The regulations where written by auto execs. The auto industries least profitable market got regulated out of existence just as their most profitable had regulations massively loosened and new tax relief for massive trucks seemingly every year?
Surely this is the result of inept regulators and not blatant corruption!
I don’t think Toyota lobbied to stop selling corollas. This likely was intentional from the Obama admin, my recollection is that the US government owned Chrysler and GM when they made so many rules that favored big trucks over efficient cars.
Are you sure it didn't deter sales or driving? I don't have the numbers, but I suspect if we found them we would see that the average vehicle purchased used less gas and that sales of gasoline were lower than typical.
People aren't going to stop driving to work or drop $40k on an electric car (especially during a shortage) in response to a short term price spike. However, if it persists people would eventually switch over to alternatives
My post is built from two data points, my experience of driving and seeing as many trucks on the road as ever (and an increasing number of newer models, which are bigger and have distinctive grills), and extended family members explicitly griping about gas prices as they drove their trucks.
A reminder to all those bitching about constant construction. The reason why that road has to be torn up and replaced every year is because it was designed and built with avg vehicle weight in the 80s, and now avg vehicles are way heavier, and road damage increases with like the 4th power of axle weight.
Every time you choose that massive truck over a tiny corolla (Even that is massive nowadays!!) you are forcing everyone to deal with more construction.
Another interesting case of the administrative state deferring to nice-sounding slogans over an incentives-based approach that produces right outcomes. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"
They'll go with the grain for now. It's easier to sell people on "this truck is electric, but otherwise the same" than on "this truck is electric and smaller, but all you need".
Once the majority of trucks is electric they'll have an easier time finding their own identity, which likely includes getting smaller.
Bigger frame allows for bigger battery. Those huge trucks should have not been built, but once they are here and the people like them - probably as a class of car they are here to stay.
It is fun to see Toyota tundra in the middle of small European town - the streets are like upholstery to the trucks.
There is incentive to make small efficient vehicles, but also to make large efficient vehicles. Both will allow more large inefficient vehicles to be sold.
So bad policy making rather than some inherent benefit?
> Smaller light-duty trucks were regulated out of existence by tighter fuel standards. Because regulations were made looser on larger vehicles, the easiest way for automakers to meet the standard is to build a bigger truck.
It's not a coincidence the law conveniently incentivizes vehicles with larger profit margins.
Also, it's a fine excuse, basically consumers avoiding responsibility for their own choices. `But it's the Fed's fault!` The size of current trucks and SUVs are completely sociopathic in most urban environments. Certainly because they're dangerous to other road users (as the current rise in fatalities bear out). And, if you wish, because they contribute excessively to carbon emissions. These vehicles don't purchase themselves.
We're trapped in a large vehicle arms race (cars are getting bigger too). Yes, at some level that has to do with ego, or at least, an atrophied sense of civic duty and responsibility.
But I live in Montana, where easily 3 out of 5 vehicles are large SUVs or trucks. There is definitely ego there too. Whether it’s caused by owning such a large vehicle or the reason they own the same, it’s definitely there.
They largely hold you in contempt if you’re in a car or less, gassing you out with exhaust, high beams at eye level, or tailgating you until they can roar by in a cloud of exhaust.
They are bloody absurd as a single person vehicle, and even the recent high gas prices didn’t temper the number of pickups or their behavior.
Ego is why people buy trucks. Regulations disincentivize Chrysler from selling an economy cars.
Also, trucks have some of the highest inventory levels of any new vehicle type right now. If ego is the only way to explain this, why did folks buy so many more trucks last year? Did the American ego Change more than gas prices?
i heard some lady in the south say she wouldn't date a guy who didn't have a truck, those are the social forces putting pressure on a certain type of man to buy a truck. It truly is a macho thing.
Europeans still mostly buy mean looking BMWs to stroke their ego, more SUVs than sedans nowadays, but the pickup craze is also gaining some traction. We have the ranger raptor & toyota hilux on the market, although still a bit pricey and impracticle for us europeans imho.
Ego is why some people feel the need to come up with narratives where the reason other people drive better cars than them is due to some moral failure, and not due to rational decision-making.
OK but they are still making small cars. If all cars suddenly got bigger i'd get it, but the fact of the matter is that people are buying bigger trucks and not small cars despite both being available.
My pet theory is that among other factors, being the biggest on the road is desirable as a repilian-brain thing. Also selling larger vehicles that are just higher and wider for more money but that are not significantly different than similar but smaller vehicles is just easy money, really.
> Also selling larger vehicles that are just higher and wider for more money but that are not significantly different than similar but smaller vehicles is just easy money, really.
Large cars are also safer for the people in them at least. Car safety ratings are misleading because they're a relative measure based on the class of vehicle. So a "3 star" safety rating on a large SUV is considerably safer than a "5 star" safety rating on a smaller car:
> These ratings are only useful when you're comparing cars within the same size class. If a small car has a five-star rating from NHTSA, that doesn't mean it will protect you as well as five-star-rated large sedan. The same holds true for a Good rating from the IIHS. "The ratings are meant to be used to compare crashes with vehicles of similar size," said Adrian Lund, president of the IIHS. "You can't really go between the segments with these ratings."
People aren't dumb and they realize larger cars are safer for the occupants. That's at least one reason some people prefer larger vehicles.
All cars are getting bigger. There used to be a handful of us at work who all drove Subaru's and we parked them next to each other in chronological order. Was crazy to see just how much bigger the newer cars were.
It's a mix of tragedy of the commons and needing to be the same size or bigger than everyone else.
The negatives of big cars are not paid for, in large part, by the people buying the car. A bigger car needs more space, making towns and cities less efficient and more expensive. They use more resources, and gas which the negative effects of are not paid for in pollution and CO2. Edit: Also the danger to pedestrians, and people in smaller cars!
Being a normal sized car, amongst huge trucks is dangerous and all over a bad experience. It's hard to see around them, in a crash you come off worse (all other things being equal). So to not suffer this everyone slowly gets bigger, just to not suffer. If people were limited to a standard sized car then everyone would be better off (assuming people don't need a van for work or a people carrier if they have a large family).
As far as I am concerned cities of 1m or more people should not allow any cars to enter. Delivery trucks and public transit should do it. Yes it will make cities more expensive. It’ll also make them a whole lot more pleasant.
Not just charge but charge a lot. Take population of the city, divide by 1000, that’s the dollar amount you get to pay. I think smaller cities don’t need this but larger ones definitely do.
Is this yearly or per visit? I think yearly this wouldn't be a terrible figure. One issue, especially in the US is what counts as a city. For example, the SF bay areas has about 100 cities/municipal areas.
I would agree, but my city is only 600k, and I want a car free centre here as well.
Getting things like a CAZ(Clean air zone), congestion charge, low speed zones, and pedestrianised areas should have full pedestrianisation as an end goal.
I decided that I wanted to own at some point in my life every type of vehicle except a mini van. When my crossover got totaled by a deer last December I decided it was time to buy an F150 as my first pickup. Before y’all crucify me for this:
1. I live on a gentleman’s farm and actually do use this vehicle for transporting construction materials and such. That bed is rarely empty.
2. I work from home and ride my motorcycle year round. My bike gets great mph compared to even electric hybrids. My truck is used for transporting stuff that needs a truck to transport or for short runs to get kids to/from school or camp on occasion.
With that, Ford walked away from making cars. They now make crossovers, SUVs, and trucks specifically because nobody was buying cars. I have read a bunch about why and mainly it comes down to the fact that cars are just not desirable anymore. The form factor isn’t fun or fashionable, you sit on a skateboard compared to everyone else on the road, and they feel cheap. They are absolutely the economical option the same way that 50cc scooters are, but they are not an option that people actually want. You can’t convince people to buy that little cab Subaru from TFA for the same reason: it just isn’t an aspirational vehicle. I think we will see most of that form factor die out in the next 30 years in favor of hatchback crossovers and small pickups like the Ford Maverick (which by all means looks like a car replacement).
My minivan is the best road tripping vehicle I've ever owned hands down. Better visibility than an SUV thanks to the column design and a nice soft ride. Gas mileage could be better, but it's still better than the SUV. It's also been quite effective at hauling things around. The second and third row of seats get out of the way giving you a very large storage area and the ability to haul things like plywood sheets easily and out of the weather.
Yeah I know. I’ve rented them and they are pretty great. But I have no interest in owning one. A full size conversion van on the other hand very well may be my next vehicle. Something that will easily seat 8, have room in the back for a kick ass lounge/bedroom, shag carpeting throughout, a ladder to climb on the roof, and ideally all electric. Would be cool as heck.
I worked for Jaguar Land Rover for a number of years and we couldn’t bring the Defender to the US (I was told) because it lacked a proper airbag on the steering wheel. I’m sure it was slightly more complicated than that, but it makes for great story of regulation gone awry.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that I don’t think a driver’s side airbag is not worth it, I’m sure it is. But if that’s all it was, surely we would’ve just put a different steering wheel in the American version. The reality is probably more complicated, but it gets stuffed into this little anecdote.
Airbag unit itself, module, and the calibration for it. They need to smash a bunch of vehicles to do calibration. It’s not really worth it in the case of vehicles where development was shut down a long time ago.
I've heard that introducing a vehicle into the US market can be an expensive and time consuming process. Some of those foreign vehicles look interesting, though.
I always thought it was a combination of masculine insecurities and one upping your neighbors.
Edit: lifted trucks, after market front bars, louder exhaust with larger exhaust tips, truck nuts, American flags or thin blue line flags covering the rear window..
None of these are from government regulations
The need for a CDL is one obvious reason. It looks like the internet disagrees on whether CDL requirements start at class 6 or 7, so we're really only talking about 1-5. And I've definitely seen 4s and 5s on the highway that have probably never seen a spec of dirt in their life. So there are certainly some people just looking to get the biggest thing they can legally drive.
Come on. Because they are exponentially more expensive to operate and much more complex to drive. You also can't park them easily, blah blah blah, CDL, blah blah. I get your sarcasm, but people buy the largest passenger vehicle because they fit within reason but still allow them to brandish themselves.
Assuming most don't offroad; There was a study that said trucks are used for hauling/offroad less than 20%~ more than once a year). I can't find it anymore so you can call me on that.
Lifting a truck reduces efficiency by creating drag and uplift (I believe that's what it's called). It also raises the center of gravity which greatly reduces handling and increases the possibility of rolling over
Chunky off-road tires wear out faster, are less efficient, and reduce handling on the road.
Extra lights, as well as lifting your truck without adjusting the lights, blind other drivers creating a safety hazard.
