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Definitely the rise of daily aggravations are a significant factor, and while you say it's "low reward", sometimes beating the system one time, no matter how small the ultimate benefit becomes, is really a huge relative reward.
Yeah, even much lower reward stuff like saving 5 seconds on a turn by skipping the stop for a red light seems so common now
www.cp24.com
Some will say otherwise but it seems to me that our mayor’s hands are clean. The Gardiner has been uploaded to provincial responsibility as well a significant portion of the impacted population don’t vote in Toronto.
I'm sure folks will groan at me mentioning it. But EV robotaxis are coming. They will likely be two passenger, lighter vehicles. There will be some larger vehicles as well for larger groups or longer distances, but most trips are fine with a smaller two seater.The SUV trend itself, whether electric or ICE, is a problem. It means an overall heavier average vehicle weight of all vehicles on the road.
I think that people tend to underestimate the weight difference between EVs and their ICE counterparts.
‘To further complicate matters, weight gain is even more of an issue for EVs. The Detroit News recently noted that “the starting weight of an electric Hyundai Kona is 28% heavier than the gas-powered model, and the Nissan Leaf is 35% heavier than the starting weight of its gas-powered equivalent.”
Why more people are getting interested in vehicle weight
With so much cutting-edge tech discussion concerning zero emissions and self-driving, a new motoring acronym, LACES, highlights a fundamental element of vehicle design that seems to have gone missing recently: weight. LACES stands for “lightweight, automated, connected, electric and shared”...tide.theimi.org.uk
“[Jennifer] Homendy [chair of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board] said electric models from Ford, Volvo and Toyota were all roughly 33 per cent heavier than the gas-powered versions of the same vehicles.”
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Why the ‘significant’ weight of electric vehicles is sparking new safety fears - National | Globalnews.ca
"The occupants in the lighter vehicle are always going to come out worse," one expert says about growing electric vehicle safety fears.globalnews.ca
But unlikely to stop the weight creep that’s been happening for decades. In general, we’ve been making cars heavier and heavier, regardless of whether they’re ICE or EV.
Lighter batteries are likely to spur a demand for longer ranges on EVs (regardless of what actual usage patterns require). Which means even bigger batteries.
In addition, lighter batteries will increase costs and prices in a market that’s seen a 10-20% price increase every year since 2019.
The average price of a new car sold in 2024: ~$67k.
The average price of a new car sold in 2019: ~$40
Despite this new car sales right now are still far behind pre-pandemic numbers and are trending downward. The reason why the SUV and truck markets have increased as a share and been marketed like crazy; they have bigger profit margins that help offset the drop in sales. Some manufacturers have dropped previously-successful low-margin subcompacts entirely in favour of higher margin SUVS.
Yeah this feels very much to be spiraling like the Pearson Airport debacle of 2022 where, regardless of reasons or explanations, true or untrue, it is inevitably going to turn into a frenzied outrage fed by the media.
A video discussing the trend of increasing hood heights (for aesthetic reasons) that is likely contributing a great deal to the increase in pedestrian deaths. It's not explainable by increasing vehicle weights as on the scale of a pedestrian, 2 tonnes or 3 tonnes is a moot point.studies have shown that while SUVs are worse for pedestrian safety, it's only a marginal contributing factor.
IIRC the shift to SUVs in the US market has resulted in something like "only" 20-50 additional pedestrian deaths a year. The theory is that there are other contributing factors to skyrocketing pedestrian deaths - honestly I think more of it has to do where Americans are living (southern, extremely pedestrian hostile environments), distracted driving, much higher vehicle speeds (ESPECIALLY in urban areas), and lower levels of enforcement of both driver behavior and vehicle maintenance.
Also - Pedestrian deaths in Canada have been largely falling - going from 304 in 2017 to 280 in 2021:
Canadian Motor Vehicle Traffic Collision Statistics: 2021
Canadian Motor Vehicle Traffic Collision Statistics: 2021tc.canada.ca
The difference between Canadian and US traffic fatality rates couldn't be more stark - they are a world apart. Canadian traffic fatalities continue to trend substantially downward, even for pedestrians, while US numbers are increasing.
I dunno about that.
We also had two years of pandemic in there, where there were less overall cars on the road and less interactions in general.Also - Pedestrian deaths in Canada have been largely falling - going from 304 in 2017 to 280 in 2021:
Canadian Motor Vehicle Traffic Collision Statistics: 2021
Canadian Motor Vehicle Traffic Collision Statistics: 2021
It's funny you bring that up; just yesterday…
Let people buy what they want? So what if they don't use every single feature. I own a 2 seater and it's great 90% of the time and horrrrrrrible for 10%.It's funny you bring that up; just yesterday…
Waymo and Zoox are under federal investigation as self-driving cars allegedly behave erratically
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating two autonomous driving companies following incidents in which the vehicles behaved erratically and sometimes disobeyed traffic safety rules or were involved in crashes.ca.finance.yahoo.com
Honestly, years ago I was quite bullish on the idea of self-driving vehicles. In the years since however, it just seems like it's never going to get to a usable point without serious government-infrastructure-level guard rails and as of now still requires human intervention or "remote operators".
Frankly, a smaller two seater is fine for most car owners on the road these days; a compact four seater enough for most families. People "over buy" the amount of car for 99% of their needs. They buy too many seats, too much trunk, too much horsepower, too much range, "towing power", etc. Car purchases are rarely made pragmatically, and manufacturers depend on that. Why do you think they're marketed on "freedom and feels"?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
medium.com
What do you propose? Telling people what size car they can buy based on postal code?Except that there's a kinetic energy calculation that applies to all vehicle crash related injury, based on speed and mass.
The sum of kinetic energy is important in determining an injury severity and that is equal to one half of the vehicle mass multiplied by the square of the vehicle speed
Kinetic energy management in road traffic injury prevention: a call for action
By virtue of their variability, mass and speed have important roles in transferring energies during a crash incidence (kinetic energy). The sum of kinetic energy is important in determining an injury severity and that is equal to one half of the vehicle ...
Even when separating out SUV/Pickup class vehicles, weight does matter.
"For the average U.S. metro area, a 100 kilogram increase in vehicle size corresponded to a statistically significant 2.4 percent increase in pedestrian fatalities. The impact of light trucks (again: SUVs, pick-ups, and minivans) was even more significant. In an average metro area, for every 10 percent of vehicles that rose in size to light trucks, there was a 3.6 percent increase in the pedestrian fatality rate."
The troubling tie between bigger cars and pedestrian deaths
A new study estimates that replacing large vehicles with standard ones would have saved more than 8,100 lives since 2000. What can be done?
