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The US finally takes aim at truck bloat
(www.theverge.com)
Tax by weight
No excuses
No exceptions
You trying to kill EVs?
EVs have plenty of advantages that it wouldn't kill them. No gas tax, for example. They should still pay for the damage they do to the road. Drivers have had far too long ignoring the costs they put onto society by driving massive vehicles.
Also, if this kills EVs along with other heavy vehicles, I don't care. EVs are better than ICEs, but they aren't good.
Edit: Also, taxing by weight effectively taxes pollution due to tires, which we should have. Ideally this would be a tax on the tire by weight, but that's another tax that would need to pass. Negative externalities need to have a cost associated to them. Ignoring them for convenience is how we got into these issues to start with.
Yes. EVs shouldn't exist, just like all vehicles.
The easy way would be to repeal the chicken tax.
I swear the number of car-brained people who have told me (when discussing a pedestrian or child death in a car):
Well what were they doing in the road???
Why the FUCK does it matter what they were doing in the road. I don't care where the parents were. I don't care what they were doing there. There is no excuse, I don't care if it's the freaking freeway, if you see someone you stop. But these people can't even see over their hoods so they have no clue there's even someone there, so they've shifted all blame to the other person. It couldn't be my fault, it must be there's!
Fuck I'm so mad at them, and the auto industry is also to blame for promoting that way of thinking. "If you're in an auto accident, your family will be safe. Just fuck those other people right?)
It's America's selfishness, just blatantly on display.
The 93 ford ranger was perfect. I hate these fucking abominations we have now and I think industry grossly underestimated the demand for a sensible pickup
Yep, first gen Tacoma is perfect in my mind. The new tacos are bigger than the F150 was! Why!? It's ridiculous.
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I like the title, I like the framing, but unfortunately it's a nothing burger. They need to close the SUV/truck loophole and regulate vehicle size directly.
Pedestrians: "can you please make your cars a little safer for us?"
US carmakers:
Too low to the ground, they might be able see a child in front of them.
Good point, how about this? 
Much better
"Just walk away and we will spare your lives. Just walk away"
When you snort so much iron oxide that the only notes you have on car design is "bigger! BIGGER! ADD SPIKES! "
Why Americans always complain about gas prices, then go ahead and choose the most inefficient vehicles?
Like with so many things, especially in the US, it seems to me the people complaining most loudly about it are the ones doing everything they can to make the problem worse for themselves.
There's like 340 million of us. Lots of us are idiots. Some aren't.
We like to believe our societies are a calm, rational place of logical decision makers.
We're actually a rowdy bunch of anachronistic apes, with a chronic case of the hypocrititis.
Never in its 50-plus years in existence has the regulator issued new rules for automakers requiring them to change their vehicle designs to better prevent pedestrian fatalities.
Found the problem
Truck / SUV drivers like : "What pedestrians???"
I walked past a fcking ram the other day and i could barely see over the bonnet.
I'm a grown fucking woman at 170cm, well above the average.
The rules announced this week would update the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS), the government’s bible for everything that’s required in a new vehicle before it’s sold — from steering wheels to rearview mirrors — to set testing procedures to simulate head-to-hood impact, with the aim of reducing head injuries. If enacted, automakers will have to test their vehicles using crash test dummies representing adult and child pedestrians for the first time. NHTSA says the changes could save up to 67 lives every year.
And they expect people to stop making trucks because of pedestrian crash testing? Seems unlikely.
At least this isn't relying on sensors or some other nonsense. Though it might be nice to require things like visibility requirements so people driving Rams could actually see the children they're flattening.
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Personally, I have to haul heavy loads across the whole country.
You know what would work better for that though?
Trains. High speed electric trains.
I do not like having to pay off this expensive ass truck.
Why are trucks so popular in the us? What do you guys need to often put in the back?
There are many reasons: marketing propaganda, sexism, insecurity, politics, and selfishness. Americans are seemingly very susceptible to propaganda and marketing has convinced people that the type of products and brands we consume define who we are.
