- Trucks and SUVs now make up fully 70 percent of all new cars sold in the U.S. Their bloated design is killing people, especially pedestrians.
- According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, there were 6,283 pedestrian fatalities in 2018, an increase of 53 percent compared to 2009 and the highest figure since 1990. That gives the U.S. a figure of 19 pedestrian deaths per 1 million population.
- No, the main reason for the jump in deaths is the increasing proportion of SUVs and trucks on the roads. As a major Detroit Free Press/USA Today investigation by Eric D. Lawrence, Nathan Bomey, and Kristi Tanner reveals, both manufacturers and federal regulators have known for years that big, tall vehicles are more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists — something like 2-3 times more likely to kill when they hit someone. The reason is obvious: where a sedan will hit a standing person in the leg, usually causing them to roll onto the hood, a tall, flat-nosed truck will hit them in the torso, knocking them down and often running them over, and causing much more severe injuries. A study from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety found that between 2009 and 2016, "fatal single-vehicle crashes involving SUVs increased 81 percent, more than any other type of vehicle."
I almost get hit by a car once a month. Almost always it's a truck or minivan of some sort.
This article very much doesn't show what the quoted text purports it to show. There's no controlling for pedestrian traffic or vehicle traffic increases over that stretch of time, and there's no mathematics to show what a substitution analysis would look like (say, what would the expected number of deaths be were the proportion of trucks the same in 2016 as they were in 2009). And there's no discussion of the effects of distracted driving, which has been shown to be the biggest factor in the overall increase in traffic fatalities generally. It makes sense that the biggest increase has been at night, because distracted drivers are probably even less likely to see obstacles when visibility is poor. This is a great example of what the right complains about when they complain about liberal media--take some facts that support a narrative and make a sweeping conclusion based on the current liberal ideology (in this case "trucks are bad"). The only thing that is going to lessen the number of trucks and SUVs on the road is a dramatic increase in gas prices. We already saw in 2008 that when gas gets to $4/gal, truck sales fall. We should all care about better safety, but this is like when Walter tells the Dude, "And keeping an amphibious rodent in the city limits..." It's just hating for it's own sake, and I'm going to continue to shrug until we can control drunk driving and distracted driving.
How often are you almost hit by a moving vehicle, as a pedestrian? How do you propose we control drunk driving and distracted driving?
I get that you're trying to make a rhetorical point here, but that doesn't make the author's data support his conclusions. Punitively, I guess. What has Europe done? I'm not a public safety expert. All I can say is that I try not to do either, but I'm definitely not perfect. Certainly we could improve the vehicle safety side a lot. There was an agreement a few years ago between all the major automakers to share safety advances, but I haven't heard of it since, so I don't know what the status is. I think the industry could learn a lot from the airline industry, but in the end, what's always going to separate them is how hard it is to be a pilot and how easy it is to be a driver. I think the tech industry could do a lot better, too, in terms of making it hard for people to use their phones while driving. Not sure that will ever happen without legislation.How often are you almost hit by a moving vehicle, as a pedestrian?
How do you propose we control drunk driving and distracted driving?
It will never happen without legislation because that is purely counter to the entire point of the tech industry - user engagement. Doesn't matter when. Doesn't matter where. Doesn't matter how. Eyes on the prize. veen how do y'all handle drunk and distracted driving? Foveaux same question for y'all down in NZ!
Hmm I could only really give personal answers so I will provide this link about the legal consequences - https://oag.parliament.nz/2013/drink-driving/appendix3.htm as to whether these sentences are considered harsh or not, I'm unsure. They're all I know! I can comment on our culture though - we have a nasty drinking/driving history and while things are changing, we lose hundreds of people to driving related incidents each year, in 2017 about 50% of those were drug/alcohol influenced deaths. That article also suggests making the alcohol limit 0 for adults which is the current rule for teenagers which I honestly wouldn't mind. But I rarely drive my car, I live in a small city and I walk everywhere I need to go so this wouldn't impact me in any real way. We do have some stellar ads around drink driving though, etched into our lexicon almost a decade down the line - My parents told me when I was about 16 and heading off for a booze cruise with my friends, how impressed they were that our group always, always, always has a "sober D" and that in their day it would just be a matter of the least drunk driving everyone home. So hopefully we're on the right path culturally.
