Trucks and sport utility vehicles with hood heights greater than 40 inches are about 45% more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than shorter vehicles with sloped hoods, according to new research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
U.S. vehicle fuel efficiency standards administered by NHTSA have encouraged automakers to build larger vehicles. The bigger the vehicle, the lower the fuel efficiency target it has to meet.
Yeah preverse incentives. When doing the wrong thing makes the most sense for the individual. Happens often in tragedy of the commons situations.
If you hit a pedestrian it is better for you that they die. If you find an endangered animal on your land it is better for you to kill it. If you have a child with someone who makes minimum wage it is better for you to divorce.
Maybe it is too much to expect but for things like this, when public policy experts came up with a standard instead of just inheriting a situation, that they plan for these things in advance. Spend a few moments and look at where the incentives are before just hammering a new policy into place.
You aren't factoring in civil suits. Someone dead, their family can only get so much. Someone crippled can just keep going after you and might have to as they go into greater and greater levels of debt. What would you do if suddenly your income went down to about 14k USD a year and with each passing day the chances of you returning to work diminished, wouldn't you be desperate enough to try to win some money from the person who did this to you? Wouldn't you go along with any shyster lawyer who promised results?
Recently bought a new diesel silverado 3500 for my ranch. It's enormous, I'm glad I didn't get the dually option as it's hard enough to drive in the city. Most of its job however is pulling trailers around.
That said, on highway if I drive the speed limit and take it easy I can get 9L/100km. It's unreal that such a huge truck will get almost the same economy as our KIA SUV.
You don’t need that truck, same way as nobody else on the planet, no matter what their profession, needs it
Please stop this bullshit. There are most certainly reasons to own a truck that can haul big things. Including in Europe. It's just that 90% of the trucks you see in a Costco parking lot don't need to be that way.
I do occasionally see tiny-penis trucks here in Europe. Do you know what I've never, ever seen though? A dirty one. One used for work, rather than just showing off.
If you had to haul something heavy on a trailer, what would you use? A fuel-guzzling, heavy, unreliable shiny trinket, or a Toyota Hilux?
99% of workers with stuff to move use a van. Farmers use pickups like L200s. Accountants drive tiny-penis trucks for the tax break
Explain to me again why American contractors are the only contractors on the entire planet that need giant trucks?
What do those farmers use to move livestock around? Because you're generally looking at a 10,000lbs trailer for that, which is F450 territory.
What you really want to go after is the lower end the truck market. Circa 2002, the Ford Ranger had a curb weight around 3,300 lbs (exact number depending on the trim) and looked like this. The current one is around 4,200 lbs and looks like this. Small trucks have disappeared entirely in the US market, and there's no good reason for it.
But when you start hitting the Ford Superduty market (F250 on up), you're looking at people who actually use their trucks for the most part. They are big because they haul a lot of stuff and they have to be.
Still waiting for you to explain why American contractors/farmers are the only people on the planet who require these vehicles when everyone else manages with vastly smaller vehicles
I run 1000 cows on a 60,000 acre ranch in southern Alberta. It's too rough to run a semi truck and trailer around on but I can haul a tri-axle Wilson gooseneck stock trailer with 20,000 lbs of cattle across it when I need to. There's no roads through the ranch other than dirt trails so it takes a long time to travel through it and the fewer trips I have to make the better. Generally I'm moving cattle on horseback but occasionally I have to move old/sick/injured cows from a to b. Simply put, your European farms are miniscule and you don't need the same capabilities that we do. The world is not uniform.
What do you expect to use for hauling livestock? These can have a tow weight of 10,000 lbs, which is much more than you can do with a regular hitch. The fact that you've never personally seen this does not mean anything.
That can haul a livestock. How about 12? Or would you like them to make more trips (with proportional use of gas and risk of accident)?
As for F150s hauling nothing, that's kinda my point. There's a market above it that actually does work (F250 and up), and there's a market that ought to exist underneath it (what used to be the Ranger, which is now much larger). You're targeting the wrong group by focusing on trucks that haul 10,000 lbs.
Wait, how often do you need to haul stock with your F250?
If every day, then it's more optimal to by having a dedicated livestock truck, Like Volvo FL.
If you're only moving livestock occasionally, but driving F250 daily, you're compensating for your tiny weiner and shitting in the air that everyone breathes