So more gas, more money, less safety for everyone, but the person stands out more, like large horns on animal, it's all about peacocking.
And yes, I know this is done in other ways, fancy loud sports cars, showing off money, clothing, etc. If that was going to your response, then I'll throw down the whataboutism card and do a double reverse move and point out those have less effect on the environment and safety. Yes, I know fast fashion is bad for the environment, kids in blahstan, but it's about levels not bad or good.
My wife has a large truck and we bought it when we had no neighbors living in the middle of nowhereville Montana. She bought it because she was terrified to drive her prius around because bigger trucks would tail gate, break too late and nearly kill her, and generally antagonize the smaller car. So she got a giant Dodge Ram and now feels safe to drive. Now that we've moved out to the city, she feels even safer.
I like that when I hit two deer in it there was zero, absolutely zero, damage to the vehicle. Thank you brush guard.
can you expand on that? The lack of self-awareness because she would prefer to be in the big vehicle? She should lower how safe she feels because ... it would make a car driver safer?
I'd love to. Your story went from driving a Prius in the countryside to happily mowing down deer in your giant truck while living in the city.
Presumably others are now terrified to be around your massive vehicle, and you don't appear to have bought it for a practical purpose, so the premise that your wife was made to feel unsafe is then not an indictment of industrial sized vehicles making the roads less safe for others. Instead, it is embracing the stereotypical American pursuit of having the biggest baddest mfing vehicle on the road in a "fuck you I got mine" race to the bottom. It reads as a pretty good satire: "Woman in fear of being crushed by giant vehicle feels much better now that others fear being crushed by her giant vehicle."
In a comment that says "masculine insecurities and one upping your neighbors," I reply with an anecdote about a female feeling safer, showing that the statement is not universal.
You say the comment is lacking in self awareness because she has become what she feared. I'd say that is not lacking self awareness though it definitely feeds into the "race to the bottom." That is orthogonal to self awareness, it is tragedy of the commons. She has no obligation to lower her sense of safety to make others feel better.
"The city"? That's not well defined because there are suburban areas where crime is greater than cities and vice versa.
As for safety
"In 2013-16, car occupants were only 28 percent more likely to die in collisions with SUVs than with cars" [1] So you are correct. There is one problem here and that's
"Although pickups are also less of a threat than they used to be, in 2013-16 they were still 2½ times as likely to kill the driver of a car they crashed into, compared with a car colliding with another car"
This reminds me of hoarding, thinking the way you or your wife does just keeps upping the game. Maybe you'll need an even bigger truck because all trucks are large to feel safe. Now everyone is driving fuel inefficient vehicles both wasting money and hurting the environment. You said you are rural so I wonder how much you spend on gas and what could you do with that savings.
It's not as simplistic as "penis size" it's part of a culture where being manliness and independence is valued. People are also told we need to be tougher and how we are losing what makes America great.
For example "In the trailer for "The End of Men," Tucker Carlson worries about "the total collapse of testosterone levels in American men,"
Yes it is and according to what you linked to "According to Lokeshwar, potential causes for these declines could be increased obesity/BMI, assay variations, diet/phytoestrogens, declined exercise and physical activity, fat percentage, marijuana use, and environmental toxins."
Tucker Carlson is using it as a very thin excuse to basically make a series about how men need to be more like a particular cultural concept of men.
Here's the trailer for "The End of Men" nowhere does it mention that study or a testosterone drop. Maybe the show itself touches on that but in my opinion that would only be so people like you could justify what is basically a propaganda video for right wing masculine culture.
I also see how VW would now like to have their fine back, seeing how you were never serious about emissions, that being just an elaborate plot; and sue for damages.
Because vehicle weight is a major factor in fuel efficiency that’s inherent to the problem and can’t be regulated away. Meanwhile, some people actually need large trucks.
Not sure if it’s the intent but a large vehicle carrying a trailer with 10,000lbs. Is much more efficient than a small vehicle that might need to make 5 or 10 trips to move the same load. In that sense, the larger vehicle is more fuel efficient.
I think it's something like, a plane carrying 400 people over a long distance is more efficient than if those 400 people drove that same distance in 400 cars. Something like that.
This feels more like a political statement than a researched perspective. Is there proof that the F-150 of perhaps 2007 is smaller than that or 2012? Did the truck sizes change to become smaller once the emissions rule was revoked?
I volunteer to help manage parking lots and I've definitely noticed that vehicles are getting larger and larger.
The emissions rule was relaxed/revoked by Trump, however California maintained the higher standard (and the auto manufacturers sided with California). So because California has those standards and manufacturers want to be able to sell in California, nothing changed.
Even if the rule was revoked and manufacturers could make cars smaller again, they wouldn't because of marketing. Who would want to buy a new truck that is smaller than the last?
F-150 11th gen (2004-2008) SuperCrew 6.5' length: 5,989 mm, width 2004 mm
F-150 13th gen (2015-2020) SuperCrew 6.5' length: 6,190 mm, width 2029 mm
CAFE is a huge driver of truck sizes and this has been known for many years. There is consumer demand in there as well, and once one of the big three go bigger the rest have to follow, but if the CAFE rules didn't take size into account it would be far, far harder for auto makers to increase the size since there is a fuel consumption penalty for more mass and frontal area.
One of the big differences between pickups like the F-150 of the mid 2000's and now, is almost every truck now is a 4-door. Back then, they were 'extended cab' trucks with a very, very small bench in the back. And then for a few years (up till around 2006 or 07, they were uncommon, but had a small set of doors for the back seat (sometimes opening backwards so there was no pillar between, giving more room to climb in)
Feels very, very much like a clumsy attempt at a gotcha attack on Obama.
The truth, of course, is that ALL car and truck sizes in the US have been rapidly increasing for several decades now, and Obama had absolutely nothing to do with that. Pickup-truck culture had a lot to do with it, but isn't entirely to blame: look at the current Honda Civic vs. a 1980 model or a 1990 model.
most "1/2 ton" trucks like the F-150 have been near the legal max width (80") without needing extra lights for a long time, so that won't ever grow much bigger. Length looks to be very similar throughout the 2000s but generally it grew by a couple of inches depending on the config. Weight is also not hugely different. You would probably see a trend towards 4-door trucks that would elongate them on average and there has been a very clear trend towards increased frontal area and worse forward vision.
That said, this is the same time period where the old Ranger died which was one of the few compact pickups left. when it came back it grew to a midsize and it wasn't until a decade after the ranger died that Ford release the Maverick, which is compact but doesn't have the towing capability or long bed options of the decade old ranger.
So point being, I think there is a grain of truth to what the author is saying, but the evidence isn't well laid out and he should have presented more data about the various trucks available across the 2010's to make a stronger point.
Sure, that's one of the reasons. The other reason is that the people buying trucks prefer bigger trucks. Just the same as the people buying SUVs prefer buying bigger SUVs and people buying cars want bigger cars.
As always it's the Germans that get things right. Their class of high performance (200+ hp) 4x4 high clearance station wagons are just brilliant family cars. Think audi all road, insignia country tourer, Small-ish compared to the truck, you can cram a lot of stuff in them, relatively nimble and fun to drive, safe and can take on surprisingly challenging dirt roads. Unless you are construction worker or the like - probably most us SUV could be replaced by them. Of course they are the most unsexy and uncool cars there are
What's weird to me is that this, again, is such a uniquely American problem.
While in Europe cars have also increased in size, I believe the largest of them is at least a magnitude smaller than the abomination that is Ford F250, for example.
Driving a truck like the F-150 would severely limit your mobility in most of Europe, even in rural areas. You would be unable to drive or park in most of the city centers, and rural roads are often fairly narrow as well. So you would generally be restricted to driving on major roads.
Further, American-style trucks are not considered "classy", those with $50-60K to spend on a vehicle would likely prefer something like a Mercedes.
"Bigger trucks pose a greater hazard to pedestrians and smaller vehicles"
It's an arms race.
I used to live near a couple who were both doctors in the ER and they both drive the biggest trucks that they could find because they saw that people in large trucks tended to be fare better in accidents.
I have a small sedan for myself and a smallish SUV for my wife and kids. I feel pressure to upgrade both to something larger.
Higher mass means in a collision you "win" and have smaller accelerations than the other vehicle.
Larger potentially means even in a single-vehicle accident, there is a greater distance to decelerate over and things are less likely to intrude into the vehicle.
The IIHS, which systematically tests vehicles in simulated crashes, says:
> A bigger, heavier vehicle provides better crash protection than a smaller, lighter one, assuming no other differences. The part of the vehicle between the front bumper and the occupant compartment absorbs energy from crashes by crumpling. As a result, the longer front ends of larger vehicles offer better protection in frontal crashes. Heavier vehicles also tend to continue moving forward in crashes with lighter vehicles and other obstacles, so the people inside them are subject to less force.
Also safety ratings are only with respect to other vehicles in the same class. Great ratings for a sedan don't say anything about how well it will perform head-on against an F-150.
Even if it was, they could be objectively worse. For example, because they are more likely to be involved minor accidents. (Think of the well-known example of low-weight births having better survival rates for smoking mothers.)
According to the IIHS, trucks had worse occupant fatality rates throughout automotive history until about 10 years ago, but have had lower rates than cars since then.
try living in the south, these behemoths are everywhere and i feel like same way, feel like it is unsafe to drive my sedan near those big trucks. I think i'll invest in an semi truck, that'll show people who the man on the road really is.
Could you please not post flamewar comments to HN? You did it repeatedly in this thread, and it's what we're hoping to avoid on this site.
We've also had to ask you this before. Please just don't do it here. I don't want to ban you, but when accounts do this kind of thing repeatedly, we don't really have much choice.
We ban accounts that post like that, so please don't do post like that here.
In terms of the specific comment I replied to: even if we ignore your other comments, it seems obviously sarcastic and aggressive. If you didn't intend it that way, you should have written it very differently.
People sometimes think that their intent communicates itself when posting comments, but it doesn't—it has to be encoded into a message in a way that the reader can receive.
> You’ll be happy to know that pickups are actually more dangerous for their driver. Mostly because they’re more likely to spin out or roll over.
Just a consideration: Would integrating 5-point harnesses and an rollover cage into these trucks help to mitigate this problem? (I am of course aware that the latter would make to truck even heavier)
A HAND (head and neck device) could help, as could a roll cage (most vehicles have some roll protection built in - you can see cars and trucks stacked on top of each other at junkyards). Five point harness is a bit better than a normal belt, but we already have a significant number of vehicle fatalities where the occupants are not wearing the belts provided already. So it could make it worse as five-point is more annoying.
