While this is mostly about parking issues, the part that stood out most to me in this is:

A study published in the Journal of Safety Research last year found that children were eight times more likely to die when struck by an SUV than those struck by a passenger car.

Eight times! To me, that’s insane. Even if it were 50% that would be very bad, but this is 700% more!

  • I have a modest proposal: If a car is too big for a standard parking spot, it gets marked on the licence plate. It then is not allowed to park on standard parking spots as it’s too big for them. Cities and companies are allowed to create bigger parking spots where such cars are allowed to park.

  • And we can’t put bike parking in front of stores because they take up too much space? 😒

    If your car is too large to fit in a regular parking space, it shouldn’t be allowed there.

    Put big vehicle parking way at the back of the parking lot and prioritize small vehicles, bikes, micromobility, handicap parking, and public transportation services closer to stores and buildings.

  • There is a study out there that says controlling for weight, the shape of the vehicle is another significant factor for the likelihood of survivability of being ran over. Cars have a lower bumper and this allows for adults to roll on to the hood, children also have a higher chance of the same (but not much). SUVs, crossovers, and trucks have higher bumpers which gives them bigger blind spots and when hitting an adult, it’s extremely likely, that the victim is seeing the underside of the vehicle.

    Taking a step back, vehicles have become heavier at a faster rate and this means that a new car today vs a 2000 car of the same model, going the same speed, the new car will deal much, much more damage due to physics. There’s just more mass.

    It’s not even limited to hitting children (because we don’t think of the the children inside or outside of the car), it also affects the roads, parking garage, and bridges that cars use. Heavy vehicles do more damage to the infrastructure than lighter vehicles. EVs are almost always leaving out the fact that they are heavier, and will cause more damage to the road (and children).

    In a perfect world, vehicle registration would be based on usage of the road, but that is difficult to come up with a way to enforce that. I think the next best thing would be to have an exponential/progressive registration fee based on weight. If you purchased a heavier vehicle, you are now responsible for contributing even more money to the roads due to your ludicrous destruction of it.

  •  Devi   ( @Devi@beehaw.org ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    111 year ago

    This article totally ignores the actual biggest cars on the road, the american ones, the mentioned BMW i7 is 539cm long, but my neighbour has a Dodge Ram pick up at 583cm, yes he parks in the local co op, yes he fucks up everything cause nobody can get past, he also takes half an hour to get in the space.

    Those new hummer evs are even bigger.

  • Between these two options, which do you think is more likely to happen?

    • regulate motor vehicles: sign laws to limit size
    • accomodate motor vehicles: fill in the oceans to make the UK larger
  • This is the best summary I could come up with:


    While the size of the standard parking bay has remained static for decades, cars have been growing longer and wider in a phenomenon known as “autobesity”.

    There is growing debate about car size and road safety, after two eight-year-old girls, Selena Lau and Nuria Sajjad, died when a Land Rover crashed through a school fence in south-west London in July.

    The research also revealed that 27 models are too wide for drivers to comfortably open their doors when parked between two other cars.

    The Land Rover Discovery measures 2.073 metres wide, leaving a narrow 16.35cm space between the doors and the bay’s borders.

    Often nicknamed “Chelsea tractors”, their use in city centres has long been criticised, with some road safety campaigners calling for them to be banned in busy pedestrian areas.

    Campaigners have questioned why drivers need such large and dangerous cars in the city, particularly when dropping children off at school, with some going to extreme measures to get their message across.


    The original article contains 603 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!