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The Reason Why Are Trucks Getting Bigger

(toddofmischief.blogspot.com)
173 points yasp | 4 comments | 11 Aug 22 13:06 UTC | HN request time: 0.589s | source
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pneumatic1 ◴[11 Aug 22 13:44 UTC] No.32425438[source]▶
"Bigger trucks pose a greater hazard to pedestrians and smaller vehicles"

It's an arms race.

I used to live near a couple who were both doctors in the ER and they both drive the biggest trucks that they could find because they saw that people in large trucks tended to be fare better in accidents.

I have a small sedan for myself and a smallish SUV for my wife and kids. I feel pressure to upgrade both to something larger.

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1. s_dev ◴[11 Aug 22 14:07 UTC] No.32425806[source]▶
>both drive the biggest trucks that they could find because they saw that people in large trucks tended to be fare better in accidents.

People don't generally consider that the bigger cars are more likely to be in accidents in the first place even if they come out of it better. Ireland would have much smaller cars than the US but much better traffic record.

So bigger == safer -- isn't giving a nuanced story or understanding. For sure though bigger == less fuel efficient.

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2. pneumatic1 ◴[11 Aug 22 14:15 UTC] No.32425928[source]▶
Maybe more likely to be in an accident because the driver feels safer and so is more careless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Tullock#Tullock's_spike

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3. adamsmith143 ◴[11 Aug 22 14:18 UTC] No.32425997[source]▶
Are we confusing correlation with causation?

Is there actually an indication that larger cars are more prone to accidents or are their drivers inherently more aggressive and accident prone?

4. bena ◴[11 Aug 22 15:17 UTC] No.32427041[source]▶
That's funny, but demonstrably untrue. The steering shaft used to be pretty much that and it caused a lot of fatalities. So they stopped building cars like that.