so weight would still be correlated to how dangerous a vehicle is.)
Do they? Model X weighs 5600lbs, here - https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla/model-x - and that's bigger than any of the other, more popular, Teslas other than the Cybertruck.
Tesla 3 - up to 4065.
Tesla S - up to 4941.
Tesla X - up to 5531.
Tesla Y - up to 4416.
Chevy Bolt - 3563.
Leaf - up to 3853.
Mach-E - up to 4920.
ID.4 - up to 4848.
E-Tron - up to 5754.
BMW iX - up to 5659.
Taycan - up to 5121
Kona EV - up to 3715.
I like how you just excluded all the comparable EVs. Here they are for completeness, most coming close to or topping out the standard 7k where they will post "No Trucks" signs.
Ford Lightning - 6,893
Hummer EV - 9,063
Rivian R1T - 7,148
Lordstown Endurance - 6,450
Chevrolet Silverado EV - 8,532
RAM 1500 REV - est. 7,500
Alpha Wolf - 7,088
"No truck" signs are for semi trucks, not pickup trucks. These semis (just the truck, no trailer) weigh 2-3x more than an average pickup truck/Cybertruck and 3-5x more than an average EV.
This is not true - there are other factors at play. The angle of the bumper and where the bumper comes into contact with a human matters a lot - if it is below the human's center of mass, they are much less likely to be thrown under the vehicle and run over.
You’re off by about 20 years - it was the 1920s when car manufacturers were able to get legislation restricting public streets to their customers[1] - but also this ignores the magnitude: yes, cars have always been a public health hazard but the manufacturers reversed a multi-decade safety improvement trend a decade or two back because it boosted their profits, and that happened only in the United States. If our roads were as safe as Germany’s, while still not absolutely safe there would be an annual death toll reduction in the tens of thousands and 1-2 orders of magnitude more for series injuries. That’s huge even if it’s not perfect.
One person dying does not equate to "unsafe roads" in the way that "widespread adoption of motor vehicles" does. People were frequently trampled by horse-drawn carriages prior to cars, but not at anywhere close to the rate after cars became so ubiquitous.
First, yes, but it’s not like people weren’t killed by horses or trolleys either. The death toll was never zero but it went up sharply when everyone was expected to drive much heavier vehicles at higher speeds.
Before cars it was highway robbers. Being in between places is always a higher risk location and roads are the guaranteed routes someone will go down. Cars make it safer for the people in them, the same way a stagecoach protected people up to a point.
I'm more trying to point out that traveling safety is always viewed as being about the traveller, not the people around them. So of course drivers love safer (for them) cars, while caring less that such safety comes at the expense of pedestrians.
This is a bad comparison. One occurs when travelling in unpopulated areas. But most pedestrian fatalities occur in populated areas which should be safe for pedestrians (and historically were).
I am less concerned with how today's car's relate to roads from 100 years ago and more interested in how today's cars relate to other options we have today, like bicycles and public transit.
They really should. It's a good way not to die. Just like many of the motorcyclists that die should have worn helmets, not gone above the speed limit, and not drank alcohol.
Those 3 things account for something like 60% of motorcycle deaths.
Edit:
The point is, people contribute heavily to their deaths on motorcycles. And I assume on foot too. Wearing ear phones? Chance of death through the roof. Talking on the phone? Way more dangerous. Out at night walking after a drink or two? Better watch out. Don't look both ways, twice? You're in trouble.
This is factually correct (I ride a motorcycle and did a deep dive into the death statistics before getting my license) but your conclusion is tenuous at best.
Motorcyclists consciously take the elevated risk of engaging in a known-unsafe activity and absolutely should take reasonable precautions to keep themselves safe. Even so, it's still a tragedy when someone dies on a motorcycle. Pedestrians, on the other hand, want to walk around their neighborhoods and cities without being killed.
I don't quite know the right words to respond to, "just look at the death statistics and avoid being near cars as a pedestrian," but they're not kind.
The point is, people contribute heavily to their deaths on motorcycles. And I assume on foot too.
Wearing ear phones? Chance of death through the roof.
Talking on the phone? Way more dangerous.
Out at night walking after a drink or two? Better watch out.
Don't look both ways, twice? You're in trouble.
Yeah the driver is usually doing something stupid like texting too. Which reminds me of the Werner Herzog documentary From One Second to the Next (2013) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk1vCqfYpos
The guy I responded to did basically that, trying to assign blame to drivers. Why would I care what some drivers do when I'm crossing the street? I assume all drivers are bad and act accordingly. The people that don't do that, are more likely to get hit. That's what I meant.
It's not a dichotomy. Both parties are responsible for traveling safely. The argument you're trying to put forth is disingenuous, because controlling drivers as a pedestrian is obviously a ridiculous idea; that's why we have laws.
It's arguing in bad faith to pretend there is nothing to be done about unsafe drivers or vehicles, or to pretend that only pedestrians are responsible for their own safety.
I would say that yes, at any given moment in time, the pedestrian is responsible for themselves if they want to stay safe. It's too late for any laws at that moment. You either notice the car isn't slowing down and avoid stepping out, or you do step out and hope for the best. Not a good way to stay alive.
No, all parties are responsible for traveling safely. If a vehicle wants to kill a pedestrian or bicyclist who is being careful, they can. It's very easy to do.
And it's not too late to discuss laws, because I'm not a pedestrian right now. Again, it's a bad faith argument to pretend we don't have time to discuss laws when we're not walking in traffic.
If someone wants to kill a pedestrian, that's murder. Everything else is an accident due to negligence. You can keep going in circles saying the car is driver is responsible for this and that, but that's just relying on hope that they adhere to it.
If you want to increase the odds of not dying as a pedestrian, you need to be on the lookout. End of story. I'm from the SF area. There is no shortage of people that walk with their heads down in their phone with headphones, whole crossing intersections. IMO, they are waiting to die.
>If you want to increase the odds of not dying as a pedestrian, you need to be on the lookout.
Nobody in this thread is disagreeing with this statement. Again, you are creating a false binary, where you seem to think either one party or the other is responsible for traveling safely. That is false. Walking alertly and safely improves a pedestrian's chances of being safe, but it does not guarantee their safety.
Yes. But it seems actually less dangerous then other pickups.
Other pickups seem to think that having as high as possible as big as possible vehicle front is a great thing.
Going OVER the car is what saves live. If you get hit by a F-150 it more like getting hit by a wall.
The Cybertruck also seems to have better visibility.
So this seems to me to be a case of 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king'.
In general US obsessions with pickups is stupid and I hope in my country all of them are commercial license only, not allowed on common parking spaces, ban in certain section of cities, plus very high licensing cost.