Sexusm. They have tricked us into believing that small cars are feminine and that huge trucks are for manly, rugged, outdoorsy types.
Insecurity. Even if someone realizes that judging people based on what vehicle they drive is stupid, lots of people are very insecure and are worried other people will judge them for driving a small car.
Politics. Leftists advocated for smaller cars because they care about urbanism, pedestrian fatalities, and the environment. In response, conservatives have turned large tank sized vehicles in a conservative political statement.
Selfishness. Engineering can only do so much to cheap physics so bigger / heavier vehicles are a little safer for the passengers of the larger vehicle when crashing into smaller cars but at the cost of the safety of the smaller car. It is far from a 1 to 1 exchange, large vehicles greatly increase the traffic fatality rates, but large pickup owners don't give a shit about the safety of others. They have no love for their fellow countrymen which means they have no love for their country.
I agree with you and I would like to add a couple points:
Safety: a lot of people buy big vehicles to feel like they have a chance of surviving a crash with another big vehicle. Not saying this is good, but it is a thing that happens and it feeds the vicious cycle.
Regulation: I know these types of threads tend to lean into "regulation good" but let's not forget that regulation caused (or a big part of it) this whole mess in the first place. Actually a couple of them: the chicken tax is a big one (a 25% tariff on imported light trucks), and the other one is the way the minimum fuel mileage requirements are calculated. Basically, you can break the math of the EPA fuel mileage requirement by making the vehicle longer. Unfortunately this looks aesthetically stupid, so it makes the proportions correct they have to be bigger in every other direction too. This mileage math is effectively what killed the mini trucks that used to be so popular like the S10, and smaller versions of the Tacoma and Ranger.
I am probably going to break down and get truck again. Most uses people give are bs. A tarp and car will let you haul 90% of what you want. Chicken, dog, cat, pig feed. Car is fine. All of those animals too (though 300 lb pot belly pushes the limits).
If you stick it out the back of the trunk you can haul long lumber. You can load a surprising amount of rocks and concrete too.
You are probably loading and unloading appliances that often. Or furniture.
If it wasn't for the travel trailer I would suffer through it, but its the straw that broke the cammals back. Renting is just such a pain in the dick too. I would rather have a piece of junk desiel that I am tinkering with the schedule a day to pick up a truck to race around trying to use it before I run out time.
If I need to clear brush. I just want to go do it. If I need rocks I just to get a load. Friend or family moving I can just bring the truck.
Don't get me wrong I hate a lot of the truck out there. I don't need a new house worth of truck to move junk around.
I just want a god damn little single cab S10 style truck with a full size bed. I don't need passenger space, I don't need crazy ground clearance, I don't need huge tires. I need room for furniture and lumber that my 5'3 ass can get in and out of without having to climb. Bonus points if it's electric. And no a Maverick is not just as good.
Maybe the size of the country has an impact. Does the average person need to buy a lot of animal feed?
Its about a third of the people I know. Stuff like Chewy help but then we can't buy it from the farmers co-op.
Farmers owning a truck makes sense (although I hate how blocky and dangerous the hoods are), but what about all the tech bros and finance bros who drive giant pickups? I swear half of the men who work white collar jobs and live in the suburbs drive giant pickups and SUVs these days
Nothing. But you never know...
Meanwhile in Europe:
How am I ever going to carry a couch on my bicycle? Haha, silly me. I don't carry couches. (Or I'd just spend a whooping 80 euros to rent a van for a few hours)
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I don't remember exactly but it's something to do with new ~~safety and emissions~~ fuel efficiency regulations brought about in the 90s(?) that would fine manufacturers who didn't meet the new standards. "Light trucks" such as the F150 were exempt so manufacturers started pushing those hard as the fashionable choice.
Fast forward 30 years, the regulations haven't changed, and here we are. There's a good video about it somewhere...
Yeah here we go: https://youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo
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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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