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Why Are American Drivers So Deadly? After decades of declining fatality rates, dangerous driving has surged again. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 10 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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The cause was easy enough to identify: Data parsed by Kuhls and her colleagues showed that drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency. Conversely, seatbelt use was down, resulting in thousands of injuries to unrestrained drivers and passengers. After a decade of steady decline, intoxicated-driving arrests had rebounded to near historic highs.

... The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak.

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[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 26 points 10 months ago

You don't need to make the cars bigger to meet fuel economy requirements; it's a decision by vehicle makers to make them bigger rather than take advantage of the more efficient engine designs available to produce a vehicle which uses less fuel.

[-] vividspecter@lemm.ee 24 points 10 months ago

It's partly that, but the other aspect is the absurd "light truck" exemption where SUVs and pickup trucks have less stringent emissions standards. So there is less incentive to go the downsizing route, and instead make bigger and bigger cars because if you're a car company, you make more money per vehicle this way.

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

No, it's about fleet distribution, and classification.

this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
278 points (96.3% liked)

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