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14 points

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.

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2 points

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.

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Fuck Cars

!fuck_cars@lemmy.ml

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This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.

This community exists for the following reasons:

  • to raise awareness around the dangers, inefficiencies and injustice that can come from car dependence.
  • to allow a place to discuss and promote more healthy transport methods and ways of living.

You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.

Rules

  1. Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn’t choose car-centric life out of free will.

  2. No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don’t use slurs. You can laugh at someone’s fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.

  3. Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don’t post literal car fucking.

  4. No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.

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  6. No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.

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Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.

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