cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/319198
I got a lot of push-back on a comment I made here about how bigger trucks/suvs are the primary cause the increasing pedestrian death-rate in America so apparently more people need to see this video.
Presumably by “small trucks” you mean ones that are restricted by the same regulations as cars are. Even if we had very good infrastructure, large trucks would still be less safe than ones with safe bumpers and clearances and less mass. I don’t think someone can say one way or the other that large trucks would not still be a problem. So it’s perfectly reasonable for people to be concerned about large trucks, both in the fantasy world that you’d like this discussion to be taking place in, and here in the real world.
What I mean is that anybody quibbling about the difference in safety between one multi-thousand-pound vehicle and another is missing the forest for the trees. Every car, whether it’s a Geo Metro or a dually F-350, takes up the same amount of space: one parking space and one whole lane of traffic each. That means every automobile contributes equally to sprawl, and that even the tiniest, most efficient hatchback is, in the grand scheme of things, only a small margin better than a coal-rolling douche-mobile!
The real solution to traffic, to pollution, to housing costs, to obesity, and to a bunch of other crises including but not limited to the increase in mental health problems due to the lack of “third places” – the only real solution to any of these things – is to get people out of the damn cars entirely. Not to get them into smaller cars; to get them out of all cars and into transit, biking and/or walking instead.
If you want to complain about something being too big, the thing to complain about is minimum lot size for single-family zoned homes, not trucks!
Frankly, I think the real reason big truck hate is popular is mainly so that people can scapegoat trucks as being the problem in order to try to absolve themselves of blame for their car-dependent habits. The whole notion is a harmful distraction.