• intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Au contraire. We Americans think easily in both Imperial and SI. In terms of units we’re bilingual. It’s you 10-10-10 types whose brains have been scrambled by your over-easy conversions and estimates.

        • LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          What the stink are you talking about

          The only Americans I know who know any proper amount of metric converting are folks in technical fields that require it. The layman knows that metric exists, most don’t learn how to convert, and I’ve even met a couple different people who were proud of not using metric.

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            This is a weird argument to be having, but I think I agree with the person above, minus the smugness. I haven’t run into a situation in the US in many years where someone didn’t use both. Especially in a global economy where we ship things all over the world, metric is everywhere in the US.

  • Archmage Azor@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    But if I don’t have a truck the size of a locomotive how will people know that I absolutely do not have a micropenis?

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        I’ve pivoted. I don’t think it’s the size of the penis. Plenty of people with below average penises are great in bed and their partners are happy.

        The people who feel the need to compensate know they are weak and cowardly and would never stand up for themselves against anyone stronger than them. And it emasculates them so they feel the need to compensate outwardly to other men. “I’m big and strong and tough!” In reality they’d back down from any other person, authority figure, or institution that they didn’t feel like could beat or bully.

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        Nothing wrong with having a small penis. Definitely some things wrong with the way people choose to compensate for their insecurities. Such is life.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      Can’t buy a small truck because EPA regulations made it easier to make the trucks bigger. Let’s remove that failed regulation so small trucks actually exist.

    • baseless_discourse@mander.xyz
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      Meanwhile, builds the largest highway network in the world, many even in cities; maintain shitload of free parking; also enforces minimum parking requirements, all at the expense of tax payer.

      People without cars are literally forced to pay to make everyone’s life worse.

      FREEDOM!

      • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.worldM
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        1 year ago

        Don’t forget the Freedom™ zoning laws that make sure it’s illegal for any American to build any filthy communist multi-family homes on their own private property! It’s communist to grant private citizens freedom and property rights!

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          And even when they can build stuff on their PRIVATELY OWNED TERRAIN, they damn better follow the rules and make their house look EXACTLY EQUAL to every other house on the street. Now that’s real red-blooded 'murican capitalism’n freedom, baby!

          • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.worldM
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            You know it’s freedom when you’re not allowed to express yourself or be unique in any way whatsoever! Creativity is communism! I ain’t no special snowflake who needs to be unique and special like those dang woke libs commies!

        • baseless_discourse@mander.xyz
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          In some state, yes, if by “most” you mean “more than 50% of road expense is paid by toll and car related taxes”.

          But that is still a huge percentage not covered by tax for car users, requiring other foundings to cover them. The highest percentage paid by user tax and toll is not even 70% in all the U.S. states.

          Not to mention many state dont even cover 50%; some only cover as low as 19% or even 12%.

          https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/mapping-how-u-s-states-pay-for-roads

          • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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            Well, we all benefit from the road system even if we ourselves don’t drive, so I guess it’s fair.

            • baseless_discourse@mander.xyz
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              It depends, in a country where the road system makes sense, sure. In rural area where every road serves a purpose: connecting business to transport goods, sure.

              But excessive roads in cities and suburbs? No. Many roads in city and suburbs of the U.S. should be closed for cars, and be bike, bus, and emergency vehicles only. Since cars either don’t use them that much or just don’t have good experience on them because of the congestions. This also saves road maintainance, enables a smoother experience in transport and emergency vehicles, controls emission, and encourage a health life style in general.

              It is again about the right tools for the job. A loaded van to transport fruit to the local farmer’s market, emergency vehicles, these are times where cars are the right tools. On the other hand, F150 is not the right tool to get a Mcdonald’s drive through for one.

    • Pipoca@lemmy.world
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      Ironically, trucks have gotten larger precisely because of regulation. In particular, emissions standards are tied to vehicle size. So if you make your vehicles bigger and bigger, you don’t have to make them more efficient.

      Also, regulation makes it difficult to import small Japanese kei trucks, and regulation is the biggest reason that the Ford F series truck is the single most popular model of vehicle in the US. In particular, we’ve taxed foreign-built trucks at 25% since the mid 60s, so there’s dramatically fewer models of truck than SUV or cars.

