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Well, probably the right thing to do for large trucks and suvs is to reclassify them so that you need a commercial license to drive them.
by baron816 3mo ago
Well, probably the right thing to do for large trucks and suvs is to reclassify them so that you need a commercial license to drive them.
- tinfoilhatter 3mo ago[flagged]
- ajuc 3mo agoWhat's more comfortable about SUV or a truck than a minivan or combi? How is a tall hood increasing your family comfort? It only increases your ego.
- tinfoilhatter 3mo agoPlenty of minivans also have tall hoods. I assume by combi you're talking about a station wagon, and in that case you're trading cargo capacity and the ability to tow boats / trailers / campers / etc... Ego has nothing to do with it - utility does. You can fit more people and things in a larger vehicle, this isn't rocket science.
- bryanlarsen 3mo agoWhich ones? Caravan's, Sienna's, etc all have significantly lower hood heights than a typical 3 row SUV. They all have sloping hoods. A sloping hood increases visibility and reduces air resistance. Why does a Kenworth have a sloping hood but F-150's and SUV's don't?
- mikepurvis 3mo agoI don't think the cargo capacity argument really holds water. I drive a Volvo V60 wagon which has trunk space of 23.2 cubic feet. When it was in the shop, I had a loaner XC60, and I could noticeably feel that the trunk space was about the same, despite the vehicle sitting considerably taller. Sure enough, the XC60 crossover has a trunk space of 22.4 cubic feet. It's the same trunk, just higher off the ground, which to me makes it less useful to me: more lifting to get stuff in, harder to rummage through items (eg camping pantry), much more difficult to access my roof box.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- gravatron 3mo agoI spent significant time recently in both a new F150 and a Toyota Sienna, and it isn't even close in the comfort between them. F150 wins by a mile by the sheer amount of space you have in that thing for both passengers and cargo. Not to mention the ability to tow.
- baq 3mo agoHow often people tow anything?
- gravatron 3mo agoIs this a serious question? A lot of people tow stuff all the time for work, home improvement, or recreation. Not everyone is a city dweller living in a small apartment whose only options to spend their free time is picking which restaurant to eat dinner at.
- ajuc 3mo agoPeople in Europe tow stuff with 120 HP sedans or combis all the time. Driving a vehicle that you can't park, that's unsafe for pedestrians and burns 50% more every day just so you can tow something marginally easier on these 2 occassions a year when you need to tow something larger than a 500kg trailer makes 0 sense. And if we're talking businesses, building crews etc. - this is what they actually need: https://img.linemedia.com/img/s/flatbed-truck-3-5t-Volkswagen-Crafter-2-0-TDI---1778054583520017819_big--26050611001267368100.jpg https://img.linemedia.com/img/s/flatbed-truck-3-5t-Volkswage... Or just a regular van more likely, cause rain is a thing. VW crafter with dual cab uses 57% of its length for the flatbed, largest F150 - 39%. Notice how the engine fits into this tiny vedge-shaped hood. https://i.imgur.com/KopGeTi.png https://i.imgur.com/KopGeTi.png Same idea as American trucks, more cargo space, higher usable load, can be loaded from all sides, completely flat bed, no wheel cutouts, fits 6 people inside, burns less fuel. All because there's no ridiculously huge hood, wheels and engine. Let's be honest here. American pickup trucks are not about the usability, they are about ego.
- vel0city 3mo ago
- NDlurker 3mo agoMinivans and station wagons are just as good as a Tahoe for transporting a family.
- tinfoilhatter 3mo agoNot if you need to tow a trailer / camper. Maybe there's a reason different kinds of vehicles exist? To fulfill different requirements of their drivers?
- mikepurvis 3mo agoBut families towed tent trailers back in the 80s behind their sedans and station wagons, too. Maybe there's a bit of circular reasoning going on here where people bought giant vehicles because they liked the aesthetics and internal roominess, and then the prevalence of giant vehicles opened up the market for larger and heavier towables— rigid body RVs, seadoos, a trailer full of gas dirt bikes, whatever it is. I also feel like in past times, it was much more common to see a two car household with two very different cars, with one being a hatchback or sedan for getting the family around down and doing grocery runs, and the other a truck or van for those occasional "hauling" requirements. Nowadays I feel like many times it's two big SUVs, just tuned to his and her brand tastes rather than two shared vehicles for different usages. I'd be interested to know if the stats on multi-car households would bear this out.
- budsniffer952 3mo ago>But families towed tent trailers back in the 80s behind their sedans and station wagons, too. Are we concerned about safety, or are we not? Because towing a 2000+ lb trailer behind a sedan is kind of dangerous.
- oblio 3mo agoLOL. Americans have lost the plot. They've used SpaceX to leave reality. The typical Dutch trailer is pulled by stuff like Volvo S60 and smaller, and it weighs around 3000lbs in freedumb units. They generally migrate about 1000km - 1500km to the South of France and then back North to the Netherlands.
- rypskar 3mo agoYou are looking at it the wrong way. Driving something so large that it would require a commercial license to transport your family around is ridiculous
- tinfoilhatter 3mo agoThey don't require commercial licenses though, because they're not large enough to and don't serve a commercial purpose when transporting families / their things. Plenty of families have the need for third-row seating and the ability to haul things around.
- treis 3mo agoThat's not the issue. The issue is how tall these grills are and to a lesser extent curb weight. You don't need either to have third row seating or the ability to haul things.