Interesting! The state I live in seems to have "harsher" penalties in place, but is bottom third in terms of DUI deaths / 100k (source: https://backgroundchecks.org/which-states-have-the-worst-dui-problems.html). Wondering what kind of deeper analysis has been done on this on what really impacts DUIs - definitely looking like at least in the states the highest rates are found in more rural states which do not have walkability like you're describing. That is an AMAZING advert and I want to say thanks for sharing that.
Conservatives were quick to inform me that only beta male soyboys could possibly drive such a vehicle. It seems thousands of dead pedestrians — who are incidentally about 70 percent men — is just the price to be paid so the right can have another postmodern culture-war grievance in their eternal quest to own the libs.
A guess: The Week tried to license this WSJ article for their "last word" column, discussions fell apart and The Week dragooned Ryan Cooper into freestyling on the subject. The WSJ article basically says everything he says, using the same links and statistics. He did link to it on Twitter two days after it was published. That WSJ article has the best quotes: And what if the next administration should issue pickup-pedestrian safety rules? Could the extra tall hoods and bluff grilles, the sightlines, the scale, the very form language of the traditional American pickup ever be made pedestrian safe? “Of course not,” said Ms. Marte. “No way.” So watch yourself at Costco.“The front end was always the focal point,” GM designer Karan Moorjani told Muscle Cars & Trucks e-zine. “We spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you.”
NHTSA proposed that new pedestrian-safety tests for SUVs and trucks be included in the New Car Assessment Program in 2015. But as of this writing, the agency had not issued guidance on new standards. When asked, the industry trade group Alliance for Automotive Innovation had no comment.
I don't know anyone about the stats, but I can guarantee you that the anecdote is bullshit. Sierra Denali HD has a $78,000 MSRP and it comes with crash sensors on all sides. Should have made up a different truck to illustrate his point. Big pickups may be killing people, but not the luxury ones. You pay $78k for a truck that's 21' long, your sure as shit want to know you're not going to hit anything.
Unless those sensors automatically trigger the brakes 100% correctly 100% of the time, you get in the habit of ignoring them in parking lots. I drove a Mazda 3 station wagon for a couple weeks and it couldn't go down the 101 without informing me I was about to die every 10 seconds. I had a Porsche Boxster S for six weeks and any prole that got within six feet set its sensors to shrieking. My favorite is the collision avoidance system on the Tesla 3; it gives you a phantom display in which jerky car silhouettes lunge and dodge away from your vehicle like cockroaches on meth as it tries and fails to translate disparate sensor data into a cohesive whole to make you feel self-assured in your $70k golf cart. The thinking works like this: (1) huh that annoying noise that happens every time I'm within 30 feet of a fire hydrant (2) I see nothing that looks like something I should bother with (3) skeesh. They teach you in motorcycle safety courses that psychologically, drivers grow conditioned to focusing their subconscious attention on oblongs, since oblongs occupy the majority of their environment. As such, objects that are not oblongs (motorcyclists, bicyclists, pedestrians) get filtered out of the conscious decision-making process. I had a GTI lunge at me and scoop me onto the windshield - from a dead stop - while in a crosswalk - eighteen inches from the asshole's front bumper. I was literally looking at him. He was literally looking at me. I was at least 40% of his field of view. Yet after I picked myself up off the ground he berated me for "wrecking his car" and "jumping out of nowhere" because he was 100% focused on the traffic. Did a little collision warning system warble at him as he did it? Don't know, don't care. I know that if he had one, it was warbling at him anyway because he was attempting to merge into traffic and those sensors are exceptionally good at reminding you they're there and exceptionally poor at providing you useful information. So you ignore them. Everyone does.
