>And I know if I was the driver of the other vehicle, and survived, even if I wasn't the one at fault, I'd probably need years of expensive therapy to get past it all.
>But there's no good reason we need to allow people to import old, unsafe vehicles like this.
If this is your argument, motorcycles seems like a much better target.
>> Motor vehicles are a big cause of death in many countries.
Yep, that is true. On the other hand there are also many laws that try to mitigate the risk of accidents.[] I think the mobility of motor vehicles is a benefit, that outweighs the risk of accidents. I doubt we could manage the logistics of supplying big cities with bikes, trains and horses alone.
[]: That does not solve the problem, that cars are dangerous machinery and some people just shouldn't handle them (despite a drivers license).
> Speeding up upon overtaking doesn't count. If you need to do that you should not have overtaken in the first place, since it was obviously dangerous.
No matter how fast a truck is driving, I don't want to be anywhere near it while driving my motorcycle. Those tires randomly explode (I've seen it happen multiple times) and when a piece hits you, you're dead. I pass them ASAP, no matter how fast I have to go to do it.
> We already know that SUVs are more dangerous for pedestrians, but I think most of us agree that making SUVs illegal for this reason would not be a good idea, and is against the American ethos.
As a non-american that doesn't own a car it's not that unreasonable for me :) At least banning SUVs that are excessively unsafe for pedestrians in a collision. Or maybe just ban it in cities where some walkability is expected. I just don't want to die by getting hit by a car
>These are perfomance vehicles that are rarely taken out, usually to tracks or shows,
Okay, if this is how it is, then why are they allowed on the road? Obviously I don't have a problem with people driving this in tracks or shows, only in public roads.
Besides, if the speed limit is, at most, 130kph, why do we allow (again, on public roads) machines that go to 250, 300, or above? Or that speed from a stop to that aforementioned speed limit in 5 or 6 seconds? Again, by all means enjoy them on the tracks (still, within reason with more relaxed emission standards).
Is it? I mean maybe it is, I don't know, but I'm guessing you don't really know either. I can imagine that maybe a scooter could be safer than a very bad car. You can get crushed in a car, cars go faster, you've got less situational awareness.
I'm not sure this is one of those things that is just obviously true.
> Why not put some effort into making the use of small, lightweight, silent, clean vehicles possible?
It’s already possible. The effort you seem to be requesting is the effort I already described as dangerous to me and my pup. If I’m understanding correctly: that’s why. Because it’s dangerous to me and my pup.
If I’m not understanding correctly, please feel free to clarify what effort you think I should be making to better accommodate these vehicles by which I wish not to be hit.
Absolutely, I wish every prospective motorcyclist would study the stats (more than 35 times increased mortality rate per driven km [1]) and discuss this with their loved
ones.
Those who insist driving a motorcycle afterwards deserve their genes to be removed from the gene pool.
> Your car buying decision should be strictly around your own safety.
That is a horrible, selfish attitude.
A car driver is absolutely responsible for their choice of vehicle, their choice to drive any particular journey, their choice to exceed the speed limit, text, phone, chat, and everything else.
I would ban the sale of any car/SUV not in the current top 75% by pedestrian safety. Set that as a baseline, and increase the minimum standard every 5 years.
> God I am so disgusted by trucks as virtue/status signaling
If you own a truck for its utility then my statement doesn't apply to you. They are utility vehicles. I can safely say thought that a majority of people who own them live in the suburbs and don't use them for their intended purpose. They are just used to signal status.
> you're an idiot helping to accelerate the problem as this now becomes a weapons race on the road
This is a very harsh take for something that is legal and widespread everywhere across the world (at least Western world).
You have to try really hard to pretend you don't understand why this is happening. It's a race to the top of the safety spectrum, and for good reason. Traffic accidents are among the single biggest sources of preventable deaths and grave injuries, and getting a bigger car is one of the single most important aspects you can control in this equation. It's actually super simple.
If this is truly a problem, and I guess it is, then there should be some form of legislative intervention against it. The people buying them are not the problem, the environment which encourages this is.
> If we prohibited all vehicle traffic we would prevent 1.3 million deaths worldwide.
Sure, seems a bit extreme though. I suggest we remove all the safety features on cars, it costs the car companies loads in R&D to comply with all those regulations. You take a risk when you drive, and to be honest people should just be better drivers and there will be less accidents.
Far less accidents in lower-density locales as well.
>I don’t find anything remotely controversial about banning a powered vehicle capable of ~30 km/h from pavements.
30km/h?!
Here in Sweden they forced the company to bring the top speed down to 20km/h for rental scooters.
Of course many have bought their own since the fad started dying down. And those are sometimes capable of illegal speeds up to 40km/h. Impossible for police to tell, and also a waste of time seeing as there are more pressing issues.
> Want to save lives? High speed motorcycling should simply be illegal.
Just make that; high speed _cars_ should simply be illegal. It is drivers killing motorcyclists, not motorcyclists killing drivers. Because cars are both heavy and fast, they are deadly by their very nature. With more power comes more responsibility. For drivers, this responsibility must translate to slowing down.
>Thicker pillars are not a bad thing. Visibility is not appreciably limited by them either.
One Hundred Percent inaccurate. I can't see shit out of my 2014 crossover when turning to check blindspots, compared to my 90s trucks and cars I've driven. Hell, backup cameras are mandated on all new cars in the US (they are very useful, but it's also because you can't see out of your own car).
>By that token motorcycles would teach you a healthy fear of operating without a chassis, and thus a safer vehicle?
I think driving a motorcycle creates safer drivers, absolutely. I take the stance when driving, turning, merging, etc. that at any moment, any car near me is going to do something stupid. Either not see my lane-change signal, or cross the stop-sign despite it being my turn, etc.
Every person who has proactively described that level of defensive driving (that I have talked to in conversation) had at one point or another been a motorcycle rider.
Motorcycles are much less safe when compared to this truck. Would you also ban them, or do they receive an arbitrary exception?
reply