      • fiah@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        In particular, emissions standards are tied to vehicle size

        this definitely goes on the short list of “most idiotic laws ever”, courtesy of your local car industry lobbyist

        • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
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          Yet more evidence of how effective big government is when regulatory capture is a thing.

      • mailerdaemon@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And the Hilux isn’t available in the US. I use one as my daily driver. Seats four, has a useable bed, hauls anything I throw at it, gets car MPGs, and is narrower than a Camry. It is as much pickup truck as pretty much anyone really needs.

        • BigNote@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          The Hilux and the older Tacoma are basically the same truck with different trim packages.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      This shit is the direct consequence of regulation, not lack of it!

      I’m talking about both CAFE standards that encourage manufacturers to build big vehicles to fit in the “light truck” loophole, and (infinitely more importantly!) the zoning regulations that led to all the car dependency in the fucking first place!

      • Zaktor@lemmy.world
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        The problem is that the regulations drop off in this one particular niche that requires/encourages larger vehicles, not that the regulations exist in the first place.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          What part of…

          and (infinitely more importantly!) the zoning regulations that led to all the car dependency in the fucking first place!

          …did you and the idiots who upvoted you not understand?

    • Raxiel@lemmy.world
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      I’m in the UK, yesterday I saw some guy with an imported F150 in a local supermarket car park. Even in a parent and child space it didn’t fit and he looked like an absolute knob head.

      • MrFlamey@lemmy.world
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        I hope someone said “You can’t park there mate” to him.

        Imagine that thing coming down one of the many narrow hedge lined country lanes at you.

      • Sawblade@lemmy.world
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        Whoops, that was me for a while because I was too stubborn to sell it before moving to England. It mostly sat in the driveway because it was such a pain to park anywhere and wouldn’t fit through the garage door. I’ve since shipped it back to the Southwestern US where it’s average sized.

        • LimitedWard@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “But that would hurt businesses who rely on these vehicles to get work done!”

          -idiots forgetting that no work will get done if our planet becomes uninhabitable

      • sonnenzeit@feddit.de
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        That was an interesting read. I’m from Europe and unfortunately the trend of bigger and bigger cars has made it’s way here too. Not as much as in the US but still. It really encroaches on both space of pedestrians and cyclists when a dozen of them are parked in a narrow alley/street. Also makes it very hard to see children weaving through the gaps. I think consumer vehicles that are too big should simply be zoned out in inner cities where space is limited as is. Every year the cars grow bigger but the streets stay the same.

    • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
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      It’s becoming an issue in Australia. Most people drive cars that are twice as big as they need to be.

      I was in Tokyo last week and the majority of cars were small. The most common had 660cc engines and weighed less than 1000kg.

      • shirro@aussie.zone
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        It is crazy and undermining years of progress towards reduced emissions and better road safety. I have no idea why these don’t attract a massive tax.

      • Nurgle@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I saw a person driving an OG (civilian) hummer when I was in Japan several months ago. The juxtapositions between it and a sea of kei cars was hilarious.

      • MrFlamey@lemmy.world
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        I’m seeing more and more large vehicles in Japan. I don’t think it will become an issue as much as it is in the West due to less car dependency, small roads and the weak yen making fuel rather expensive right now, but just around Kyoto I keep seeing those stupid Mercedes G Wagon things and some kind of large Jeep all over the place. There is also a large Toyota Land Cruiser thing that I see from time to time, but it’s less popular.

        Smaller car SUVs are fairly common though, and just the other day a friend drove me to a barbeque in his SUV thing that he got to replace his perfectly fine and nice previous car. It seemed really unwieldy on many of the country roads he was driving, and he frequently had to pull over to the side of the road in order to pass cars coming the other way. When I asked about it, he said he got it because he often has to drive business customers around, so he mostly just thinks having a stupid big car looks classy and respectable.

    • Shieldtoad@sh.itjust.works
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      Europe also got infected with the tiny peewee syndrome. Or at least Belgium has. I see Dodge Rams almost every day. For years you could buy a pickup in Belgium and pay less road tax than someone with a small hatchback. This year they finally changed the rules but the damage is done. And the pickups that were already registered continue to pay the low tax.

    • steve228uk@lemmy.world
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      I love driving my Renault Zoe into a Costco bay. I can swing the door all the way open and not even come close the car next to me 😂

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        that’s a weird way of phrasing “the industry took advantage of regulatory capture to carve out a loophole for larger trucks”

        • Jake Farm@sopuli.xyz
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          If all the regulators are captured, then it seems rather redundant to state that everytime I talk about something regulators did.