The article in question As that chrome grille closed on me like a man-eating Norelco shaver, time slowed. It seemed I was watching myself from afar, being nimble for a man my age, darting from the path of a towering, limousine-black pickup with temporary plates, whose driver barely checked his pace. Jerk. What the hell was that thing? A 2020 GMC Sierra HD Denali? It was huge! The domed hood was at forehead level. The paramedics would have had to extract me from the grille with a spray hose, like Randall Jarrell’s ball-turret gunner. He didn’t even see me. Later, returning to my car, I noticed something: The parking lot was dotted with similarly enormous luxury pickups—many new, many taking up two spaces: Ram, Ford, Chevy, GMC. They stood out like Percherons in a herd of Shetland ponies. Are pickups really getting bigger, on average, or do they just look scarier? Both. The average pickup gained 1,142 pounds between 1990 and 2019. What is going on here? When did pickups get so big? And why are XL-sized pickups so big now? I know. Pickup trucks at Costco. Film at 11. Except that in April, U.S. sales of pickups surpassed automobiles for the first time ever—about 112 years, give or take. Trucks and truck-based sport-utilities now account for roughly 70% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. How we came to be Pickup Nation is a longer story (cheap gas, the Chicken Tax, IRS Section 179, marketing). But this year, to help move the tin during the pandemic, U.S. auto makers laid out a bounty of discounts and cheap financing, including 0% interest for 84 months and deferred-payment plans. “Pickups without a doubt benefited from the great deals,” said Mark Schirmer, spokesperson for market service providers Cox Automotive. “And the deals were particularly great for consumers buying expensive vehicles.” The data suggest these incentives also juiced a boomlet in XL-sized, heavy-duty pickups, otherwise known as ¾-ton and 1-ton pickups, for private use. That’s right: Gucci cowboys. Historically aimed at commercial customers, sole proprietors, horse-haulers and mega-RVers, heavy-duty pickups are stronger and taller than ordinary (half-ton) trucks, with cabs mounted high above reinforced frame rails and heavy, long-travel suspensions. But HD trucks have evolved in the past decade, irradiated with the same prestige-luxury rays as light-duty trucks. Behold MotorTrend 2020 Truck of the Year, the Ram Heavy-Duty. In Limited trim (about $65,000 with four-wheel drive but before options) the 2500 HD sports an elaborate chromified grille that gleams like a tea service. Its flight deck glows with untrucky amenities such as acoustically insulated glass; active noise canceling; 12-inch center touch screen; wood trim, premium leather—all paired with a maximum 19,680-pound towing capacity. With the optional cab lights, it measures over 6-feet-9 inches tall. Thus has been born a uniquely American vehicle type: the mega-luxury mega-pickup. t seems to be resonating. While sales of Silverado light-duty were off 18.6% in the second quarter, sales of the HD model sales were off less than a point. GMC’s light-duty Sierra was down 9.5%, while sales of our menacing new friend, the Sierra HD, were up 7.6% in the second quarter and 21.5% year-to-date. Ford and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles don’t break out HD sales from pickups overall. However, Ram’s average transaction price in the second quarter soared above $50,000, according to a Cox Automotive analysis of data from Kelley Blue Book. Ford F-Series sales fell 23% (to 180,825 units) but its ATP was mostly unaffected—$51,688, the highest among pickups. In July, J.D. Power declared Sierra HD the king of the bro-dozers, placing it first in its 2020 U.S. APEAL Study of Large Heavy-Duty Pickups, which tracks owners’ excitement and emotional attachment in the first 90 days. “The front end was always the focal point,” GM designer Karan Moorjani told Muscle Cars & Trucks e-zine. “We spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you.” Mission accomplished. But are pickups really getting bigger, on average, or do they just look scarier? The answers are somewhat and definitely. The average pickup on the road gained 1,142 pounds between 1990 and 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and 730 pounds since 2000. “One of the most significant changes in that time was the arrival of crew-cab configurations, which added cab space to make them more family and work friendly,” said Mike Levine, Ford spokesperson. In 2011, a change in the way the feds calculate vehicle fuel economy (the so-called “footprint rule”) gave domestic truck makers incentive to go big. Ever since, GMC, Chevy, Ram and Ford have been locked in a competitive feedback loop chasing best-in-class attributes and capacities—the “towing/hauling” wars. For MY 2019, for example, Ram’s 1500 Crew Cab gained 3.9 inches in overall length over a 4.1-inch longer wheelbase. In the same model-year, the Chevy Silverado gained 1.7 inches in length on a 3.9-inch longer wheelbase. As a result, new light-duty pickup dimensions are approaching those of heavy-duty pickups. While the 2021 F-150 is about 18 inches shorter than the equivalent F-250, it is the same width (79.9). Mr. Levine noted that the company has gone to a common-cab design, using the same four-door living quarters for both light- and heavy-duty models. ‘The face of these trucks is where the action is, a Chevy must shout Chevy. Every pickup has become a rolling brand billboard and the billboards are big.’ Ask any kid with a crayon. If you draw the box in the middle bigger, you have to make the ones on the end bigger, too. Which brings us to the 2020 Silverado HD—10 inches longer, 1.8 inches wider, and 1.6 inches taller than the previous model. The big Chevy’s challenging kisser comprises a thick, knee-high bumper; a central grille opening; several sets of lighting assemblies; a full-width transverse element helpfully informing with the message CHEVROLET…and then, above that, between very square corners, is a whole other layer, then a peaked hood with a central inlet. This hood line meets the base of the windshield about 6 inches above the side window sill. Another cause of facial swelling? Marketing. “Full-size pickups are generally identical in profile,” Mr. Schirmer said. “The face of these trucks is where the action is; a Ford has to say Ford from head on, a Chevy must shout Chevy. Every pickup has become a rolling brand billboard and the billboards are big.” You don’t have to be Steven Pinker to see that truck designers are leaning into the bully with these lantern-jawed bumpers and walls of chrome. Detroit’s blithe codifications of purposeful and powerful pickup design fail to describe the intimidation factor from the outside. “A few brands, Ram and Ford, have taken to an overscale brand identity [and] applied it onto the grille,” said Kimberly Marte, associate professor of design at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. “The Chevy team did benchmarking of new models and followed the trend.” It’s not clear how long pickup designs can keep getting their chrome on. In 2018 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released a study examining the connection between SUV design and pedestrian fatalities. In a separate study released in June, IIHS found fatal single-vehicle crashes involving SUVs striking pedestrians increased 81% from 2009 to 2016. While IIHS studied SUVs and not pickups, “The key is the geometry of the front end, the high and flat shape,” said Becky Mueller, a senior research engineer for IIHS. “It’s like hitting a wall.” XL-pickups’ high-rising hoods also create significant blind spots just ahead of the vehicle. I know because apparently I was in one of them. While truck makers like Ford offer automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection systems as standard equipment on most trims, and forward-view cameras as an option, such systems are not mandatory, as they would be in Europe. NHTSA proposed that new pedestrian-safety tests for SUVs and trucks be included in the New Car Assessment Program in 2015. But as of this writing, the agency had not issued guidance on new standards. When asked, the industry trade group Alliance for Automotive Innovation had no comment. And what if the next administration should issue pickup-pedestrian safety rules? Could the extra tall hoods and bluff grilles, the sightlines, the scale, the very form language of the traditional American pickup ever be made pedestrian safe? “Of course not,” said Ms. Marte. “No way.” So watch yourself at Costco. A FEW MONTHS ago, on an ordinary day in an unremarkable Costco parking lot, I was nearly squashed by an unusually large pickup. Thank God I was wearing a mask.
As someone who owns an F-150 of the same era with the same 300 c.i. inline six engine, I can attest to how terrifyingly deadly it is to deer and presumably pedestrians as well. It's already big and I struggle to imagine what it's like to drive something even bigger on a regular basis for typical consumer car tasks. Honestly I would love a tiny Hilux but they command ridiculous money in this area because they're popular for rock crawler/off-road builds. Some auto company should follow Subaru's footsteps and make a small truck marketed at dykes. Ted Cruz might want a mean, threatening, monstrous truck, but lesbians know you don't need a big truck to be good in the bedroom :)
Sorry for continuing the metaphor but how much good is a giant truck if it's only half hard except for a couple times a year pulling a boat to a lake. I guess you can still show it off in the locker room.
Cars are bought for 1-5% use cases. How often do you need 4x4? How often do you need to tow? How often do you need to haul gravel? Maybe 10-20 times a year total per year for all 3. But you can’t really practically get those features the few times you need them so you end up driving with them idle 95% of the time. The cost premium between truck and not isn’t awfully high, when you factor in depreciation into cost of ownership the truck might come out cheaper. Then there is economics and safety at play as well. At the end of the day the truck is the American system summed up in an object. You buy it because it’s optimized for your personal outcome over that of the collective whole and it’s so damn expensive poor people need not apply.
Off road 4x4 is the only thing you can't rent easily, because rentals have no-off-road conditions. The others are easy to solve. Work trucks are work trucks, if it's earning you money get the one that's right for the job. But for personal vehicles the times a light pickup isn't just as good for less than a heavy duty are damn few. The times you aren't better off with a minivan and occasionally renting a small trailer for it are also pretty slim, tho maybe you need to spring for illegally dark tint to make sure nobody see it's you driving the minivan.But you can’t really practically get those features the few times you need them
The minivan isn’t much different from a truck. Similar or worse mpg size is about the same size but maybe not specifically designed to kill pedestrians. Depreciation is much higher and then there is the daily shame of driving one. I almost bought a Tacoma a few years back but I hated the visibility and the Taxes and hidden fees added up to almost 20% of the truck cost. Toyota has like a 2k fee for advertising f-that.