Arguably the strengthening of the roll-cage in vehicles has lead to the a-pillar problem. https://www.thewisedrive.com/the-a-pillar-problem/ - my small modern car has a much wider a-pillar than my massive boat from the 60s.
The side-curtain airbag in the A-pillar is also a factor [perhaps a bigger factor than rollover strength] of the expansion of the A-pillar's view blocking in particular for pedestrians during turns.
Having relatively recently been in a rollover accident in a truck I found the rollover protection to be quite sufficient. The A/B pillars didn't appreciably deform and the roof didn't cave in at all.
Yes, because you survived. If you hadn't survived, you wouldn't be able to tell us this. Consider you may have just been lucky. Or would you care to repeat the experience a few more times so we can get data?
That would make them considerably more dangerous for the driver. A roll bar will crack your skull if your head hits it and a 5 point harness will snap your neck. Race cars have them because drivers are also wearing HANS devices and helmets to prevent those injuries.
They are two very different approaches to safety that aren't really compatible.
Really not an issue with modern stability control. There is still a higher chance of rollover from pure impact, but again, the bigger the truck is, the more likely you will be fine.
Modern F150s come with Advacetrack sport mode for TC/Stability that essentially lets you hold a slight drift angle if you want without letting the rear get out of hand - it monitors yaw, tire speeds, throttle e.tc.
>both drive the biggest trucks that they could find because they saw that people in large trucks tended to be fare better in accidents.
People don't generally consider that the bigger cars are more likely to be in accidents in the first place even if they come out of it better. Ireland would have much smaller cars than the US but much better traffic record.
So bigger == safer -- isn't giving a nuanced story or understanding. For sure though bigger == less fuel efficient.
That's funny, but demonstrably untrue. The steering shaft used to be pretty much that and it caused a lot of fatalities. So they stopped building cars like that.
Or, instead of the "fuck you get mine" mentality that I hate about living in the USA, maybe we could try to drive more safely and defensively with a sedan that doesn't roll over and has nice crumple zones?
Sedans are gonna be gone in a few years. Ford already culled thier lineup of regular cars and all the other sutomarkers are working on that too. Trusks are also way more profitable than cars and thats another reason there are so many of them.
Yeah, I just want/need something in the Civic/Corolla range. My ego is not attached to my vehicle. It's a conveyance for me and others.
Rarely, I would say I need a pickup to carry stuff, and that's pretty rare. Maybe once or twice a year at most. And would be serviced by something in the old Ford Ranger class of light truck. I know Ford is bringing back the Ranger, but I don't know if it's in the same class as the 90's/00s Ranger.
The new Ranger is much larger than the one you remember from the 90's. However, Ford also introduced the Maverick - a compact pickup that is more similar to the old Ranger. I'm tempted by the hybrid version. As someone who has been treating a subcompact hatchback as though it were a pickup truck, a 40+ mpg compact pickup truck is an attractive concept.
Current Ranger is really far closer to the F-150 of 20-30 years ago than the Ranger of the 80s.
Even the Civic and Corolla have gotten huge. 2004 Civic was 4455 mm long and 1720 mm wide. The new Civic is 4674 mm long and 1801 mm wide. The new Civic is actually bigger than the 2004 Accord (which was 4665 mm long and 1760 mm wide)
That is great. Until you get smashed by a truck and you/a family member get seriously injured.
I don't drive a truck but my family has been in life threatening accidents and my parents both drive massive vehicles. All Black Secret Service like SUVs. I cant really blame them.
Especially with car manufacturers putting huge screens in the middle of the dashboard and eliminating knobs and buttons. If anyone gave a shit about safety, screens, including phones, should be disabled while the car is not in Park.
Modern passenger pickups are only safer from a sociopathic perspective. The rate and quantity of property damage and persons maimed or killed is increased substantially when modern passenger pickups are out driving around in polite society.
The fraction of that damage and injury borne by the occupants of that vehicle, the only people with the power to make the decision to use that vehicle, is reduced.
The volume of damage, injury, and death borne by everyone else increases by multiples when a modern passenger pickup enters the mix.
You are fully correct, except for the moralizing aspect. Its not about being sociopathic - it is about being realistic. There is no way to enforce politeness in our society.
I looked into this in detail one time and my fermi estimate was that, if we banned trucks entirely, it might optimistically save like 40 pedestrians a year. It's clearly not worth bothering, just on the grounds that it would be politically expensive, and it's also pretty clearly not utilitarian either.
So when F150 lightning gets 5 star rating, it's within class. If you hit an overweight dumptruck you're going to have a bad time. Luckily dumptruck drivers know how to drive and that rarely happens.
However if you're in a ecobox compact, if you hit that dumptruck you're literally flat. If you hit one of the new electric vehicles which weigh in the area of 7-9000lbs. You're going to have a bad time.
If you were to properly measure safety rating not within class. It basically is just a measurement of size. So why do they do this? Clearly misrepresenting safety of smaller vehicles? It's entirely a political decision.
Bigger vehicles are more expensive. Transportation is one of the highest costs to society. So you dont want everyone driving the biggest vehicles. You want to adjust society so they choose smaller vehicles. The total cost of ownership to society is thusly less and you produce more wealth for your own people.
You can see where it's going. Private ownership of cars will remain, some people need full time access to personal transportation. However there's lots of people who really just need to be brought somewhere.
Municipalities can offer autonomous electric vehicles that say an elderly person can jump into and get to their destination much like a taxi at much lower cost than a taxi. The cost per trip is going to be measured in cents, maybe dollars with inflation? The cost of transportation to society dramatically decreases. We will be significantly wealthier.
Thank you for sharing this. I always loved that song (and most Rush songs, to be honest) but I never knew this was based on a short story! This entire website is a great read as a Rush fan.
> I feel pressure to upgrade both to something larger.
It's same for me - one really starts to double think choice of next car when someone clearly distracted, on the phone etc. stops in perpendicular street and huge ass grill or bumper is at the level of your eyes when looking at side window.
> Democrats, having learned nothing, criticized the move as "anti-science."
The OP misunderstands: science, by its modern definition, is the ideas and policy choices that liberals want to pursue and exudes everything they oppose. Nothing more, nothing less.
[This is more a swipe about the corruption that happens when terms get swept up into becoming political labels, than a swipe at any particular party]
Vehicle tax in much of Switzerland is decided by the Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW). Important distinction of GVW is that it takes into account the maximum permissible operating weight, if the vehicle is fully loaded.
Drive a heavier car, pay more tax. Funnily enough, you don't see a lot of pickup trucks or minivans.
Most SUVs around there aren't based on trucks or minivans.
Over the last decade or so people are increasingly preferring SUVs.
Most of these are soft-roaders, and not trucks or minivans. They aren't very capable off the road. Some of them aren't even 4/AWD, and most are monocoques and not body-on-frames.
I think it's one of those problems where the minority of trucks owners forces non truck owners to have to upgrade to truck because otherwise you will lose the war if you ever get to a collision. And by lose the war I mean, your car will be much more wrecked than the other person in a pickup truck.
We own two vehicles, a tiny (4 seater) car and a larger (7-seater) MPV.
On the odd occasion that either I or my wife need to drive a car into town and don't have to take the family too, there is simply no way either of us would ever voluntarily choose the larger vehicle for the simple reason that it's much, much harder to park it.
The little car will happily fit in every single car park space known to mankind. It fits into car parking spaces that aren't even real spaces, too. It's the single best feature it has.
It's got a tiny engine, and is hopeless at accelerating hard - particularly up hills - but who cares? It gets up to four people from A to B in relative comfort and great efficiency. It cost us $10k, brand new.
Could it be that we should talk about setting higher taxes on more expensive and/or larger-engined vehicles? Downsizing our vehicles might be a way to help save the planet without compromising on personal mobility.
Not the person you're responding to but yeah, the Fit was the Honda Jazz. Sadly it has been discontinued. I'm not sure anyone makes a comparable car (must have fold-flat seats that also flip up for transporting taller items).
>Could it be that we should talk about setting higher taxes on more expensive and/or larger-engined vehicles? Downsizing our vehicles might be a way to help save the planet without compromising on personal mobility.
Don't fall for the Oil Lobby's trap of blaming individual consumers for Global emissions issues.
Not everyone's vehicular requirements are satisfied by a vehicle which is optimized for transporting human bodies to and from town. Many of us have professional or personal requirements which require e.g. the ability to move heavy equipment. I couldn't do 80% of my hobbies if I drove a Mini or something.
I agree with the article's point, except not to the exclusion of ego, and I also agree with all of your points. Part of their hypothesis is legal/political, but it's nowhere near a "political screed that doesn't belong on HN".
If you sort the wheat from the chaff, I think there's still a valid issue there. It's just being wrapped in divisive crap as is the trend.
In Ireland we had a brief period where the difference between tax on personal and commercial vehicles was significant enough that it paid off to register yourself as an LLC/sole-trader and get a pick-up. That loophole was swiftly plugged.
This genuinely sounds extremely similar - the loophole is more attractive than the incentive.
An idea for a regulation would be to measure the ratio of maximum weight of living things that a vehicle can transport / weight of vehicle when empty, and make this ratio grow progressively bigger.
The ratio is probably around 0.1 today on average (just an intuition, I don't have the actual numbers), and ideally it should be close to 1, or maybe over 1.
For an ebike for example, it's around 3.
Moving 2-5 tons of metal to transport just one human being is positively insane.
My car can happily seat 4 adults (so let’s say 250kg) and weighs a touch over 1000kg, so the ratio is 0.25. 0.1 would mean that a car that seats just 4 adults weighs 2.5 tonnes, which seems extreme?
The average weight of a mid-sized sedan is about 1,500kg, and the average weight of all American cars is closer to 1,900kg. A 4-seater close to 1,000kg is exceptionally light by modern standards. The Mazda MX-5 is a 2-seater which is famous for being lightweight, and it also weighs a few kg above a ton.
Also going off maximum human capacity isn't great in context, as the average car journey has <1.5 occupants. Not to mention if this was codified, car manufacturers would simply put folding seats in the trunk.
Wouldn't make much sense to restrict it to living things in the case of a truck though, since they're specifically designed to haul things other than passengers. Seems like a good heuristic apart from that though.
Honestly I think coming up with ways to get people to want smaller cars is the way to go. I don’t drive a big truck and I don’t understand the decisionmaking that goes into buying one. I’m hesitant to make rules that apply only to other people doing something I don’t understand.
Nationwide tax based on weight seems like the winner to me. You want a giant car that destroys roads just by driving on them? You'll have to shell out cash based on that impact.
You can always buy the smaller truck from OP's article if you truly just need to haul something.
