214
Outrage as new Aussie car tax ignores 'dangerous' mega-utes
(au.finance.yahoo.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
214 points (97.8% liked)
Fuck Cars
9629 readers
380 users here now
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
Rules
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
Posting Guidelines
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
- [meta] for discussions/suggestions about this community itself
- [article] for news articles
- [blog] for any blog-style content
- [video] for video resources
- [academic] for academic studies and sources
- [discussion] for text post questions, rants, and/or discussions
- [meme] for memes
- [image] for any non-meme images
- [misc] for anything that doesn’t fall cleanly into any of the other categories
Recommended communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The US also has this loophole, all SUVs are classified as ‘light trucks’ and therefore don’t have to follow the more strict emissions laws. This is what led to these massive cars and trucks.
Also, the roads in many US states are falling apart and larger vehicles and trucks drive better over potholes and bad road conditions.
People prefer big SUVs and trucks when the roads are badly maintained and it will damage normal cars. The trend of larger rims with a thinner sidewall almost guarantees normal cars will have much worse ride quality and be more prone to damage and costly repairs.
The new trucks are so tall and have a massive blind spot in front, you can't see anything. They are a danger to pedestrians and children in addition to having blinding headlights that shine directly at eye level for any normal car.
Stop blaming roads on consumer trucks. Nearly all the damage is 18 wheelers. Same with the headlights they are just fine unless modified. You have zero evidence they are any brighter or aimed worse than every other vehicle on the road.
No where did I mention that the cause of road damage was caused by SUVs. I said that people prefer larger vehicles because they driver better on poorly maintained roads due to larger tires and heavy duty suspension.
Also, 18 wheelers don’t drive in residential areas and therefore don’t affect most smaller roads. Those roads fall apart due to a variety if reasons including weather and lack of maintenance and drainage.
As for your other claim, there is plenty of evidence that LED headlights are brighter. This is easily measurable and new headlights have higher lumens and a different color. Newer cars all have LED lights that are more blue than older halogen lights that were yellow.
Trucks and SUVs have gotten bigger and taller over the last 2-3 decades and those headlights are at eye level for most cars. This causes more glare and when combined with brighter LED lights that have a blue color balance lead to glare!
US laws around headlights have not been updated since the 1970s! European laws are also more strict on aiming downward to reduce glare from trucks and tall vehicles.
Since you want some proof:
Blinded by the light: Cars in the U.S. still lack glare-reducing headlights
Here is another study done by AAA: (it has pictures and comparisons so you don’t need to strain yourself reading too many big words)
COMPARISON OF EUROPEAN AND U.S. SPECIFICATION AUTOMOTIVE HEADLAMP PERFORMANCE
Notice those aren't limited to trucks?
Let me explain this to you using simple words:
Trucks are taller than cars.
Trucks have bright new LED headlights.
Truck lights are not pointed down enough and don’t have the same regulations as in Europe.
Since trucks are taller and have stronger, brighter lights, they blind people.
The same applies for cars with new LED lights.
Most of that but the last line is just you making up assumptions across the board. The f150 and ram are absolutely pointed down and not overly bright compared to the rest and regulation.
Yes the reg needs updating. No trucks don't do dumb shit any worse than all new cars.
Here’s a nice chart showing relative damage
But I do have to disagree. At first you can look at this chart and see proof - clearly by far most road damage will be from trucks. But the other half of the equation is how many. A highway only needs a few trucks with those numbers to create most of their damage. However many local roads rarely, if ever, get full sized trucks. If you have a residential neighborhood, long haul trucks are not a thing, and delivery trucks are much smaller. So yeah, everyone owning a monster pickup might very well cause most of the damage
Not to mention average pickup truck weight has increased since the study. Older trucks were lighter because they didn't have fully boxed frames and every p/u is an extended cab now.