- jounker 3mo agoMy minivan seats seven. It has the footprint as a toyota camry. It’s only marginally heavier than a camry. Can you please explain to me again why you need a lincoln navigator or the like?
- AnthonyMouse 3mo agoToyota Camry curb weight is ~3300 pounds. The minivan based on the Camry is the Sienna, curb weight ~4600 lbs. Lincoln Navigator curb weight ~5600 lbs. If the difference between the first two is marginal (~30%), the difference between the second two is less (~20%). By comparison, actual CDL-requiring commercial trucks weigh up to 80,000 pounds.
- asdff 3mo agoNow look at the front end of a toyota sienna vs a lincoln navigator. One slopes down so that you might actually see what is in front of you and allows for pedestrians to impact and roll up and off. The other is effectively a brick notorious for making it difficult to see obstructions in front of you as well as creating an impact that would sooner see the pedestrian explode into a bloody mess over just rolling up and off.
- andrepd 3mo agoDutch grandmas can transport 3 kids to school on a cargo bike but young parents in the US need a 4-ton lifted truck? Odd.
- FeteCommuniste 3mo agoAmerican children are pretty hefty.
- mapkkk 3mo agothe way I see US infrastructure, I feel like they (like most of the world) will never be able to claw their way back out of car dependence. Even the Dutch had to fight tooth and nail for it. I've lived in Germany for a while and there are cities here where even I would be snubbing taking kids to school with a bakfiets, because the biking infra is not good enough, or in other words the mingling I'd have to do with other traffic would be too out of my comfort zone. Urban planning should prioritize walking and biking very first, and cars and other utilitarian-but-dangerous/harmful transport methods should be integrated in a way that's not engulfing the more human-scale side of things. But I think the costs (both monetary and in terms of "cognitive shift") are so high that I don't think I'll see this change in my lifetime. And that's before accounting for the power of corporate interest
- doubled112 3mo agoIt is amazing how resistant people are to having their children walk to school in my neighbourhood. They will complain endlessly about having nowhere to park, traffic, and dangerous driving but would never consider having their child walk. It is too dangerous.
- tinyplanets 3mo agoMy god, you wouldn't want to ever be (shudder) ... uncomfortable!
- kube-system 3mo agoThe problematic designs are primarily post-2009, as this fine article points out. Families had no issue finding transportation in 2008 or prior. A 47” high hood line does not provide any utility to transporting children. Children are not stored under the hood.
- bombcar 3mo ago> Children are not stored under the hood. Oh now you tell me!
- throwaway173738 3mo agoYou could buy a minivan. The Toyota Sienna has more room for people and when you fold the seats down it has similar payload capacity to most of the trucks I’ve seen.
- bastawhiz 3mo agoMy parents raised my brother and I in the back of a 92 Oldsmobile Cutlass. You don't need a vehicle where the hood is 48" off the ground to be comfortable.
- idiotsecant 3mo agoIt's so weird how billions of families get around without a canyonero
- FatherOfCurses 3mo agoWhat's ridiculous is the assumption that the only to comfortably transport a family is via a massive truck.
- officeplant 3mo agoYou're free to go buy a minivan, or if you're in the quiverfull movement with 12 kids you're gonna have to buy a 15 passenger church van and take a test in this new ideal world.
- forgetfreeman 3mo agoomfg I would love that. Like literally force manufacturers to put air brakes on anything above a certain weight limit and demand additional certification to operate one. Full Disclosure: I own four vehicles that would trigger this requirement, each for different reasons, and would be whistling and smirking in the DMV line to take the commercial test.
- briffle 3mo agoA commercial driver has a physical every year, severe restrictions on how they can drive, hours behind wheel, etc. But if you have 2 cataract surguries, oncoming dementia, and a body full of arthritis that can barely move, you can drive a 50' Class A Motorhome to your winter home in the South.
- loloquwowndueo 3mo agoThat person clearly can’t walk so that’s why they have to drive, right?
- forgetfreeman 3mo agoSounds utterly ridiculous I agree but there's something to be said for 60+ years of muscle memory, otherwise olds rocketing motorhomes off of cliffs or augering into the side of the local walmart would feature more prominently in the local news. Quit picking on paw paw and keep the fight where it belongs: suburbanite pavement princesses must die.
- ValentinPearce 3mo agoThere are also countries that reduce the time a license is valid starting at a certain age and that require a medical test for renewal at all ages. IIRC Spain does that.
- forgetfreeman 3mo agoOr you know you could just veer entirely off-topic and turn this into some kind of ageist food fight. That's an option too I suppose.
- sokoloff 3mo agoMy class D (most typical) driving license is good to 26K pounds. That seems crazy high to me, but then again, I’m hard-pressed to choose exactly the right lower value that would “perfect”.
- mikestew 3mo agoYou know you can go buy a 45’ motorhome that weighs multiples of the heaviest SUV, and drive it home on a standard driver’s license? Last time I renewed my WA license, it was online and the eye test for my retirement-aged eyes consisted of a checkbox that asks, “your eyes aren’t shit, are they?” I’m not arguing, but more pointing out that what you want will never happen.
- ultrarunner 3mo agoYeah, my dad has one. It's terrifying. Even for him. These are commercial vehicles with a residential façade, but they are not maintained like commercial vehicles. If they weren't such a money hole I imagine they'd get popular to a point where they'd be restricted. As of now, they're not enough of a problem across a wide enough geographic for people to notice.