The ratio is tricky. We don't really need vehicles to potentially carry more people -- we need folks to buy smaller vehicles.
If we try to penalize people for buying a two-seater truck, they'll just buy an even bigger extended cab with more seats. This is pretty much the exact kind of metric game the article cites as causing these giant trucks in the first place -- companies were penalized for building small fuel-inefficient trucks, so they just built big fuel-inefficient trucks that weren't penalized as much.
The author makes a correct observation (trucks are getting bigger to circumvent emissions guidelines, not solely out of ego), but fails to address the underlying market demand: as trucks have gotten bigger, they've also gotten "meaner"[1]. Emissions requirements don't require a truck to look like it's going to beat you up.
In other words: consumer ego (wanting to drive a big, mean looking truck) is an underlying pressure in the market, even if the sufficient mover for the current size explosion is emissions dodging.
Truck design used to be such that you pretended to be a working man. Now, you just show everyone how big a jerk you are. There's an entire brand of truck rims that are just called "Hostile". Anyone who would buy such a thing should just be followed everywhere by the cops. http://www.hostilewheels.com/
I think the article would have done well to also discuss America's general lack of vehicle safety inspections. There's a reason people don't drive around in lifted pickups with ridiculous wheels in Germany.
They are a reflection of the attitudes of the driver and their intentions every time they climb up behind the wheel. And in California they are unlawful if they protrude beyond the body of the truck, which they invariably do because that's the only reason people buy these.
Slogan of the company is literally "There's no place for mercy!"
thank goodness we have these tiny technological devices called cameras, that can be installed in the front and rear of these mean bad trucks, so that the driver can see inside the blind spots.
now those poor babies, children and vertically challenged adults will be safe as safe can be... yipeee
Most of the newer trucks have front facing cameras because of that. I have a "Mid Size" truck which sits fairly high. Since it doesn't have front cameras, I often back into parking spots so I can make use of my rear view camera to assist.
Seems kind of crazy, adding a front camera (which the driver might not even look at) rather than just scaling down the front so they can see pedestrians with their eyes.
What aesthetic? It seems like it's just the manufacturer's name. Having names that evoke some sort of exclamation like that is pretty common in the automotive aftermarket (Behemouth Drivetrain, Killer Bee Motorsport, etc). If you're predisposed to hate them of course you'll read meaning that isn't there into it but there's nothing "hostile" about those wheels. They're just marketing to the monster energy decal crowd.
For a very obvious case of this, observe changes in BMW vehicle designs. The new generation looks like it'll gleefuly ensure death of any pedestrian it hits.
All cars are getting meaner, it's not just fault of the Chinese market. These big trucks are sold mostly in the US and they still have these ever-growing grills.
Source? Everything I've heard is that the exact opposite is required -- that hoods are designed such that pedestrians will roll over them, and higher hoods increase hip injuries.
I’ve often wondered if this has an effect on wildlife. If we perceive the front end of a truck as “meaner”, does that apply to deer as well?
Curious if there is any data on the likelihood of hitting a deer with a truck vs a sedan. I assume this would be difficult to capture as areas with higher chances of hitting a deer are also the areas where drivers are more likely to be behind the wheel of larger trucks.
Deer don't avoid cars because their visual system shorts out when they see a light source shining directly in their eyes[1]. You could make the truck look exactly like a mountain lion and it probably wouldn't save any deer.
It's not just the headlights, but that might very well be the majority. There have been cases where I've had to stop for deer crossing the road at night, but they didn't look into my headlights and freeze, they just kept walking across the road. Also once I had a deer run out of the woods into the side of my car while I was driving.
I think they know cars are dangerous, but they don't perceive the speed and don't do a good job of extrapolating where the car will be. And why should they, they're deer. So they just bolt across the road knowing it's dangerous when a car is coming (hence why they're bolting) but often misjudge.
How long before LED headlights can simply shine around the deer (thus not blinding them), as they do for oncoming vehicles. On second thought that would mean the driver doesn't see the deer; maybe not the best idea!
I think they're pretty effective; they cut out the light beam exactly where the other car is. There might still be reflections from other surfaces though.
How do you decide what looks “meaner?” This guy fixated on the Chevy Silverado design, but I don’t see what’s wrong with it. It looks more squared off and masculine, and less curvy and feminine, which is a design trend it shares with Apple’s latest MacBook pros. Is Google’s chrome book pixel mean? https://www.zdnet.com/product/google-chromebook-pixel/
I think what you’re actually observing is the counter-reaction to all cars looking like jelly beans due to aerodynamic styling driven by emissions regulations. A squared off looking car stands out in the crowd. I drive a Toyota 4Runner, which looks like an evil Japanese robot, partly for this reason (my wife hates the jellybean trend).
I don’t have a “wrong or not” claim to make. Only that trucks are manifestly more aggressive looking than they historically have been. Whether it’s a reaction doesn’t really factor into it.
I don't know about that - you can track the F150 over time and a 1980's F150 of pickup carrying pickup fame is significantly more aggressive looking than a 2022 F150.
Maybe we just have very different ideas about what aggression looks like, but the average 1980s F-150 looks downright homely to me. It basically comes equipped with a farmer in overalls and a wide-brimmed hat.
The 2022 F-150, on the other hand, has much more front-facing chrome, a much larger (and higher, and therefore dangerous to pedestrians) bumper, and much larger headlights. Some of these are probably good features! But they certainly feel more aggressive to me.
I don't think homeliness and aggression are negatively correlated. Look at a cauliflower eared fighter. You have an association of that kind of truck with farmers, but it could just as easily be rednecks with rifles. Doesn't have anything to do with the design.
The front of the truck is sharper angled, the hood is actually forward so it appears like a shark; the grille takes up a larger percentage of the front of the truck.
The modern F150 is rounder, with a smaller percentage devoted to the grille, and has a flat front. If you size up the 1980 F150 to the same size, it would be much more aggressive looking - you can actually see this because the 1980 truck, when lifted, looks positively mean.
You’re arguing possibilities, when all that matters is the cultural conception. Of course homeliness is not intrinsically tied to non-violence; all that matters is that the American conception of Farmer Joe is a homely, non-violent one. And Farmer Joe drives a beat up 1984 F-150.
Where I live - which my wife still questions our decision - the giant mean trucks aren't just giant and mean, but they are outfitted with what sounds like a freight train horn, and many myriads of flood lights.
Nobody knows why this is, because most people live in subdivisions and not farms, where you might feasibly need giant mean trucks with flood lights. And yet the big mean, loud, bright trucks are quite popular.
I didn't detect any blame in the GP's comment, nor the claim that "I dislike it and therefore it's inherently bad."
The more accurate reading would be that the GP thinks that it's bad, and that's why they don't like it. But even still, the comment doesn't appear to contain blame, only bewilderment.
Tricked out trucks aren't my thing. But I can see the appeal of buying a rugged vehicle and tricking it out.
To the extent that I have an axe to grind with the big truck owners, it's because some (not all, and not always) these big truck drivers:
- Drive aggressively in urban areas
- Blast their excessive lights which is a hazard for cars in front of them
- Are intentionally disruptive with their giant horns
Put more plainly - assholes seem to be drawn to such things. But I don't think they create assholes.
But for sure, where I live, there are a lot of disruptive assholes with big trucks.
And I'm sure not all big truck owners tailgate. But when I am being tailgated, it is almost always by a big truck.
So it is I think many people shape their view of these vehicles. It could be a tiny percentage of the owners or large trucks, but we remember these interactions of bright lights, a cloud of coal, loud horns, and someone tailgating an inch behind us.
Certainly. Just relatively fewer where I live now, compared to the trucks.
Depending on where I've lived in the area, I've experienced the japanese cars more, or the BMW's more. BMW's weren't as bad when I lived in a rich town, but any flavor of SUV was really bad. If I had to pick a brand which was particularly preferred by assholes then, it would have been Lexus.
But isn't that sort of an easy thing to generalize? (forgive me). It's not about need. It's about want. Everyone surrounding you has a big truck, you need one too. You buy a bigger truck than them, now it's up to everyone else to step and make theirs bigger, meaner, louder, etc. You spit coal out of your exhaust? Cool, now I spit more. Pretty simple human behaviors, unfortunately.
I feel like this could also just be based off a "biased" sample set. Like you're more likely to notice a large truck with fog lights, meanwhile the Ford Maverick is sold out for the entire next year and it's fords nicest looking, smallest hybrid truck
This is definitely anecdotal and subjective, but I'd say the vast majority of trucks I've seen look really angry.
My unscientific guess: there was some sort of big angry truck trend that the people who style these things got stuck on, and the Maverick sells like hotcakes because it is styled for underserved "I want a little classic looking truck" market.
Doubly unscientific guess: A little electric Maverick would sell incredibly well.
Oh, absolutely biased! But not just trucks. Works for all kinds of other things. Sports cars too. Nice things. Athletic skills. Etc. People like to one up each other.
So, that's not all truck owners. Just thinking (anecdotally) that lots of "mean" truck owners buy them in part because of one-upping/status-seeking behaviors and wants rather than "I need to tow 12k pounds" requirements.
In my town (just outside NY City), seems like the status vehicle of choice is a 911. Buy one if you want to fit in with all your rich buddies!
> Nobody knows why this is, because most people live in subdivisions and not farms, where you might feasibly need giant mean trucks with flood lights. And yet the big mean, loud, bright trucks are quite popular.
Tail fins used to be a big things on cars, but no one knows why that was, because cars don't fly. /s
It is a prisoners dilemma, people want safety from all the dangerous cars, so they buy a bigger car to feel safe, this makes other people want even bigger cars than your car so they don't end up being crushed by you. The end result is less safety and more deaths and injuries.
Purely meaningless anecdata, but I've only known two people that put truck nutz on, and they were both women who did it because they thought it was utterly hilarious
> ‘Powerful’ and references to powerful things was a theme that the GMC exterior designer referenced multiple times to describe the exterior direction for the 2020 GMC Sierra HD.
> “I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”
or this bit:
> “The front end was always the focal point. The rest of the truck is supporting what the rest of the truck is communicating… we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer.
---
I don't see any fix for this arms-race besides legislative. Bigger, more dangerous vehicles are threatening to smaller, greener vehicles, and we need to be greener.
While there are EV trucks coming, those EVs require like 3X as much battery materials as a normal-sized vehicles, and even normal-sized vehicles are too large for the dominant commuting use (single-passenger). That massive battery use is a concern since supply is constrained by real-world limitations.
Also, the larger vehicles create urban planning problems -- bigger vehicles means bigger lanes and parking spots, which hurts walkability. Again, we're back to climate change concerns.
