Because bigger cars carry more energy, have poorer driver visibility, and are more likely to result in pedestrians going under the vehicle due to higher bonnet lines.

Big cars make drivers feel safer. But the stats are quite clear, they kill more pedestrians, and, ironically, are more likely to kill their drivers due their roll over risk.

The safety features might help, but they’re just compensating for all the additional risk bigger vehicles bring. You simply can’t beat physics.

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protocolture 5 days ago | parent [-]

I mean in terms of driver visibility, you can absolutely improve that. My forward camera is below a toddlers head height and fisheyed like no ones business. And thats before the sensors.

The question of IF a collision occurs, will the larger car do more damage, obviously it will. Well maybe not obviously, if the sensors are throwing on my breaks earlier than I can react there can be substantially less energy on that front too.

But in terms of frequency I feel like they have taken extreme measures to substantially reduce the risk of the collision occurring in the first place.

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IneffablePigeon 5 days ago | parent [-]

A camera is no substitute for actual visibility, at best it’s a mediocre workaround to the problem. There is no evidence at all that I’ve seen that there are fewer pedestrian collisions in modern large vehicles - I would be interested if you have any such data.

Regardless, all of these “extreme measures” could be applied to a smaller car (or even just one with a smaller wall at the front) for the best of both worlds. And collisions will happen regardless, sensors and cameras are not a magic solution.

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protocolture 4 days ago | parent [-]

I mean, the risk was already socially acceptable, and it has further been reduced as far as practicable.

>A camera is no substitute for actual visibility

I dont even know what point you are trying to make here. Seeing things a different way is not seeing things? Make it make sense.

	▲	avianlyric 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> I mean, the risk was already socially acceptable What society considers acceptable changes over time. Just because it was socially acceptable, doesn’t mean we continue to accept it forever. Don’t forget slavery, the idea of women as chattel, kings as having a god given right to rule etc etc were all “socially accepted” once upon a time. I doubt you would advocate for a return to medieval times on the basis that it was “socially accepted”. > it has further been reduced as far as practicable. This is obviously untrue. Car safety for drivers and pedestrians has continued to improve year-over-year (except in the U.S., where pedestrian safety has got worse). There’s no reason to believe the trend toward increased safety is suddenly going to halt now. > I dont even know what point you are trying to make here. Seeing things a different way is not seeing things? Make it make sense. Obviously, last I checked I spent my time looking out of the windscreen of my car when driving, not staring at a screen in the centre console. Being able to see everything by looking an out of a single window is always going to be better than having to swap between looking out the window, and looking down at a screen.