      • ...m...@ttrpg.network
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        …my wife’s `97 ranger single-cab was a fantastic utilitarian truck; after the wheels finally fell off we were disappointed that nothing so small + simple was produced any longer, so we replaced it with a glorious mazda 2 hatchback; sadly those are gone now, too, replaced by bloated crossovers…

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          I know someone who works for one of the American car manufacturers who claimed they couldn’t afford to make small trucks. They are more complex because of the tighter regulations so they couldn’t make them much cheaper than big ones. Who’s going to buy a small truck when a big one coasts only a little more?

          I don’t know how much of that is true, but the effects of looser regulations for bigger vehicles are pretty clear

          • ...m...@ttrpg.network
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            …my wife’s '97 ranger cost $10,000 new from the dealership: bare-bones base model, straight four, stick shift, rear-wheel-drive, air conditioning, and crank windows, which adjusted for inflation would be $19,000 today…by comparison, the cheapest, least-bloated ranger you can buy today starts at $33,000, although a base-model maverick can be had $25,000 if you’re willing to consider a four-foot unibody a pickup truck…

            …methinks that’s a lot more about profit margins the manufacturers are willing to accept than what’s technically feasible in today’s market…

    • teuniac_@lemmy.world
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      Although I have to say I do see more oversized trucks in the UK than on the mainland.

      But then again, many people here would argue they don’t live in Europe.

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      It has been explained that tow and payload capacity is mostly due to regulations by the NHTSA, but the boxy shape and lifted (by factory) of these new trucks are all american stupid machismo.

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    I see those very tall vehicles as high chairs for the big baby behind the wheel.

    • HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml
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      I believe the technical term for an excessively big car is “compensator.”

      • Brahm1nmam@lemmy.sdf.org
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        I call them “pavement princesses” since they’re driven by office types most often who have no interest in offroading, which is the original intended use for lifted rigs. They’re all rich sissies that want a giant truck for taking their fifth wheel to the lake because they’re scared of driving a bus

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    I have no idea why F-150’s keep getting bigger. Do people really like that shit? Old trucks are so much better, from design to MPG.

    • justhach@lemmy.world
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      It has to do with new standards for fuel effiency being based on the size of the vehicle.

      In the Obama era, Edmunds explained, fuel economy regulations “changed from just a straight average across the board to what’s called a platform-based fuel economy standard. So your fuel economy target for a given vehicle is based on its wheelbase and its tread width, which is the width between the tires left to right. So if you multiply that you find the area of that rectangle and there’s a table that shows what your fuel-economy target is. The bigger the vehicle, the smaller the target.”

      In other words, the regulations put in place to get better mileage out of vehicles also led to an increase in truck size. “There was kind of an incentive to maybe stretch the wheelbase a couple of inches and set the tires maybe an inch [farther] apart, because you get a bigger platform and slightly smaller target,” said Edmunds. “Now, the bigger vehicle would be heavier and might use more fuel, so it’s not as easy as just doing that. But certainly there was a feeling that if they did need to make it bigger to accommodate more passengers, the fuel economy target wouldn’t be onerous. They could do it.”

      Basically, it was easier to make bigger trucks than it was to build more efficient engines, so we have this gargantuan trucks pushed on us and then they go “ITS WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT” because there are literally no other options besides these giant trucks if you want something with a bed.

      Like, even the “small trucks” like the modern Rangers and Colorados are about the same size as the 90s F150s and Silverados. Its nuts.

      • TurboDiesel@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And even still, if you’re not looking for 4 doors you’re doubly SOL. You can have the fleet vehicle, poverty-spec or you can have crew cabs.

        • justhach@lemmy.world
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          Regulations are not the issue. Short sighted regulations with loopholes you could drive a new F150 through are.

    • Jarmer@slrpnk.net
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      I think there’s a huge percentage of truck drivers who never use their truck for truck stuff. It’s simply a status symbol to them which is pathetic. And bigger equals better in their feeble minds.