But if you've got the money, the downsides of an oversized vehicle are wholly externalized to the other road users.
I don't really see any feasible way to solve this besides legislation. At the very least, large vehicles should be punished more heavily for highway infractions because they represent a larger risk to other road-users. Speeding in a truck is intrinsically more dangerous than speeding in a car - the larger mass, poorer bumper compatibility, and larger cross-section are a risk for others on the road.
But because of the culture war issue, no mainstream politician is going to ever have an adult conversation on the subject because it will come back to "why do you hate farmers/working men/whatever you latte-sipping urban liberal elitist".
Pickup trucks are the most popular vehicles in America. How many lives would be saved if everyone switched to jellybean cars? What’s the benefit relative to the cost?
Don’t forget that “green” EVs are also extremely heavy. At 4,300 to 5,000 lbs, a Model S is squarely in the same weight class as a Ford F-150. When you get hit by a 4,500 pound vehicle, whether it looks “mean” or like a jellybean doesn’t make much difference.
It's not obvious to me how "I don't really see any feasible way to solve this besides legislation." is any more or less of an adult conversation. The models involved - economic, societal, climate, etc. - are very large and complex and the behaviors and outcomes can evolve for all kinds of reasons. To me, "we must throw everything out and legislate" is simply a call to arms to abandon the discussion in favor of coercion to enforce, unconditionally, the proposition of a specific contingent. This is literally the definition of elitism and it doesn't strike me as very elegant.
The "meaner" look isn't just about aesthetics, but about physical size, which is increasing. The MacBook analogy seems flawed because the change in the design of the MacBook doesn't actually make it harder for me to avoid killing pedestrians while using it.
> the change in the design of the MacBook doesn't actually make it harder for me to avoid killing pedestrians while using it.
Actually the profile of the current MacBook Airs when closed is less “sharp”, reducing potential velocity and penetration as you swing it around wildly while walking down the street.
All vehicles are getting bigger, for various reasons including safety regulations. A 1985 BMW 3 series had a curb weight of 2,400 to 2,600 pounds. Today a BMW 3 is up to 3,200 to 4,300 pounds. A Tesla model 3, which is in the same class, is up to 3,500 to 4,000 pounds. The top end of both cars actually hits the bottom end of the current F150 range, which is about 4,100 pounds.
If you’re a pedestrian crossing in front of one of these or sharing a narrow residential street while riding your bicycle
you might feel it. Last time I felt this was when I was in a shopping center parking lot and someone, parked gangster style (facing the wrong way in a no parking zone), pulled out much too quickly (it’s a frigging shopping center parking lot) in front of me on my motorcycle.
The curb weight can rival a light armored Humvee. And the grill is very high, promising to plow you under the vehicle.
Add lifters, 20+ inch rims, battering ram grill attachments, and all black trim…then you’re looking at the grim reaper of vehicular death.
And why is it the current trend in automotive (specifically, truck) fashion?
This is a weird indirection to introduce: of course it’s fashionable. The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
I used Jalopnik as a source, since they’re a well known car website. I’ll try to find additional sources; I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
> And why is it the current trend in automotive (specifically, truck) fashion?
Because European pedestrian safety requirements all but demand big bulbous front ends, it's uneconomical to design that much of a car or SUV twice and a fugly grill is the solution OEMs have deemed most effective at prettying that up. The trucks are all but forced to copy the same rough shapes because "brand identity" and "design language".
Aggressive styling and goes over the decades. You can make these cars look however you want with a little bit of black plastic and fake chrome with no impact on safety. The actual underlying shapes and dimensions that you are muddying the waters by conflating with aggression are driven by technical requirements.
This doesn’t follow at all: the American pickup truck industry isn’t dominated (or even particularly influenced) by European demand. They’re a tiny and shrinking part of the EU market[1] with plenty of domestic competition (with markedly less aggressive designs).
American pickup truck design is overwhelmingly influenced by American market trends, since that’s where they’re being sold. And the domestic market likes aggressive designs, and does not particularly care about pedestrian safety[2].
> the American pickup truck industry isn’t dominated (or even particularly influenced) by European demand
It is, however, influenced by European regulations to the extent that American pickup makers desire a) to sell in the European market at all and b) desire to minimise re-engineering costs.
"To the extent" being operative. It'd be good to have numbers substantiating this, because all signals indicate that US truck manufacturers have very little presence in European markets.
For the units they deliver to those markets. You haven't demonstrated that the US models are being adapted to European requirements, rather than companies selling European adapted models. My understanding as a lay-person is that the latter is much more common, since the European market requires adaptation anyways (more diesel engines, more manual transmissions, different driver side, &c.)
> The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
It's just a big grille. I think the "aggression" aspect is more in the eye of the beholder (or the trolling concept).
> I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
Assuming that's true, are you interpreting the word "aggressive" correctly? It has many senses besides "hostility", e.g.:
Whoever responded about a BMW sedan isn’t me. I’m talking about US pickup trucks, since that’s what the original post is about.
The “aggressive” in the exec’s comment is my paraphrase, because I’m still looking for the original. It might have been “angry” or “violent,” for all I remember. Either way, the implication was clear: the trucks are meant to project hostility, not flamboyance.
> Whoever responded about a BMW sedan isn’t me. I’m talking about US pickup trucks, since that’s what the original post is about.
The point is it seems to be a general trend not exclusive to pickup trucks, which some blogger tendentiously latched onto get clicks by stirring up controversy and exploiting pickup truck hate.
Sure: there's a general trend towards cars projecting hostility. But again, this feels like a distraction at the best: pickup trucks, especially American ones, are exceptional in adopting the trend. The fact that we can pick out another kind of car that also does it doesn't disrupt the pattern.
It sounds like you're taking personal umbrage at the fact that people don't like these pickup trucks. I think it's worth taking a step back: I don't mind pickup trucks; I'd even go as far so say that I appreciate them for their place in the US's culture and history. But that doesn't mean I can't observe a trend, one that dovetails with latent anti-environmentalism, general disdain or disregard for pedestrians and other road traffic, &c.
> Sure: there's a general trend towards cars projecting hostility. But again, this feels like a distraction at the best: pickup trucks, especially American ones, are exceptional in adopting the trend. The fact that we can pick out another kind of car that also does it doesn't disrupt the pattern.
I don't know why you're so invested in salvaging that blogger's clickbait, against pretty compelling evidence. If it's a general trend, it makes no sense to read it as especially significant when applied to pickup trucks.
> It sounds like you're taking personal umbrage at the fact that people don't like these pickup trucks.
No, I just don't think it's a good idea to take clickbait or some random hot take as showing some kind of essential truth, especially in an area where there are biases to profitably exploit.
What compelling evidence? Is there something more than a BMW model that I'm missing?
The Jalopnik article is indeed a random hot take. But that doesn't mean the underlying claim ("pickup trucks are designed to be visually aggressive, and are marketed to their target customer base on that basis") is factually incorrect. I'm not aware of any bias that that's exploiting, other than the general aesthetic displeasure I see at a car that looks like it hates everything outside of it.
> This is a weird indirection to introduce: of course it’s fashionable. The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
People in this thread keep dancing around it but I think nobody has outright said it yet. Maybe it's as simple as: aggressive, belligerent truck styling is uniquely fashionable in America because American culture is getting more and more aggressive and belligerent. Maybe I'm browsing too much r/PublicFreakout, but in the last few years, there's been a visible rise in road rage, people berating service workers, belligerent angry protesting, people trashing businesses over minor transgressions, people losing their shit on airliners, and so on. The public is turning into "that guy in the bar constantly looking for a fight." It shouldn't be surprising that trucks styled such that they look like they're about to bludgeon you are more and more fashionable. Admittedly, this is more of a political statement based on anecdotes than one that comes out of research and data, but hey, this is HN, not Nature.
It definitely feels like society as a whole has gotten more impatient, entitled and angry since the pandemic. Maybe it was all the time spent at home rather than interacting with strangers and taking part in society. I mean we're still not to pre-pandemic levels of socialization I'd say.
EDIT: Whether this has anything to do with current car design trends is a different question though :P
> ‘Powerful’ and references to powerful things was a theme that the GMC exterior designer referenced multiple times to describe the exterior direction for the 2020 GMC Sierra HD.
> “I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”
or this bit:
> “The front end was always the focal point. The rest of the truck is supporting what the rest of the truck is communicating… we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer.
I dunno about meaner… (that's a personal feeling) there was a time cars acquired a bug-like appearance and depending on people some fear bugs more than others and could be interpreted as “meaner”; however it was mostly just an ‘organic look’ trend. To many others bugs look cute, so...
Lots of people don't like bugs, but I've never heard someone describe a bug as "mean" in the sense that "mean" is describing the appearance of these pickup trucks.
I guess you could say "big mean bug," but that's because "big mean" is a separate idiom in US English for "nasty looking." But we're talking about an aggressive aesthetic, which is both separate from nastiness and purely human in origin (unlike a bug that provokes a disgust reaction in someone).
For almost every single car model that has existed for more than 10 years, the old model is friendly, open, soft, "feminine." For the new one, the design language is angular, closed, hard, and "masculine." There's no way to say for certain why this is the case. In my opinion: aesthetic design of products reflects the id of the consumer. Our id has changed.
418 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 332 ms ] threadSurely this is the result of inept regulators and not blatant corruption!
Perhaps, but that's speculation too.
Your post has snark.
Which is more valuable?
https://www.gao.gov/products/109954
> For example, while a truck axle carrying 18,000 pounds is only 9 times heavier than a 2,000-pound automobile axle, it does 5,000 times more damage.
Sure, this would make goods cost more (when applied to delivery vehicles) but we're all paying that cost anyway.
Every time you choose that massive truck over a tiny corolla (Even that is massive nowadays!!) you are forcing everyone to deal with more construction.
Once the majority of trucks is electric they'll have an easier time finding their own identity, which likely includes getting smaller.
Bigger frame allows for bigger battery. Those huge trucks should have not been built, but once they are here and the people like them - probably as a class of car they are here to stay.
It is fun to see Toyota tundra in the middle of small European town - the streets are like upholstery to the trucks.
There is incentive to make small efficient vehicles, but also to make large efficient vehicles. Both will allow more large inefficient vehicles to be sold.
> Smaller light-duty trucks were regulated out of existence by tighter fuel standards. Because regulations were made looser on larger vehicles, the easiest way for automakers to meet the standard is to build a bigger truck.
Also, it's a fine excuse, basically consumers avoiding responsibility for their own choices. `But it's the Fed's fault!` The size of current trucks and SUVs are completely sociopathic in most urban environments. Certainly because they're dangerous to other road users (as the current rise in fatalities bear out). And, if you wish, because they contribute excessively to carbon emissions. These vehicles don't purchase themselves.