This is the start and finish of the problem. We have a toxic car culture in the USA (but don’t worry, it matches and is intertwined with so many of our other toxic cultures). We are collectively stupid. We buy what the marketers tell us. We are what we drive. We are what we buy. You want to be the sexy professional working mom? Of course you drive the limo black Audi/Volvo/Acura mid sized SUV. You want to be the Alpha-male? You have two choices, but if you really are alpha - you have both: A HUGE truck for all of the coal rolling, 4x4 mountain expedition, boat hauling, camper trailer hauling, mountain Bike carrying, kayak keeping adventures you’re going on in your independently wealthy time.... and your sports car - or at least your sports car inspired full size SUV. Detroit has fucked our country up six ways from Sunday, and we lap it up like little pieces of shit. Too few people buy vehicles for utilitarian purposes. (Any and every contractor who earns money with a truck or farmer who hauls hay is exempt from my venom). We buy trucks and SUVs because we can. We buy them because we “can’t see over the other cars”. We buy them because “they’re safe”. Yah - safe for the occupants. We now have streets and highways filled with light duty tanks that kill peds and cyclists, tear up our roads faster, damage the environment quicker... because fuckin’ Murica. You bet your ass I drive a minivan. You know why? I need 7 seat belts for my family. And for 7 seat people, I have three choices (apart from brand): minivan, HUGE ASS SUV, or drive two cars. So I proudly own a minivan. Yep - it gets crappy mileage (compared to my leaf, corolla, or miata) but guess what? It’s almost double that of the SUV that could seat belt my kids. So fuck every person who is too cool to drive one. Fuck every person who thinks it’s “not cool” to drive one. Fuck every person who continues the trope that our cars somehow reflect us as people. Sure - KB drives a Porsche. I don’t know him that well, but when you listen, he’s not saying he owns a Porsche to flex and project status. Dude owns a Porsche cuz he DRIVES a motherfuckin Porsche. It doesn’t sit in his garage getting rubbed by a diaper. He straps a car seat in there and takes his kid to school (booster now I know - but you get the point). Buy the car you need. Not the one you want. Better yet - don’t buy a car at all. Ride your bike. Minivans aren’t cool? Whatever. I don’t buy a car to be cool. I buy a car that makes the most sense. Fuck Truck Nation. Fuck buying SUVs the minute you have a kid. Fuck Detroit and the shit they’re peddling.and then there is the daily shame of driving one
Steve, buddy, there's so much factually inaccurate about this rant that I don't know where to being, saying nothing of the "It's ok for me because I need it and ok for specific-person-who-is-my-buddy because I trust him, but fuck everyone else" argument. My gut tells me just to shake my head quietly and let you have your mad moment, because obviously you have some pent up anger about this topic. But I think there are a lot of unfair assessments there.
Oh dude... no doubt I was laying down some pent up frustration with my thumbs on an early morning rant from my phone. As to it being factually inaccurate - maybe? I mean - I don't think I spewed too many facts - just a lot of frustration and emotional whining. But now that the emotion is out of the way, I will stand by the underlying premise, which is to say "In Steve's humble (and not so emotional anymore) opinion, Americans tend to buy cars for the wrong reasons, and automakers are more than happy to supply it." (though I am curious what I said that is factually inaccurate - genuinely.... Ima go back and read it again) edit: I did claim that my minivan gets double the mileage of an SUV with as many seat belts. That is incorrect: Toyota Sienna - 19/26 Suburban - 15/22 Land Cruiser - 13/17 Expedition - 17/23 I was dead wrong and will admit it. My minivan doesn't get twice the mileage of the others, only about 25% better in mpg.