      I have a 13 yr old Tacoma and it’s tiny compared to even the modern “small” trucks. When this thing finally dies, I have no idea what I’ll get. I love the size of it though. Maybe a Ford Maverick, but those are on backorder for years I heard from several friends who tried to get one.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When this thing finally dies…

        …you swap a replacement engine into it and keep going anyway.

        • Jarmer@slrpnk.net
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          1 year ago

          my main concern is frame rust - it doesn’t get many miles, but it does live outside. I should probably build a carport for it.

        • Bison1911@sopuli.xyz
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          I discovered this hack and I’m never buying a new vehicle ever again. I have a 25 yr old truck and a car nearly as old. On the car I’ve long since ditched the old head units to get bluetooth and Android Auto, cleaned up the minor surface rust on the frame and got a protective coating sprayed on, had the seats reupholstered, and upgraded brakes and suspension.

          All that cost me less than a new car including the cost of the car and I didn’t have to either pay a massive lump sum all at once or go into debt to buy it.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            I drive similarly old vehicles (my oldest is 33; my newest is 18). The other reasons for it are:

            • I avoid the exploitative misfeatures of new cars, such as privacy-violating “telemetry” and property-rights-violating “subscription features”

            • I get features that are hard or even impossible to find these days, such as manual transmissions even on my SUV and pickup truck.

      • edric@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Even the new Tacoma is still smaller than those F-150 monstrosities. The only other small pickup other than the Maverick is the Santa Cruz, but it isn’t really a utility truck if you actually need to haul a ton of stuff.

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
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            Despite being a “smaller” truck, that’s still bigger than many 2010 Tacomas. In Ford’s lineup, only the Maverick is under 200" long, less than 70" tall. Despite being a “teeny tiny truck”, it’s still bigger than a 1995 Ranger by a fair margin.

      • ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
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        I use my truck for hauling stuff and camping.

        For hauling big is objectively better. Without a doubt.

        And for camping it’s nice that I can sleep in the 6.5 foot bed of my truck with the camper on it, and also fit my camping supplies in the back seat of my full sized cab. I only put maybe 300 miles a month on it. So it’s not like I’m driving it as my primary. But yes, it’s huge.

        Driving to the coast, pointing the back of my truck toward the ocean, and laying in the comfy queen sized bed with a roof and windows, reading a book, with my my wife is one of my favorite weekend activities. And having the instant privacy is very nice.

        My other car is a tiny Honda. Which is great for everything else.

      • billhead@sh.itjust.works
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        Exactly. I wanted a pickup for the convenience of the bed for the occasional project I might work on but 98% of the time it will just be me in there going to and from work.

        I ordered my hybrid Maverick September 2022 and it’s finally scheduled for production. On the one occasion every year or two that I need the power of a full size pickup, I’ll just borrow it or rent some from Home Depot for a few hours.

    • Gigan@lemmy.world
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      They have a higher profit margin because they are less regulated than standard size cars. So auto manufactures are incentivized to shift production to larger vehicles and market them to consumers.

      People don’t actually want them, car companies have just convinced them they do.

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    I recently got hit by a truck on my bike. I’m not sure if it’s because I wasn’t visible or if it was a general douchebag.

    In any event, you can generally tell how big a douchebag someone is by how large their truck is. Douchebags don’t usually drive Datsuns.

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      Because I love making generalizations based on personal experience: most of the bad drivers I encounter on the road are either pickup trucks, BMWs, or rusted out junkers.

      The trucks have no regard for others’ safety, because they know if they get in an accident they will squash a smaller vehicle. They take this to the point of just swerving into your lane, counting on you to break or get out of the way.

      BMWs are simply unskilled, unpredictable, selfish drivers. They are too self-obsessed to cater their driving to anyone else on the road. They will take up lanes they don’t need to be in and do illegal maneuvers to correct their mistakes, because they believe they are above the law.

      The junkers are just batshit methheads or something. They have no regard for anyone’s safety, including their own. They have a drug deal they are trying to get to.

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    ugh. my sister at one point had one of those H3’s and gushed about how safe it made her feel for her and her children. Yeah safer for you!

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      At least it wasn’t the H2! One of the worst vehicles I had to drive when it comes to visibility (second only to the F650) and I probably have driven a thousand different models in the 10 years I was a valet!

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        youu know it might have been. I don’t really know the vehicle. it was the “smaller” one outside of the original behometh.

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    I had a student lose their life like this, and I’m sure if the person wasn’t driving such a big vehicle, they would have seen the student in time to stop.