We're trapped in a large vehicle arms race (cars are getting bigger too). Yes, at some level that has to do with ego, or at least, an atrophied sense of civic duty and responsibility.
But I live in Montana, where easily 3 out of 5 vehicles are large SUVs or trucks. There is definitely ego there too. Whether it’s caused by owning such a large vehicle or the reason they own the same, it’s definitely there.
They largely hold you in contempt if you’re in a car or less, gassing you out with exhaust, high beams at eye level, or tailgating you until they can roar by in a cloud of exhaust.
They are bloody absurd as a single person vehicle, and even the recent high gas prices didn’t temper the number of pickups or their behavior.
I had to fully tint the windows on my car for this reason.
Trucks with lift-kits are guaranteed to behave this way. If I see one coming, I'll pull over to let them pass before they get the chance to tailgate.
Also, trucks have some of the highest inventory levels of any new vehicle type right now. If ego is the only way to explain this, why did folks buy so many more trucks last year? Did the American ego Change more than gas prices?
If you re-read my comment, you may note that I did NOT say this.
Yes, Europe and Asia have different cultures from North America. The impulse for ego may be biological, but the expression is cultural.
My pet theory is that among other factors, being the biggest on the road is desirable as a repilian-brain thing. Also selling larger vehicles that are just higher and wider for more money but that are not significantly different than similar but smaller vehicles is just easy money, really.
Large cars are also safer for the people in them at least. Car safety ratings are misleading because they're a relative measure based on the class of vehicle. So a "3 star" safety rating on a large SUV is considerably safer than a "5 star" safety rating on a smaller car:
> These ratings are only useful when you're comparing cars within the same size class. If a small car has a five-star rating from NHTSA, that doesn't mean it will protect you as well as five-star-rated large sedan. The same holds true for a Good rating from the IIHS. "The ratings are meant to be used to compare crashes with vehicles of similar size," said Adrian Lund, president of the IIHS. "You can't really go between the segments with these ratings."
People aren't dumb and they realize larger cars are safer for the occupants. That's at least one reason some people prefer larger vehicles.
https://www.edmunds.com/car-safety/are-smaller-cars-as-safe-...
If you can remember the “All cars mandated to get XX MPG by YYYY year” headlines… that was this.
The negatives of big cars are not paid for, in large part, by the people buying the car. A bigger car needs more space, making towns and cities less efficient and more expensive. They use more resources, and gas which the negative effects of are not paid for in pollution and CO2. Edit: Also the danger to pedestrians, and people in smaller cars!
Being a normal sized car, amongst huge trucks is dangerous and all over a bad experience. It's hard to see around them, in a crash you come off worse (all other things being equal). So to not suffer this everyone slowly gets bigger, just to not suffer. If people were limited to a standard sized car then everyone would be better off (assuming people don't need a van for work or a people carrier if they have a large family).
Getting things like a CAZ(Clean air zone), congestion charge, low speed zones, and pedestrianised areas should have full pedestrianisation as an end goal.
1. I live on a gentleman’s farm and actually do use this vehicle for transporting construction materials and such. That bed is rarely empty.
2. I work from home and ride my motorcycle year round. My bike gets great mph compared to even electric hybrids. My truck is used for transporting stuff that needs a truck to transport or for short runs to get kids to/from school or camp on occasion.
With that, Ford walked away from making cars. They now make crossovers, SUVs, and trucks specifically because nobody was buying cars. I have read a bunch about why and mainly it comes down to the fact that cars are just not desirable anymore. The form factor isn’t fun or fashionable, you sit on a skateboard compared to everyone else on the road, and they feel cheap. They are absolutely the economical option the same way that 50cc scooters are, but they are not an option that people actually want. You can’t convince people to buy that little cab Subaru from TFA for the same reason: it just isn’t an aspirational vehicle. I think we will see most of that form factor die out in the next 30 years in favor of hatchback crossovers and small pickups like the Ford Maverick (which by all means looks like a car replacement).
But, it looks like a minivan heh.
How so? A driver side airbag sounds like an important safety feature.
Would you say the same thing if it had been made without seatbelts or a driver's side mirror?
Coming up with a new steering wheel for the US seems significantly cheaper than redesigning a new vehicle.
Edit: lifted trucks, after market front bars, louder exhaust with larger exhaust tips, truck nuts, American flags or thin blue line flags covering the rear window.. None of these are from government regulations
But, in the USA, you can drive up to 26,000 GVW with a normal license, so everyone should be driving box trucks or similar.
Also, size is only one prominent factor in masculinity. E.g. a pickup truck is frequently seen as more masculine than an RV.
Assuming most don't offroad; There was a study that said trucks are used for hauling/offroad less than 20%~ more than once a year). I can't find it anymore so you can call me on that.
Lifting a truck reduces efficiency by creating drag and uplift (I believe that's what it's called). It also raises the center of gravity which greatly reduces handling and increases the possibility of rolling over
Chunky off-road tires wear out faster, are less efficient, and reduce handling on the road.
Extra lights, as well as lifting your truck without adjusting the lights, blind other drivers creating a safety hazard.
So more gas, more money, less safety for everyone, but the person stands out more, like large horns on animal, it's all about peacocking.
And yes, I know this is done in other ways, fancy loud sports cars, showing off money, clothing, etc. If that was going to your response, then I'll throw down the whataboutism card and do a double reverse move and point out those have less effect on the environment and safety. Yes, I know fast fashion is bad for the environment, kids in blahstan, but it's about levels not bad or good.
I like that when I hit two deer in it there was zero, absolutely zero, damage to the vehicle. Thank you brush guard.
Sure. Now she's the one making others feel unsafe.
Presumably others are now terrified to be around your massive vehicle, and you don't appear to have bought it for a practical purpose, so the premise that your wife was made to feel unsafe is then not an indictment of industrial sized vehicles making the roads less safe for others. Instead, it is embracing the stereotypical American pursuit of having the biggest baddest mfing vehicle on the road in a "fuck you I got mine" race to the bottom. It reads as a pretty good satire: "Woman in fear of being crushed by giant vehicle feels much better now that others fear being crushed by her giant vehicle."
You say the comment is lacking in self awareness because she has become what she feared. I'd say that is not lacking self awareness though it definitely feeds into the "race to the bottom." That is orthogonal to self awareness, it is tragedy of the commons. She has no obligation to lower her sense of safety to make others feel better.
As for safety "In 2013-16, car occupants were only 28 percent more likely to die in collisions with SUVs than with cars" [1] So you are correct. There is one problem here and that's
"Although pickups are also less of a threat than they used to be, in 2013-16 they were still 2½ times as likely to kill the driver of a car they crashed into, compared with a car colliding with another car"
This reminds me of hoarding, thinking the way you or your wife does just keeps upping the game. Maybe you'll need an even bigger truck because all trucks are large to feel safe. Now everyone is driving fuel inefficient vehicles both wasting money and hurting the environment. You said you are rural so I wonder how much you spend on gas and what could you do with that savings.
[1] https://www.iihs.org/topics/vehicle-size-and-weight
For example "In the trailer for "The End of Men," Tucker Carlson worries about "the total collapse of testosterone levels in American men,"
This is not just him shouting random polemic; this is a scientifically measurable and deeply concerning medical trend. https://www.urologytimes.com/view/testosterone-levels-show-s...
Tucker Carlson is using it as a very thin excuse to basically make a series about how men need to be more like a particular cultural concept of men. Here's the trailer for "The End of Men" nowhere does it mention that study or a testosterone drop. Maybe the show itself touches on that but in my opinion that would only be so people like you could justify what is basically a propaganda video for right wing masculine culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcxLQeh6J6A
(I don't know which one pollutes more).
My guess is that the rule supposes that bigger trucks carrying freight is more efficient (than many smaller trucks).
The emissions rule was relaxed/revoked by Trump, however California maintained the higher standard (and the auto manufacturers sided with California). So because California has those standards and manufacturers want to be able to sell in California, nothing changed.
Even if the rule was revoked and manufacturers could make cars smaller again, they wouldn't because of marketing. Who would want to buy a new truck that is smaller than the last?
F-150 13th gen (2015-2020) SuperCrew 6.5' length: 6,190 mm, width 2029 mm
CAFE is a huge driver of truck sizes and this has been known for many years. There is consumer demand in there as well, and once one of the big three go bigger the rest have to follow, but if the CAFE rules didn't take size into account it would be far, far harder for auto makers to increase the size since there is a fuel consumption penalty for more mass and frontal area.
The truth, of course, is that ALL car and truck sizes in the US have been rapidly increasing for several decades now, and Obama had absolutely nothing to do with that. Pickup-truck culture had a lot to do with it, but isn't entirely to blame: look at the current Honda Civic vs. a 1980 model or a 1990 model.
That said, this is the same time period where the old Ranger died which was one of the few compact pickups left. when it came back it grew to a midsize and it wasn't until a decade after the ranger died that Ford release the Maverick, which is compact but doesn't have the towing capability or long bed options of the decade old ranger.
So point being, I think there is a grain of truth to what the author is saying, but the evidence isn't well laid out and he should have presented more data about the various trucks available across the 2010's to make a stronger point.
But sure, it's Obama's fault.
While in Europe cars have also increased in size, I believe the largest of them is at least a magnitude smaller than the abomination that is Ford F250, for example.
Further, American-style trucks are not considered "classy", those with $50-60K to spend on a vehicle would likely prefer something like a Mercedes.
It's an arms race.
I used to live near a couple who were both doctors in the ER and they both drive the biggest trucks that they could find because they saw that people in large trucks tended to be fare better in accidents.
I have a small sedan for myself and a smallish SUV for my wife and kids. I feel pressure to upgrade both to something larger.
Larger potentially means even in a single-vehicle accident, there is a greater distance to decelerate over and things are less likely to intrude into the vehicle.
The IIHS, which systematically tests vehicles in simulated crashes, says:
> A bigger, heavier vehicle provides better crash protection than a smaller, lighter one, assuming no other differences. The part of the vehicle between the front bumper and the occupant compartment absorbs energy from crashes by crumpling. As a result, the longer front ends of larger vehicles offer better protection in frontal crashes. Heavier vehicles also tend to continue moving forward in crashes with lighter vehicles and other obstacles, so the people inside them are subject to less force.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/vehicle-size-and-weight
There is some simple actuarial data there on their page, too, which shows there's a marked advantage but it is less than it used to be.
Not only will the bigger object experience less F=ma acceleration in a collision, it will also have a stronger frame and deeper crumple zones.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/passe...
