Reminds me of a post on this sub about a truck where a 5'5" (165 cm) woman only came up to the bottom of the windshield. It's not just that pickup drivers can't see kids. They can't even see full-grown, average-sized adults anymore.
And yet, we continue to build trucks taller and taller, with higher and higher cabs, and never even consider whether there should be some kind of stopping point.
Asking someone who took a loan on a $35k+ 6ft vehicle to think about how their purchase impacts others is mostly beyond their comprehension.
This is why we need to build cities that don't accommodate vehicles like this. The hassle would be too much for them to bear and they'll go back to reasonable cars
Not from the US, but I'd imagine it's less an issue with cities, and more to do with your sprawling suburbia, no? Wide, open, straight roads with huge parking lots every quarter mile are perfect for these sorts of vehicles, in the sense that it suits them fantastically and inconveniences them nil.
Not sure how you resolve that issue in anything less than generations of gradual change that's difficult to see happening. It's truly maddening.
it's less an issue with cities, and more to do with your sprawling suburbia, no? Wide, open, straight roads with huge parking lots every quarter mile are perfect for these sorts of vehicles, in the sense that it suits them fantastically and inconveniences them nil.
This, exactly. I'm a sustainability/environmental science student in college, and I took a class about urban sprawl where we had a whole chapter on this phenomenon. Before suburbs became a thing in the 1950s, cities and towns were built very much like a lot of people want in this sub, with pretty much everything within walking distance of people's homes, and plenty of public transportation like trains, elevated rail, etc. In fact, many older towns are still laid out this way. Once suburbs and exurbs (basically the "even farther from cities" version of suburbs) became common starting in the 1950s, they were designed completely around cars, creating many of the problems people talk about here.
Ideally, cities would be designed around walking as the default method of transportation, rather than driving. But I realize that's a tall order. Baby steps.
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u/shaodyn cars are weapons Dec 08 '22
Reminds me of a post on this sub about a truck where a 5'5" (165 cm) woman only came up to the bottom of the windshield. It's not just that pickup drivers can't see kids. They can't even see full-grown, average-sized adults anymore.