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Comment by LanceH | Hacker News Reader

Smaller cars are more dangerous in a multi-car accident.

Most accidents only involve a single car.

There is less control in larger vehicles.

Everyone thinks they are a better driver than they are and the only way they'll end up in an accident is if someone else hits them.

Add all this up and many want to drive larger cars.

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> Smaller cars are more dangerous in a multi-car accident.

Smaller cars bear more of the risk in a multi-car accident from the more dangerous larger cars. The smaller cars themselves are safer.

It's like saying t-shirts are less safe than guns because they won't stop bullets.

It's a negative spiral. More people get bigger cars now because well there are more bigger cars on the road now. That and the convenience of an SUV is unbeatable for people with families - like baby seats or ease of getting in and out and so on. When I bought my car almost a decade ago, it felt reasonably sized. Now it looks puny on the road.

True. But language is important. We don't have to help them victim blame.

No victim blaming. Smaller cars are more dangerous given an accident is already occurring between multiple cars.

Choosing a car to be in an accident, a bigger car is a solid choice. Of course, that skips over being in an accident at all. It also skips over any concern for others -- but so many people view that hypothetical accident as clearly the other person's fault, so may as well go with the big car.

> Smaller cars are more dangerous given an accident is already occurring between multiple cars.

Again, you're victim blaming here. The small car is not causing the danger. T-shirts are not more dangerous than guns just because someone firing a gun randomly into a crowd is less likely to get hurt than someone in the crowd wearing a t-shirt.

Still not victim blaming, go back and read the whole thing again.

Which car is safer if you're choosing a car to be in? big or small? The bigger is safer and the smaller is more dangerous (to be in), in a multi-car accident.

My whole post was on the rationalization of the choice of size of car. Language matters, as you say. It is about people not choosing the smaller car and not being the victim due to driving a smaller car.

Yes, the escalation of size causes problems in aggregate, but not the point of what I wrote.

The small car is safer to be in. The person with the small car is causing less danger.

You are participating in the victim blaming and the arms race by conflating the externalisation of risk with safety. And there is no need to aggregate to see the effect. It is present in every individual case.

The person in the big car is not being safer, they are being more dangerous and more selfish. Just because they perceive that their selfishness is exceeding the added danger (something not borne out by the stats) does not justify it. Acknowledging the framing of the auto industry is making the problem worse.

All being equal, no it’s not. However, SUVs get their “safety” by killing the drivers of smaller vehicles. Two SUVs colliding is more dangerous for both than, say, two Ford Fiestas colliding.

And that’s to say nothing of what happens when the person being hit is a pedestrian or cyclist.

Perceived convenience for people with families. Actual convenience is a joke because they’re horrifically impractical compared to an estate (station wagon in the USA).

Minivans are in many ways more practical than SUV for families just as many seats easier access back row of seat tons of leg room better millage. and while suvs perform better in head on collisions van are safer in most other as the suvs are more top heavy and likely to tip. Vans just have a stigma as the soccer mom vehicle despite all those soccer moms having moved to suvs to get away from it.

>Everyone thinks they are a better driver than they are and the only way they'll end up in an accident is if someone else hits them.

I hear this a lot and wonder how true it is because I personally think i am a horrible driver and can't wait until actually safe fully self driving cars take away my need to drive. on the other had a drive a small car and want a smaller one despite sharing the roads with behemoth raised 4x4 pickups that seem to be inexplicably popular.

Self driving cars are never coming in a form that would allow you to absolve yourself of responsibility for driving

"Never" is a long time.

Given the explanations I've been given for why demonstration videos of general purpose vision-based robots are still often sped up x4 or more (despite Tesla and Spot), I have to assume it's at least a few years away yet, but that's not never.

The human will always be responsible. There is no way the manufacturers are going to accept liability in case their self driving car has an accident.

I remember hearing something different. Seems like Mercedes is moving in that direction.

https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res...

Interesting. I’ll be happy to eat my hat in a couple of years, but I don’t think this will be generalised.

Even if so, they may be forced to do so for the right to market the vehicle as self driving.

I would favour this.

Even if legally you're not culpable, you're still responsible for choosing to use a death machine in an environment where it can cause harm to others.

Are you arguing against human drivers there, or against cars in general?

Against personal cars in cities

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