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      In the college town near me, students walk directly in-front of cars and bikes. Nearly hit oblivious pedestrians stepping into the road on multiple occasions while on my bike. Some people put very loud horns on their 2 and 4 wheeled vehicles, which is pretty funny anytime they get used.

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        Yeah, my student is forever 8 and a shortie for their age. They were crossing in a crosswalk and the driver was turning right. It’s not the same.

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        1 year ago

        If you don’t want people stepping into the road then stop putting roads everywhere. They built a road in between my home and work and I hate it, I want to get rid of the road and go back to the good old days.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          BombOmOm was plenty careful as evidence by successfully avoiding collision with an unexpected obstacle.

          • biddy@feddit.nl
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            1 year ago

            I don’t believe there’s such a thing as “careful enough” when people’s lives are at stake. If they were more careful they may have avoided nearly killing someone.

  • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Yet it is the EPA regulations on emissions by vehicle wheelbase that have led manufacturers to continuously increase size rather than reduce emissions. Great job…

    • BigNote@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      That’s because the auto industry realized there was a lucrative loophole in the regs and has since successfully lobbied to keep it in place. Basically it’s a type of regulatory capture.

      • visak@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not that simple. In the US at least it’s more of a case of standards that created an accidental loophole, which could have been closed quickly, but because car manufacturers found it so profitable they have fought ever since to keep the rules from being revised. When the original cafe standards were passed trucks were actual utilitarian vehicles and CAFE did a lot to raise average mileage. It’s time to stop exempting trucks and SUVs.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          It’s always some particular thing, but the pattern is clear. Government lacks the agility to correct its own mistakes, and they get carved in stone and last for years or decades before the mistakes are corrected.

          Government is like a child who places his hand on the stove, and then must get consensus among every neuron in his brain before removing the hand. Someone then says “government tends to burn its hands on the stove” and someone else says “yes but only because of how stupidly the reflex was handled”.

          In reality, a child who puts his hand on the stove benefits from the decentralized nervous system. The decision to whip the hand back off the stove is made at the spine, before the brain is aware.

          Excessive government regulation mandates not only constraints and goals, but methods of implementation. And again, and again, and again, our society ends up with third degree burns as a result of government ordering the hand onto the stove, then lacking the efficiency to bring it back off again.

      • Sharkwellington@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Are you saying government regulation as it is now is a problem, or are you suggesting that in a truly free market the car companies would stop making giant trucks despite it being their bestseller?

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Generally speaking, government regulation has the property of producing problems like this one: it slices the world into categories, and those get set as rigid law.

          But real world success comes from real time modification of categories, the merging and splitting of categories into whatever’s most useful. To kitchen designer, a cabinet is either a wall or a base cabinet. To a gunfighter, a cabinet is either solid cover or insufficient. To a cat, a cabinet is either rough enough to hook his claws into and climb, or not. To a kid, a cabinet is either a good place to hide during hide-and-seek, or not.

          Categories need to be variable based on the goals at hand.

          This thing with the truck design forced to fit a local maximum of value within the constraints created by those categories, is yet another example of the same thing happening.

          In simpler terms, people need to be free to make decisions in order to produce value and things that work well. Excessive government regulation prevents those choices or makes their context artificial. The result can be absurdity at best, and utter failure and ruin at worst.

      • static_motion@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        You’re partly right. The implementation of government regulation is a problem. Lawmakers are, for the most part, absolutely incompetent when it comes to making effective regulation.

        • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          So perhaps the idea that government regulation will go as expected is what’s wrong.

          Perhaps when new regulation is considered, one should try to imagine ways it could go wrong, if implemented by fallible people in chaotic organizations.

      • Lev_Astov@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It is, but largely because money in politics and regulatory capture have made the machine work against the people.

    • monobot@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Thing is, the size is already regulated. The bigger the car is, more emmisions are allowed.

      This cars are getting bigger because of regulation.

    • AgnosticMammal@lemmy.zip
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      10 months ago

      Ahah love the pic u linked of one blocking a tram. The regulators would surely be on their ass for blocking stuff like that.

      Sad thing is as these become more common they’ll pressure the right people to change the infrastructure around their bigger cars.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      American perspective: The RAM fits just fine, shame that that railcar doesn’t fit.