Pounds That Kill: The External Costs of Vehicle Weight
"Heavier vehicles are safer for their own occupants but more hazardous for other vehicles"
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/591f304fa5790aa5cc8df...
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-danger...
Pickup trucks are getting larger and becoming a hazard to pedestrians and drivers of smaller vehicles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic
The 5 MPG hurts a bit after awhile, however.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_293
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenworth_W900
Or Peterbilt 379 (Optimus Prime)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterbilt_379
International produced a line of pickup trucks that might suffice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_XT
We've also had to ask you this before. Please just don't do it here. I don't want to ban you, but when accounts do this kind of thing repeatedly, we don't really have much choice.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32426780
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32426607
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32426432
We ban accounts that post like that, so please don't do post like that here.
In terms of the specific comment I replied to: even if we ignore your other comments, it seems obviously sarcastic and aggressive. If you didn't intend it that way, you should have written it very differently.
People sometimes think that their intent communicates itself when posting comments, but it doesn't—it has to be encoded into a message in a way that the reader can receive.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Just a consideration: Would integrating 5-point harnesses and an rollover cage into these trucks help to mitigate this problem? (I am of course aware that the latter would make to truck even heavier)
Arguably the strengthening of the roll-cage in vehicles has lead to the a-pillar problem. https://www.thewisedrive.com/the-a-pillar-problem/ - my small modern car has a much wider a-pillar than my massive boat from the 60s.
I'm fairly sure that safety standards essentially require the roof to not crumple in rollover conditions.
Roll cages are necessary in racing where speeds (and forces) are much higher than road speeds.
They are two very different approaches to safety that aren't really compatible.
Modern F150s come with Advacetrack sport mode for TC/Stability that essentially lets you hold a slight drift angle if you want without letting the rear get out of hand - it monitors yaw, tire speeds, throttle e.tc.
People don't generally consider that the bigger cars are more likely to be in accidents in the first place even if they come out of it better. Ireland would have much smaller cars than the US but much better traffic record.
So bigger == safer -- isn't giving a nuanced story or understanding. For sure though bigger == less fuel efficient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Tullock#Tullock's_spike
Is there actually an indication that larger cars are more prone to accidents or are their drivers inherently more aggressive and accident prone?
Maybe for Ford/GM/etc.
But it looks like Kia/Hyundai/Honda/Toyota are still pumping them out with vigor. And Tesla basically _only_ makes sedans.
> Trusks are also way more profitable than cars and thats another reason there are so many of them.
Maybe that explains the supply side, but it doesn't explain the demand side.
Rarely, I would say I need a pickup to carry stuff, and that's pretty rare. Maybe once or twice a year at most. And would be serviced by something in the old Ford Ranger class of light truck. I know Ford is bringing back the Ranger, but I don't know if it's in the same class as the 90's/00s Ranger.
Even the Civic and Corolla have gotten huge. 2004 Civic was 4455 mm long and 1720 mm wide. The new Civic is 4674 mm long and 1801 mm wide. The new Civic is actually bigger than the 2004 Accord (which was 4665 mm long and 1760 mm wide)
I don't drive a truck but my family has been in life threatening accidents and my parents both drive massive vehicles. All Black Secret Service like SUVs. I cant really blame them.
This is one of the weird things which makes the US an outlier among other highly industrialized nations.
Everyone knows that's not happening anytime soon.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447 - arguing that SUVs are immoral.
The fraction of that damage and injury borne by the occupants of that vehicle, the only people with the power to make the decision to use that vehicle, is reduced.
The volume of damage, injury, and death borne by everyone else increases by multiples when a modern passenger pickup enters the mix.
So when F150 lightning gets 5 star rating, it's within class. If you hit an overweight dumptruck you're going to have a bad time. Luckily dumptruck drivers know how to drive and that rarely happens.
However if you're in a ecobox compact, if you hit that dumptruck you're literally flat. If you hit one of the new electric vehicles which weigh in the area of 7-9000lbs. You're going to have a bad time.
If you were to properly measure safety rating not within class. It basically is just a measurement of size. So why do they do this? Clearly misrepresenting safety of smaller vehicles? It's entirely a political decision.
Bigger vehicles are more expensive. Transportation is one of the highest costs to society. So you dont want everyone driving the biggest vehicles. You want to adjust society so they choose smaller vehicles. The total cost of ownership to society is thusly less and you produce more wealth for your own people.
You can see where it's going. Private ownership of cars will remain, some people need full time access to personal transportation. However there's lots of people who really just need to be brought somewhere.
Municipalities can offer autonomous electric vehicles that say an elderly person can jump into and get to their destination much like a taxi at much lower cost than a taxi. The cost per trip is going to be measured in cents, maybe dollars with inflation? The cost of transportation to society dramatically decreases. We will be significantly wealthier.
http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/19731100roadand...
> I feel pressure to upgrade both to something larger.
It's same for me - one really starts to double think choice of next car when someone clearly distracted, on the phone etc. stops in perpendicular street and huge ass grill or bumper is at the level of your eyes when looking at side window.
The OP misunderstands: science, by its modern definition, is the ideas and policy choices that liberals want to pursue and exudes everything they oppose. Nothing more, nothing less.
[This is more a swipe about the corruption that happens when terms get swept up into becoming political labels, than a swipe at any particular party]
Drive a heavier car, pay more tax. Funnily enough, you don't see a lot of pickup trucks or minivans.
Most SUVs around there aren't based on trucks or minivans.
Over the last decade or so people are increasingly preferring SUVs.
Most of these are soft-roaders, and not trucks or minivans. They aren't very capable off the road. Some of them aren't even 4/AWD, and most are monocoques and not body-on-frames.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201015-suvs-targeted...
Tax criteria by canton:
Displacement only: AG, FR, GL, GR, LU, NW, OW, SH, SO, TG, VS, ZG
Gross weight only: AI, AR, BE, BL, JU, SG, UR
Horsepower and gross weight: SZ, TI, VD
Displacement and gross weight: ZH
Net weight and CO2 emissions: BS
Horsepower only: GE
CO2 emissions only: NE
And for the full picture you still need to add the discounts or exemptions for low and zero emission vehicles that also vary wildly.
On the odd occasion that either I or my wife need to drive a car into town and don't have to take the family too, there is simply no way either of us would ever voluntarily choose the larger vehicle for the simple reason that it's much, much harder to park it.
The little car will happily fit in every single car park space known to mankind. It fits into car parking spaces that aren't even real spaces, too. It's the single best feature it has.
It's got a tiny engine, and is hopeless at accelerating hard - particularly up hills - but who cares? It gets up to four people from A to B in relative comfort and great efficiency. It cost us $10k, brand new.
Could it be that we should talk about setting higher taxes on more expensive and/or larger-engined vehicles? Downsizing our vehicles might be a way to help save the planet without compromising on personal mobility.
Don't fall for the Oil Lobby's trap of blaming individual consumers for Global emissions issues.
When I was a kid in the 90s, the Suburban was the vehicle people bought for these reasons. I’ve assumed the Sprinter was this generation’s Suburban.
In Ireland we had a brief period where the difference between tax on personal and commercial vehicles was significant enough that it paid off to register yourself as an LLC/sole-trader and get a pick-up. That loophole was swiftly plugged.
This genuinely sounds extremely similar - the loophole is more attractive than the incentive.
The ratio is probably around 0.1 today on average (just an intuition, I don't have the actual numbers), and ideally it should be close to 1, or maybe over 1.
For an ebike for example, it's around 3.
Moving 2-5 tons of metal to transport just one human being is positively insane.
[0] https://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/silverado-1500/2021/featur...
The Yukon SUV that Arnold Schwarzenegger drives weights over 2.7 metric tons (6k pounds).
The Tesla truck is announced to pass the 8,500 pounds mark, or around 3.8 metric tons (!!)
Also going off maximum human capacity isn't great in context, as the average car journey has <1.5 occupants. Not to mention if this was codified, car manufacturers would simply put folding seats in the trunk.
Fair enough, but then we could decide the relevant ratio is one human / GVW.
Make gas expensive and keep it that way, regardless of the political cost.
Massively increase insurance rates for bigger cars. Again, this would have to be done through laws.
Tax vehicles based on weight.
Effect a radical transformation in culture that changes what people value.
Which of these are most doable?
You can always buy the smaller truck from OP's article if you truly just need to haul something.
If we try to penalize people for buying a two-seater truck, they'll just buy an even bigger extended cab with more seats. This is pretty much the exact kind of metric game the article cites as causing these giant trucks in the first place -- companies were penalized for building small fuel-inefficient trucks, so they just built big fuel-inefficient trucks that weren't penalized as much.
In other words: consumer ego (wanting to drive a big, mean looking truck) is an underlying pressure in the market, even if the sufficient mover for the current size explosion is emissions dodging.
[1]: https://jalopnik.com/we-need-to-talk-about-truck-design-righ...
I think the article would have done well to also discuss America's general lack of vehicle safety inspections. There's a reason people don't drive around in lifted pickups with ridiculous wheels in Germany.
It'd be hilarious if it wasn't the governing principle of America.
Slogan of the company is literally "There's no place for mercy!"
google has many studies and articles on the dangers of this but a link to get you started
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-danger...
now those poor babies, children and vertically challenged adults will be safe as safe can be... yipeee
E.g.
2023: https://www.autojakal.com/2022/04/2023-bmw-7-series.html
2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_7_Series_(E65)
https://www.wapcar.my/news/bmws-big-grilles-are-the-tastes-o...
So the reality is 180 degrees opposite to what your claim is.
2002: https://images.iconfigurators.app/images/vehicles/reference/...
2012: https://cfx-vrf-main-imgs.imgix.net/2/4/f/1e950ff3b9d6acc23e...
2022: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9...
[1] https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/animals/why-do-deer-get-tr...
I think they know cars are dangerous, but they don't perceive the speed and don't do a good job of extrapolating where the car will be. And why should they, they're deer. So they just bolt across the road knowing it's dangerous when a car is coming (hence why they're bolting) but often misjudge.
I think they're pretty effective; they cut out the light beam exactly where the other car is. There might still be reflections from other surfaces though.
I think what you’re actually observing is the counter-reaction to all cars looking like jelly beans due to aerodynamic styling driven by emissions regulations. A squared off looking car stands out in the crowd. I drive a Toyota 4Runner, which looks like an evil Japanese robot, partly for this reason (my wife hates the jellybean trend).
The 2022 F-150, on the other hand, has much more front-facing chrome, a much larger (and higher, and therefore dangerous to pedestrians) bumper, and much larger headlights. Some of these are probably good features! But they certainly feel more aggressive to me.
