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- Hacker News
- The article keeps mentioning "unintended consequences" but I'm not convinced these are. Trying to come across as scary (perhaps because you are yourself scared) seems to be the whole point. "Get out of my way, look at how little I care about your safety, look at the size of this thing." The article mentions machismo but I don't think that quite covers the (profitable) pathology here.by verytrivial
- Yep. Automotive grille design became sharply more aggressive over the last 20 years (not just in terms of hood height). It says a lot about the psychology of consumers.
- No mention of CAFE standards? How can you write this article without mentioning the policy that incentivizes larger vehicles?by adamsb6
- No mention of the 1964 chicken tax either.by technonerd
- I'm excited that EVs get to avoid CAFE standards, so we get to have small vehicles again. Even though legacy domestic car manufacturers aren't going to be involved, as they practically wrote the CAFE standards that eliminated small vehicles, and there's bipartisan support to tariff EV imports out of existence, there's still enough market demand for multiple domestic startups.by dlcarrier
- The Grille Trend that Kills 509 People per Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU video discussed previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39584166
These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo
The original designer wanted the truck to feel like you were driving a fist, punching through the air. So we are killing people so that the driver can have an aggressive aesthetic. And the design has spread like a contagious meme, even BMWs have it now.
by genxy - People spend a lot of time on Trucks, but I don't see why SUVs get a pass. Every single car is an SUV now. They're higher up, heavier, and have a higher beltline all so that drivers can "feel safer."by everdrive
- It's an arms race. My older SUV (Lexus 3XX) is worrisome in it's size and blindspots but it's still dwarfed by current trucks. Moreover, once most SUVs were basically built over a pickup chassis but it seems like pickups have gotten so large that it's unusual to see an equivalent SUV.by joe_the_user
- Anything with a hood that's so high primarily because it's gender affirming care is paid for with the deaths and injuries of innocents. Regulate the shape of the front end of any vehicle, as I'm sure any honest regulator would.by Zigurd
- The fuel economy figure that a vehicle needs to achieve used to be a set figure. Lobbyists got that changed so that now vehicle fuel economy is a function based on the width and length of the vehicle. And that's why the roads are full of fatmobiles.by Tangurena2
- It is worth reading the interactive Times article. Amazing piece of work https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/06/21/us/trucks-suv...by ayhanfuat
- The animations and comparisons of current vehicles with two-three decades ago are extremely informative indeed.by jakub_g
- Glad they spent half the article on the a-pillar issue. As a recent recipient of a bit of back pain I'd be real happy if my next car didn't require me to try and peer around those things at every intersection.
- So this is only one of the reasons, and a relatively small one:
“Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century,” the report continued. “That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”
by srdjanr - Sadly, most will ignore your common sense just as they are ignoring the data.by giantg2
- Sometimes safety comes from lots of little adjustments. So perhaps we should see 10% as large, not small.by advisedwang
- I have long held that larger vehicles should have higher licensing requirements purely based on stats. We see it in the stats that large vehicles are disproportionately dangerous to other vehicles and people so licensing should catch up. We have motorcycle licenses, why don't we have SUV licenses? Similarly, the penalties and limits should be higher. BAC should be lower. Fines higher. Etc etc. You want to drive a big vehicle, fine, pay for it and do what is needed to protect other people from your choices. I shouldn't have to pay for your decisions. This is a fundamental principle that big vehicle drivers conveniently ignore when they believe 'their freedom' trumps my right to life.by jmward01
- In most of Europe you can drive a 4250kg EV with a simple drivers license you got after taking six lessons in 1972. Madness.
Anything over 2000kg should require a truck license including retesting every five years imho.
by retired - You could start by pushing for RVs (both bus and gooseneck) to have to conform to the same standards as a commercial driver would. That seems like one of the most immediate and obvious places where it seems crazy (IMO) that we allow people to get behind of the wheel of stuff they have no business driving.by rpcope1
- We could in theory replace gas taxes with per-axle weight taxes (again; most US interstates were originally built on per-axle weight taxes prior to the switch to gas taxes for maintenance funding). Per-axle weight is a much more direct number to road wear and tear than gas taxes have ever been (especially because it's exponential, road wear and tear is related to per axle weight to the fourth power).by WorldMaker
- Larger vehicles do have different licensing standards:
"Driving a Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) requires a higher level of knowledge, experience, skills, and physical abilities than that required to drive a non-commercial vehicle. In order to obtain a Commercial Driver's License (CDL), an applicant must pass both skills and knowledge testing geared to these higher standards. Additionally CDL holders are held to a higher standard when operating any type of motor vehicle on public roads. Serious traffic violations committed by a CDL holder can affect their ability to maintain their CDL certification."
