Not surprising since car manufacturers lobbied to get them classed as light trucks to dodge the stricter emissions and safety regulations that apply to general cars. Then marketed the hell out of them as there is more profit to be made due to them not needing to comply with as many regulations. And now they are everywhere and are way worst than cars in almost every way.
Funny how yet again the capitalist class chooses profits over any other metric leading to s shittier world overall. Almost like there is a pattern happening in every industry…
This guy does lots of videos relating to government and public roads.
This video sheds interesting light on the piece of the problem you’ve identified. It’s also the reason for a massive increase in pedestrian deaths. Seems like cars got bigger to circumvent a law enacted in an attempted to cut auto emissions, but had several adverse consequences.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/fEj-pyjA2oo?si=J5utF5B0y7zqpK1H
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
BUT THA SAYFTEE OF MAH FERMLEEE
I heard a man once say, no shit, no kidding, that he bought his wife the biggest vehicle they could afford because she was a bad driver.
The irony is that I have seen news articles about parents killing their own kids while taking their SUV out of the driveway. And yes, they had bought those because it was “safe” for the kids. The following is just one example you can find many more on the internet.
And unfortunately there’s plenty of truth to this at least for those inside the vehicles. Driving my tiny hatchback in Texas can be really scary some days, the lifted trucks in particular have TERRIBLE visibility and simply can’t see sedans. Their headlights are often higher than the roof of most sedans. It’s so selfish and makes driving a worse experience for everyone else, propagating them too to get a massive light truck/SUV.
My parents recently sold their sedan for a SUV soley for the added safety and I honestly understand where they’re coming from. If I didn’t trust my reaction times as well as I do I’d want the same thing despite it making the roads less safe for others in the process.
Unpopular opinion: For more than 90% of the population a car with an Otto engine volume of less than 1.5l is enough. Anuthing above should be taxed heavily.
I’ve been a fan of little, simple vehicles for a while now. I have had a Geo Metro, Mitsubishi Mirage, and now I have a Suzuki Samurai. In all of these vehicles, I have had to deal with the same issue, when trying to get up to speed: The slowpokes in front of me. No matter how slow I go in my 65 hp little SUV, I end up waiting on someone in a much faster vehicle to get out of the way.
I drive a Prius and agree completely. It’s fuel efficient and extremely utilitarian. I can fit ten foot lumber in it, or my two big stupid dogs and our luggage for trips. Even when my wife drives like a maniac, we still get around 45 mpg. We typically end up passing slow moving vehicles on freeway on ramps, despite it having a maximum acceleration of 0-60 mph in about 10 seconds.
a loophole in the cafe standards says the longer the wheelbase the less the fuel economy has to be and the manufacturers find it more cost effective to make bigger vehicles rather than develop efficient engines.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wants-to-close-the-suv-loophole-that-supersized-cars/
Also the rest of the world thinks we are weird and love giant cars now. We don’t really have much of an option for normal sized cars
I wonder what the criteria for SUV is for these studies?
I’m probably an outlier but I switched from a compact sedan to a compact SUV that’s 10 inches shorter in length, 4 inches higher in height, and 1 inch wider than my old car. They are about the same in weight, within a couple hundred pounds, and the new car is about 80g/km lower in emissions.
I technically own an SUV but it’s not super different from a hatchback car.
These aren’t the SUVs most people in North America are buying. They don’t even sell regular cars anymore just trucks and SUV monsters.
Well, like I said, I’m probably and outlier, but they still sell a newer version of both my old compact sedan and my current SUV.
That said, the current mid size pickups are more equivalent to a full size from 10-20 years ago and the continuing SUV lines are getting bigger for some reason as years go by.
We just replaced my wife’s old mid SUV from 2017 for a 2024 and the 2024 is more equivalent in size to the model one size up in 2017.
