It blows my mind that cars aren't designed for pedestrian safety but only for occupants inside the vehicle. For fucks sake some of these newer pickups and SUVS look like hot wheels toys with battering rams. It's just barbaric
hate pickups and SUVs I'm going to set them all on fire :amerikkka:
Top of the line in utility sports / unexplained fires are a matter for the courts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w4P6vD5goc
At least (for the most part) we've stopped putting literal spears on the front of cars like in the 70s
I thought the reason "All cars look the same nowadays" was because of strict standards for having pedestrians roll off rather than under/acorss the vehicle if they hit it, to the point where they are all basically limited t oone design body type.
It might be true for cars (I think I remember reading about that a long time ago) but it is definitely not true for SUVs or trucks, which make up the overwhelming majority of sales today. And can you imagine how politicized it will be if, by some miracle, the government starts doing its job and regulating SUVs and trucks?
Nope, it was classified as a light truck to avoid a tax penalty for poor gas mileage. The PT cruiser is build on top of the Neon, (they are the same car underneath) so one can't pass without the other.
Yep, this is true. Just because the american pedestrian safety standards are lax doesn't mean american cars are unaffected by them. The vast majority of cars are designed to be sold internationally, and so american cars usually meet european standards, or can be very easily modified to do so. (headlight and taillight regulations in the US and Europe contradict each other.)
Yeah, and the mixed messages they give drivers are contradictory in the extreme. I mean, Dodge or Ram? Which is it?
Me struggling to come up with one good thing about the USA: :negative:
They occasionally bring their military force down on people who deserve it, like the Confederacy or the Nazis/Imps.
Points against being that the Confederacy was composed of US soldiers/officers, and that many US companies supported Germany right up until outright war broke out
I still sometimes wonder what would have happened had the Japanese not attacked Pearl Harbor. Maybe the US does join, but not until the last stages of the war ala WW 1?
The US was going to join the second the tide started turning in the Soviet's favor. They couldn't allow the revolution to spread all the way to France. If the Red army made it to France, the world would look a lot different today.
Yeah, this is kind of what I thought as well. No chance the US allows a complete Soviet victory, so they would join late to try and prevent that
This does a really good job illustrating systemic racism.
I wonder if it would help explain it to someone who thinks racism is just personal prejudice.
Damn, now I'm sitting here like Charlie in the mailroom getting my head around all the aspects of institutional race/classism that causes even a simple statistic like this
I've lived and commuted in black & brown neighborhoods for years. The culture around driving is a lot different and more aggressive than in white suburbs, white brodozers excluded.
I can't say I've ever lived in a white, American neighborhood, but pedestrians around me have a very risky attitude when interacting with traffic crossings etc. There are of course really good reasons why people here may need to cross the street ASAP. I have no idea how that compares to the burbs etc., but would hazard to guess that overall quality of life, stress levels etc. has a lot to do with it.
absolutely. in the hood, crosswalks are always suggestions. you're pretty much as likely to get hit crossing a street (as a pedestrian) when the WALK sign is on cuz some dude in a bashed up car with "dealer plates" didn't want to wait as you are jaywalking when the coast is clear. in suburbs, white people will wait full minutes for the crosswalk to tell them it's okay to go even if there are no cars in any direction.
Could part of the explanation also be that systemic racism means that BIPOCs are poorer and thus more likely to rely on walking as their means of transportation?
