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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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This is almost an "arms race" situation, since when there are so many gigantic SUVs and pickup trucks on the road, driving in a smaller car becomes a lot less safe in case of an accidental collision with a larger, heavier vehicle, and the only way to reduce that risk is to drive a gigantic SUV/pickup truck yourself and further exacerbate the problem.
Having this many large vehicles on the street makes driving on the highway dangerous and unpleasant. LA's traffic is especially terrible.
To say nothing of how dangerous it is for pedestrians, especially children. Some of these vehicles have less forward visibility than, not even kidding, a fucking Abrams tank:
It looks like the "arms race" analogy is more apt than I thought then.
The kids they usually end up hitting are their own in their driveways, so it's kind of darwinism in action
Plus its honestly getting kind of hard to NOT buy an SUV or a large car. The smallest car at an American Honda dealership is an SUV (HRV) now and its fucking massive compared to their smallest car from just a few years ago (Honda Fit). If you wanted an actual compact car you aren't getting one there. That is the same story at a lot of dealers. EVERYTHING is big. Hell, even historic compacts like the Civic and Corolla are massive next to their previous generations. I have a 2000 civic that looks like a toy next to a 2023 civic.
The Civic and the Accord have grown quite a bit since their creation.
First gen Accord, from Wikipedia: Length 4,450 mm (175.2 in) (sedan) - Width 1,620 mm (63.8 in) (sedan) - Height 1,360 mm (53.5 in) (sedan) - Curb weight 898–945 kg (1,980–2,083 lb)
Current Accord: Length 4,970 mm (195.7 in) - Width 1,860 mm (73.2 in) - Height 1,450 mm (57.1 in)
It's now 520 mm (20.5") longer, 240 mm (9.4") wider, and even 90 mm (3.6") taller.
The Civic has gone through a similar transition over its lifetime.
Unfortunately, it's hard to compare other brands because so few have had such long-running nameplates, so you have to start comparing different models in the same market, which I'm too lazy to do.
It's worth noting the curb weight has gone up dramatically, too. The current Accord is 1,469 - 1,488 kg (3,239 to 3,280 lbs) based on a quick Google search (it's not in Wikipedia). So it weighs more than 1.5 original Accords.
Even cars aren't immune to size inflation.
There is now this abomination https://www.mini.co.uk/en_GB/home/range/mini-countryman.html
Still being called a MINI!
But even their regular MINI is almost 1.5x the size of what it was just a few years ago.
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