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gberger

All trucks are unsafe for pedestrians, period.

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Don't forget the lifted trucks. If one of those runs into the side of my car, it's bumper directly hitting my face.

Unpopular opinion: Lifted trucks should be illegal.

They are in Australia! (Where the ANCAP is from).

Or rather, lifts beyond a few inches require special certification. Same goes for larger tires and after market bullbars.

Heck in Australia I don't think it's even legal to have tyres that come outside the width of the mud guards.

Of course it isn't, that's seriously dangerous.

What is ANCAP? I only know this term as meaning anarcho-capitalism.

Australasian New Car Assessment Program https://www.ancap.com.au/

What Australia are you living in?

They are in many parts of the world!

In cities lifted trucks and motorcycles and cars without sufficient muffling should be illegal. Engineers have spent so much time and money trying to solve problems around noise, pollution and safety so that we can operate internal combustion engine vehicles in crowded cities without ruining each others lives. Then someone can just lift their truck and take the muffler off for vanity reasons? Seems insane

Those _are_ illegal already. It's just that in many places the police don't actively enforce the laws because they have more important work to do.

Not disagreeing with your point, but a what is the more important work they’re supposedly working on? In SF cops aren’t enforcing traffic laws, drug laws, or really even patrolling so what are cops actually spending their time on?

Presumably, violent and property crimes.

I think the only solution for this is to phase out ICE vehicles entirely. No matter how quiet they are when they leave the factory, there is always some idiot who's gonna modify the exhaust because he thinks that making extra loud noises makes him cool.

And some companies that will modify the non-ICE cars to make more noise:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1180877114226008064

Though, the first time I hear a Tesla making the coconut noise from Monty Python I will no doubt laugh. The second time? Yeah, it'll get old fast.

NHTSA recently updated the rules for vehicle pedestrian warning sounds, and now allows user-selectable sounds. Previously these were prohibited, so vehicles could only have one fixed sound.

I'm not sure that "coconut noises" would be allowed, however, as the rules require continuous tones (modulated according to speed and acceleration) that must be recognisable as an engine noise.

Perhaps the coconut noise will be a manually-activated alert/horn feature rather than the mandatory pedestrian warning sound.

Coconut noise mp3 from Monty Python is already being deployed in Tesla software based on recent decompiling.

My 2018 Honda Clarity makes a really cheesy synthetic new-age sounding "hum" noise at low speed. I wish Honda would put out a software update to make the noise user-selectable.

The intro to "The Final Countdown" in a continuous loop would be swell.

Crazy bright LED headlights at eye level of other vehicles need to be illegal too.

Even more Unpopular Opinion: pedestrians and non-motorized traffic should be illegal on road ways

Yes what we need is a law so extreme that it even prohibits us to walk accross the parking lot to the store.

Yeah, this is why semi-trucks have the Mansfield bar that runs level with the bumper of a normal passenger car. (Named after Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car crash with a semi truck.)

That may unfortunately be true (and to some extent, is likely a problem with large & weighty road vehicles in general).

But the article points out that this one may also be unsafe for passengers, if it lacks an effective way to absorb energy in a collision.

Quoting from the link:

"Because the cold-rolled steel is undentable it does not allow for crumple zones that reduce the impact of the force of an accident for occupants."

This is true of a lot of small cars, like the Smart Car and the Fiat 500. They have pretty rigid structures but no crumple zones. The car survives, but everyone suffers massive internal bleeding. If any part of the car itself touches your head or chest in an accident, you basically die instantly.

NCAP crash testing works by placing sensors on test dummies and measuring the impact forces on their "bodies" under various crash scenarios.

In Euro NCAP testing, the Fiat 500 has a 3 star rating[1], and the Smart fortwo has a 4 star rating[2]. So while not among the safest cars on the market, they are certainly not the deathtraps you suggest. The Smart in particular offers very respectable occupant protection for its size.

[1] https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/fiat/500/26307

[2] https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/smart/fortwo/7894

> The Smart in particular offers very respectable occupant protection

That's reassuring

> for its size.

That's not. Passengers risk rises with the size of the incoming car, not the car they are riding in.

"Passengers risk rises with the size of the incoming car, not the car they are riding in."

There are much larger cars that perform worse on occupant protection tests than the Smart does. For example, the Jeep Wrangler:

https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/jeep/wrangler/34192

I drove a 500 for years and had a couple of crashes. They absolutely are not as deadly as you describe. I had a motorcycle rear-end me at 55mph and I did not suffer any injuries and the motorcyclist walked away from the crash with mild injuries. I hit a deer at 55 and while it totaled the car, again I suffered no injuries. The 500 very much DOES have crumple zones.

“Basically die instantly” does anyone actually believe that?

Neither of those is remotely comparable to a head on collision with 500+ lb car at 500-100mph relative.

If an opposing car pushes a part of your car into your body, that's like you being hit by a car while standing in front of a wall. Once the pressure wave hits your body, where is it going to go? You can't be "thrown clear" through the back of your own car.

If you honestly believe that, I recommend reading the crash test results linked in other comments or finding them on your own. This isn't a hypothetical, it's actually been tested and this "you will die instantly" is complete nonsense.

Uhhh in neither of those instances did you get hit by anything with substantial mass. If you did, you’d be dead. Survivor bias.

"Because the cold-rolled steel is undentable it does not allow for crumple zones that reduce the impact of the force of an accident for occupants."

I'm not sure how one thing logically follows from the other. The physics of an impact from a hang-swung sledgehammer versus a car impacting another car or a large stationary barrier are basically incomparable.

Cars too.

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