The front of the truck is sharper angled, the hood is actually forward so it appears like a shark; the grille takes up a larger percentage of the front of the truck.
The modern F150 is rounder, with a smaller percentage devoted to the grille, and has a flat front. If you size up the 1980 F150 to the same size, it would be much more aggressive looking - you can actually see this because the 1980 truck, when lifted, looks positively mean.
Nobody knows why this is, because most people live in subdivisions and not farms, where you might feasibly need giant mean trucks with flood lights. And yet the big mean, loud, bright trucks are quite popular.
Perhaps try adjusting to your new location instead of blaming the locals?
The more accurate reading would be that the GP thinks that it's bad, and that's why they don't like it. But even still, the comment doesn't appear to contain blame, only bewilderment.
To the extent that I have an axe to grind with the big truck owners, it's because some (not all, and not always) these big truck drivers:
- Drive aggressively in urban areas - Blast their excessive lights which is a hazard for cars in front of them - Are intentionally disruptive with their giant horns
Put more plainly - assholes seem to be drawn to such things. But I don't think they create assholes.
But for sure, where I live, there are a lot of disruptive assholes with big trucks.
And I'm sure not all big truck owners tailgate. But when I am being tailgated, it is almost always by a big truck.
So it is I think many people shape their view of these vehicles. It could be a tiny percentage of the owners or large trucks, but we remember these interactions of bright lights, a cloud of coal, loud horns, and someone tailgating an inch behind us.
Depending on where I've lived in the area, I've experienced the japanese cars more, or the BMW's more. BMW's weren't as bad when I lived in a rich town, but any flavor of SUV was really bad. If I had to pick a brand which was particularly preferred by assholes then, it would have been Lexus.
(Saying this as a former M3 owner!)
And these opinions aren't about shoe style, they have consequences on the broader society, and thus are open to criticism for their societal impacts.
But isn't that sort of an easy thing to generalize? (forgive me). It's not about need. It's about want. Everyone surrounding you has a big truck, you need one too. You buy a bigger truck than them, now it's up to everyone else to step and make theirs bigger, meaner, louder, etc. You spit coal out of your exhaust? Cool, now I spit more. Pretty simple human behaviors, unfortunately.
My unscientific guess: there was some sort of big angry truck trend that the people who style these things got stuck on, and the Maverick sells like hotcakes because it is styled for underserved "I want a little classic looking truck" market.
Doubly unscientific guess: A little electric Maverick would sell incredibly well.
Doubtful, but you'll find out soon I guess.
https://youtu.be/CkoquiSnqbk
So, that's not all truck owners. Just thinking (anecdotally) that lots of "mean" truck owners buy them in part because of one-upping/status-seeking behaviors and wants rather than "I need to tow 12k pounds" requirements.
In my town (just outside NY City), seems like the status vehicle of choice is a 911. Buy one if you want to fit in with all your rich buddies!
Tail fins used to be a big things on cars, but no one knows why that was, because cars don't fly. /s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_tailfin
But there are also the dudes who get fake testes to hang from the back of their trucks, eh?
Yes, they are designed to look mean.
https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/2020-gmc-sierra-hd-desig...
> ‘Powerful’ and references to powerful things was a theme that the GMC exterior designer referenced multiple times to describe the exterior direction for the 2020 GMC Sierra HD.
> “I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”
or this bit:
> “The front end was always the focal point. The rest of the truck is supporting what the rest of the truck is communicating… we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer.
---
I don't see any fix for this arms-race besides legislative. Bigger, more dangerous vehicles are threatening to smaller, greener vehicles, and we need to be greener.
While there are EV trucks coming, those EVs require like 3X as much battery materials as a normal-sized vehicles, and even normal-sized vehicles are too large for the dominant commuting use (single-passenger). That massive battery use is a concern since supply is constrained by real-world limitations.
Also, the larger vehicles create urban planning problems -- bigger vehicles means bigger lanes and parking spots, which hurts walkability. Again, we're back to climate change concerns.
But if you've got the money, the downsides of an oversized vehicle are wholly externalized to the other road users.
I don't really see any feasible way to solve this besides legislation. At the very least, large vehicles should be punished more heavily for highway infractions because they represent a larger risk to other road-users. Speeding in a truck is intrinsically more dangerous than speeding in a car - the larger mass, poorer bumper compatibility, and larger cross-section are a risk for others on the road.
But because of the culture war issue, no mainstream politician is going to ever have an adult conversation on the subject because it will come back to "why do you hate farmers/working men/whatever you latte-sipping urban liberal elitist".
Don’t forget that “green” EVs are also extremely heavy. At 4,300 to 5,000 lbs, a Model S is squarely in the same weight class as a Ford F-150. When you get hit by a 4,500 pound vehicle, whether it looks “mean” or like a jellybean doesn’t make much difference.
Actually the profile of the current MacBook Airs when closed is less “sharp”, reducing potential velocity and penetration as you swing it around wildly while walking down the street.
This is a shame. Armor-piercing Macbooks used to be a viable option for home defense. Apple isn't the same company they used to be.
If you’re a pedestrian crossing in front of one of these or sharing a narrow residential street while riding your bicycle you might feel it. Last time I felt this was when I was in a shopping center parking lot and someone, parked gangster style (facing the wrong way in a no parking zone), pulled out much too quickly (it’s a frigging shopping center parking lot) in front of me on my motorcycle.
The curb weight can rival a light armored Humvee. And the grill is very high, promising to plow you under the vehicle.
Add lifters, 20+ inch rims, battering ram grill attachments, and all black trim…then you’re looking at the grim reaper of vehicular death.
Or to be more precise: a current trend in automotive fashion is a larger grille, and some blogger framed that tendentiously for clicks.
This is a weird indirection to introduce: of course it’s fashionable. The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
I used Jalopnik as a source, since they’re a well known car website. I’ll try to find additional sources; I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
Because European pedestrian safety requirements all but demand big bulbous front ends, it's uneconomical to design that much of a car or SUV twice and a fugly grill is the solution OEMs have deemed most effective at prettying that up. The trucks are all but forced to copy the same rough shapes because "brand identity" and "design language".
Aggressive styling and goes over the decades. You can make these cars look however you want with a little bit of black plastic and fake chrome with no impact on safety. The actual underlying shapes and dimensions that you are muddying the waters by conflating with aggression are driven by technical requirements.
American pickup truck design is overwhelmingly influenced by American market trends, since that’s where they’re being sold. And the domestic market likes aggressive designs, and does not particularly care about pedestrian safety[2].
[1]: https://www.autonews.com/sales/pickups-europeans-say-thanks-...
[2]: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-danger...
It is, however, influenced by European regulations to the extent that American pickup makers desire a) to sell in the European market at all and b) desire to minimise re-engineering costs.
If they have any presence at all then they are subject to European regulations of one form or another.
It isn't just trucks. Someone posted a picture of a BMW sedan with a really big grille in this very thread. The Toyota Camrys* even has a similar design: https://www.cars.com/articles/how-the-2018-toyota-camrys-tri....
> The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
It's just a big grille. I think the "aggression" aspect is more in the eye of the beholder (or the trolling concept).
> I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
Assuming that's true, are you interpreting the word "aggressive" correctly? It has many senses besides "hostility", e.g.:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggressive:
> 3 : strong or emphatic in effect or intent
> aggressive colors
> aggressive flavors
The “aggressive” in the exec’s comment is my paraphrase, because I’m still looking for the original. It might have been “angry” or “violent,” for all I remember. Either way, the implication was clear: the trucks are meant to project hostility, not flamboyance.
The point is it seems to be a general trend not exclusive to pickup trucks, which some blogger tendentiously latched onto get clicks by stirring up controversy and exploiting pickup truck hate.
It sounds like you're taking personal umbrage at the fact that people don't like these pickup trucks. I think it's worth taking a step back: I don't mind pickup trucks; I'd even go as far so say that I appreciate them for their place in the US's culture and history. But that doesn't mean I can't observe a trend, one that dovetails with latent anti-environmentalism, general disdain or disregard for pedestrians and other road traffic, &c.
I don't know why you're so invested in salvaging that blogger's clickbait, against pretty compelling evidence. If it's a general trend, it makes no sense to read it as especially significant when applied to pickup trucks.
> It sounds like you're taking personal umbrage at the fact that people don't like these pickup trucks.
No, I just don't think it's a good idea to take clickbait or some random hot take as showing some kind of essential truth, especially in an area where there are biases to profitably exploit.
The Jalopnik article is indeed a random hot take. But that doesn't mean the underlying claim ("pickup trucks are designed to be visually aggressive, and are marketed to their target customer base on that basis") is factually incorrect. I'm not aware of any bias that that's exploiting, other than the general aesthetic displeasure I see at a car that looks like it hates everything outside of it.
People in this thread keep dancing around it but I think nobody has outright said it yet. Maybe it's as simple as: aggressive, belligerent truck styling is uniquely fashionable in America because American culture is getting more and more aggressive and belligerent. Maybe I'm browsing too much r/PublicFreakout, but in the last few years, there's been a visible rise in road rage, people berating service workers, belligerent angry protesting, people trashing businesses over minor transgressions, people losing their shit on airliners, and so on. The public is turning into "that guy in the bar constantly looking for a fight." It shouldn't be surprising that trucks styled such that they look like they're about to bludgeon you are more and more fashionable. Admittedly, this is more of a political statement based on anecdotes than one that comes out of research and data, but hey, this is HN, not Nature.
EDIT: Whether this has anything to do with current car design trends is a different question though :P
https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/2020-gmc-sierra-hd-desig...
> ‘Powerful’ and references to powerful things was a theme that the GMC exterior designer referenced multiple times to describe the exterior direction for the 2020 GMC Sierra HD.
> “I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”
or this bit:
> “The front end was always the focal point. The rest of the truck is supporting what the rest of the truck is communicating… we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer.
I guess you could say "big mean bug," but that's because "big mean" is a separate idiom in US English for "nasty looking." But we're talking about an aggressive aesthetic, which is both separate from nastiness and purely human in origin (unlike a bug that provokes a disgust reaction in someone).
For example, consider the Mazda Miata -- perhaps the most "feminine" car imaginable.
1990s: https://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/1997_ma...
Now: https://cdn.drivingline.com/media/21637/drivingline-2016_maz...
For almost every single car model that has existed for more than 10 years, the old model is friendly, open, soft, "feminine." For the new one, the design language is angular, closed, hard, and "masculine." There's no way to say for certain why this is the case. In my opinion: aesthetic design of products reflects the id of the consumer. Our id has changed.
FTFY "The Reason Why Trucks Are Getting Bigger".