The first thing is that there's something different about cars and crossover SUVs. Car companies these days use a platform manufacturing systems, which means that single chassis can be used on multiple models. This makes it easier to retool plants to make multiple models, as well as making sourcing and designing simpler. So the majority of small and midsize SUVs are just cars that have a taller profile. So the person driving an Escape or an Equinox isn't doing anything different than in the past---just driving a car that has a lot better situational utility. The second factual error that I see is that "Detroit" has fucked up anything. The three companies you name are Euro/Japanese brands that are responding to the same incentives the Big 3 are, namely that people want vehicles with space for passengers and cargo. That they can do this is more a reflection of gas prices than of marketing. Of course the companies want to sell as many SUVs as they can, because they have the highest margins by far. The Grand Cherokee and Ferrari were the sole reasons that FiatChrysler was not going bankrupt recently, the Grand Cherokee alone accounting for over $2 billion in profit. The third thing that I think is inaccurate is that anyone, anytime buys anything purely out of utilitarian need. If we're going that far, then we might as well be wearing government shoes and outlawing jeans in favor of government-issued burlap sacks. We all make choices based on a combination of need, want, and price. How each of us makes that choice is mostly personal, and as soon as someone starts telling me I can't drive a truck (which I don't, but I have in the past) because I don't "need" one, I'm going to be screaming that no one needs a steak or ice cream or a single family home or almost anything that makes life more enjoyable for reasons other than pure utility. We're all living in glass houses. The fourth thing, which is nit picky but no less true, is that mileage per se doesn't really mean a thing. What if I drive my Suburban 100 mi per week and you drive your Corolla 500 mi per week? It's unfair to make willy nilly assumptions about what other people do and why, because each of us may have a good reason we need that truck, even if collectively, it's evident that there might be too many of them on the road, and we therefore think that you don't need one. If we collectively decide we want fewer large vehicles on the road, then we need different tax policies, because the market has evidently spoken about what consumers want in a vehicle. Raise the gas tax (or put a surcharge on weight, since electric SUVs are coming soon--and anyway even a Tesla S weighs like 4,500 lbs or something) if you want fewer of those vehicles. But then you might end up with a Euro situation where everyone drives a diesel, which I don't think we want here, either. The fifth thing is that the linked article is very suspect in its conclusion that trucks and SUVs actually kill pedestrians at a higher rate than cars. The data they present don't actually seem to support that, and I can 100% guarantee you that the people who design them care a whole lot about safety. This disingenuous bullshit about car companies designing cars they know are going to kill you is just dumb liberal anti-corporate bullshit that has no bearing on reality.
I fully accept all of these corrections and will only add comments for conversation - not trying to pick a fight. Touche, though I might argue that the taller profile does decrease fuel economy, but marginally. I know... I don't live there anymore, and arguably - never did live in the D itself, so I should probably STFU. My beefs with the big 3 are larger than this, but relevant to my rant is the marketing spin on cars being a reflection of you... but hey - I'm talking straight out of my ass because I'd be the first dude to slow my walk in a parking lot if I saw a vintage Hemi Cuda. I'm schizo about cars... I'll admit it. but why? I don't get it. They can charge more... because.... they can charge more? I genuinely don't understand why SUVs are more profitable. Fair point. I know that freedom is choice is paramount... I think I'm just bugged that people make (what I think) are really dumb vehicular choices... again - fueled by the direct and indirect marketing around what cars/trucks/minivans "mean". I think we're collectively addicted... and the car companies are willing to keep slinging the smack. Our legislation around vehicles is SO MESSED UP that I can't even begin. Shoot... I should be glad for SUVs and trucks I guess. For a while, car companies had to make cars to balance out their fleet. yah... but it's really just me screaming into the void. Excellent point. And to your fifth point - guilty confession - haven't even read the article yet. Just walking the comments and was reminded how much I hate Truck Nation before I was chemically balanced enough to make a rational, educated comment. I think we'll still disagree on some things, and that's totally ok.Car companies these days use a platform manufacturing systems
the majority of small and midsize SUVs are just cars that have a taller profile
"Detroit" has fucked up anything. The three companies you name are Euro/Japanese brands
the companies want to sell as many SUVs as they can, because they have the highest margins by far.
we might as well be wearing government shoes and outlawing jeans in favor of government-issued burlap sacks.
If we collectively decide we want fewer large vehicles on the road, then we need different tax policies
But then you might end up with a Euro situation where everyone drives a diesel, which I don't think we want here, either.
Honestly Steve, I’ve secretly wanted a van/minivan since my early 20. It’s basically a truck with a built in hard top. You can store all your gear dry in one, tow a medium boat and put down a bed to sleep in and fit a full sheet of plywood in. Just that when I was single I thought women would judge me, and now that I’m married I know my wife doesn’t want to own one so probably not happening.
Pretty sure a typical minivan gets better milage that a typical truck. I'll take your word on depreciation. Most of the minivans I've driven have had better visibility than similar sized trucks though.
Actually one of the reasons they're so popular is that they lease better than almost any other option a lot of the time (because of high residuals). Right place, right time, you can get a full size truck from any of the Big 3 for like $200/mo....and it’s so damn expensive poor people need not apply.
I guess they move easily so when underwater and repossessed the margin is good. Still these trucks start at 50k and go up from there. That high baseline price is actually an advantage because it allows underwater buyers to roll over their old underwater truck into a new one while keeping under 120% loan to value.