- I wonder how things compare for a pedestrian embracing a large SUV vs. a Semi.
by dnemmers - New CDL licensees have to take a rather expensive training course before they can get their class A/B CDL (things with a GVWR of >= 26,000# or school bus). There are some online theory only sites that charge up to $300, but in many (maybe all?) states (mine for sure) you still have to take an accredited behind-the-wheel (plus theory) class that runs $4k-5k. Everyone getting their CDL after Feb 2022 has to take this course.
https://tpr.fmcsa.dot.gov/content/Resources/ELDT-Applicabili...
> BAC should be lower. Fines higher.
This is already the case.
For sure big trucks don't pay the costs of the damage that they do to road surfaces. Road damage is proportional to the cube of speed and 4th power of axle weight. So an 80,000# semi does 4096 the damage of an 4,000# SUV, both driving the same speed.
Math:
80,000 / 5 = 16,000# per axle 4,000 /2 = 2,000# per axle
(16/2)^4 = 4,096.
Disclaimer: I used to work for my state's version of DMV & Highway Department.
by Tangurena2 - Licensing is mostly based vehicle operating characteristics. We already have large vehicle licenses like class B and A for heavy vehicles. Motorcycles have a separate license due to different operating concerns.
If you're actually following the stats you will see that vehicle size only accounted for 10% of the increase. You would want to focus on the other 90% to make the biggest difference. And using that logic, you should increase the education and testing requirements for all drivers because that will provide gains over the whole driving population instead of a single segment.
Penalties should remain the same for whatever the outcome is - doesn't matter if a bicyclist kills me or a semi truck.
Lower BAC limits are opposed even by groups like MADD. The data shows the current level is good and lowering it further will result in more people ignoring it.
Nobody is asking you to pay for others' decisions (unless we want to go down the rabbit hole of insurance, for which sports cars and high priced electrics are costing all drivers more). Nor is a large vehicle an infringement on anyone's right to life (someone's recklessness could be).
by giantg2 - >“Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century,” the report continued. “That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”
Am I crazy? The article itself points out that only 10% of the increase would have been 'saved' if cars had remained the same size. This goes directly against the title no?
There's certainly more than one reason, my gut would point to more smart phone use both by drivers and even by pedestrians themselves.
I wonder if one day using a smart phone while driving will have the same stigma as a DUI (and similar punishment). I struggle to argue it shouldn't, its sometimes a little crazy to think about that if the person in the other lane gets distracted on their phone, I might be involved in a head on collision at 60+mph.
- > “While vehicle safety is critical, blaming larger vehicles for pedestrian deaths overlooks systemic issues” including the design of roads, said Mike Levine, a spokesman for Ford.
This is from the NYT article
by joeyhage - > I wonder if one day using a smart phone while driving will have the same stigma as a DUI (and similar punishment).
Thankfully, it is beginning to, in some places outside the US.
> You can be fined $1,251 and have 4 demerit points recorded against your traffic history for using a mobile phone illegally while driving. [1]
> 0.05 and over, but under 0.10
Disqualification: 1 to 9 months
Fine: $2,336 [2]
[1]: https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/mobile-p...
[2]: https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/drink-dr...
by NamTaf - I do think the article title is a bit misleading.
"75% More Pedestrians Have Been Killed Since 2009. Giant Trucks and SUVs Are *One Reason*" would be a more accurate title based on my reading.
by jmaw - And it doesn't quantify how many other lives have been saved specifically because the accidents involved bigger, sturdier, safer cars/trucks/SUVs. That has to be a significant statistic.by petcat
- This is how modern online influencing works.
10 000 people will see the headline here on HN or somewhere else and form their opinion based on it only.
1000 people will open the article
Out of those, 200 people will understand that the title is completely false relevant to the data.
Out of those 200 people, 150 people will still deny that the title is a lie, down vote, or try to sidetrack, because even a lie has to be supported if it supports their own political agenda.
by carlosjobim - The quote you've selected is an unfortunate example of the NYT poorly summarizing the findings of their own study (not your fault, they're the ones who wrote it). You can find a more precise explanation at the end of the article in the Methodology section.
"200 to 400" is from their model of decreasing hood height for existing collisions. But from the article:
> There are two reasons bigger vehicles are deadlier: They have taller hoods. And they tend to have larger blind zones.
It doesn't appear that NYT included in their model the larger blind zones and how that causes more collisions. So they shouldn't have said their 200-400 estimate covers the increase in vehicle "size" when it only models one dimension of size growth.