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You mean the group of people that are okay with schools being used for target practice thinks cars are too safe?! I am shocked.
Buy motorcycles. Problem solved.
Clearly not the onion. My right wing father (not Republican because we are not American and he’s technically a monarquist) complains that cars are too expensive due to the mandatory security features. Features that he has on his fully equipped Porsche because he wants to be safe, obviously.
as someone from the country where porsche is native and where it owns their own political party… owning a porsche is one of the clearest signs one can send that they are a massive asshole lol
That’s true in other countries too. Or a bmw.
bmw is like every fourth car here. you can joke they come without turn signals but its just a run of the mill car brand for all kinds of people
only a certain kind of personality gets a porsche
That tracks in America too, but a better example here is pickup trucks.
They aren’t even save for anyone outside the vehicle, to the point that death are increasing already. not just bikes video
I watched this, and was surprised to see this article. Like what timing on both ends.
Definitely Not The Onion material. Heck, you could almost convince me that this is The Onion.
The Onion ate the GOP.
Car Companies: “the regulations are so big and heavy and workers cost so much munnies. Pls let us do less QA on the vehicles mandatory to live in america.”
Republicans: “CRUSH MORE CHILDREN, who would dare inconvenience these poor sweet automotive corporations?!”
Anyone paying attention: “Yall know aside from oil companies, car companies are the most ridiculously subsidized companies on earth?”
This is kinda misleading, the complaint is that cars are too expensive. They’re not saying cars should be less safe, just that the extra safety isn’t worth the financial cost.
(Still not a good position to take in my opinion)
I’d have to argue that cars are less safe when there is a giant tablet bolted to the dash and every setting is buried in menus.
I think we’re finally past the peak of tablet-ification of car dashboards. A lot of manufacturers have finally realized people hate it and newer models are putting all crucial functions on buttons and only putting infotainment stuff on the tablet.
That’s par for the course for Republicans. Are things too expensive? Let them be shittier so they are cheaper.
And the act all surprised when they just get shittiee, but not cheaper.
Then it becomes shittier but the price stays the same while the manufacturer pockets the difference.
and then they buy tacky, gaudy expensive things.
Yeah, and the thing is I’d be a lot more receptive to that argument if they were willing to support funding the sort of road and transit infrastructure that actually make cars less dangerous.
Its not misleading. They could cut costs in multiple areas, but specifically chose safety.
Replace seat belts with piano wire and make air bags with 50x the explosive charge but replace the airbag with ball bearings.
Ford pinto
Ah yes the Tullock Spike
Exactly! Except I make Lemmy shitposts for shits and giggles and am not an “economics professor” who needs to be taken seriously and never gets invited to parties.
Why do you want millions of people to die? That’s pretty weird.
Millions dead? Are you crazy? 3 months of my 2 point auto safety plan and everyone will drive very very carefully all the time! I’m SAVING LIVES!
Reads as rather blantant satire to me. Perhaps you’re the weird one weirdy.
If we were on fuck cars that wouldn’t be satire. Didnt realize we’re on not the onion instead.
Natural selection has been removed. Now republicans are trying to reintroduce it.
They’ll (mainly) be the ones affected. I say let it happen.
Then again, I don’t like most people.
That wasn’t what was proposed
Furthering that they are indeed not the “Pro-Life” party but instead the “Pro-Birth” party.
“Forced-birth” party
“Brood-mares for more mine yearners” party
deleted by creator
Agree but starting to even wonder about that. I’ve never seen them do anything that benefits births let alone even celebrate it. Seems to be “Pro-Misery especially at others expense”.
That’s where the “the cruelty is the point” expression comes from
Remember, their cars are the gaint Yukons with a convoy of body guards aren’t safe enough. But your car. It could literally be a gascan strapped to tricycle for all they care.
It could literally be a gascan strapped to tricycle for all they care.
Time to mandate every car’s steering column has a 1.5ft razor sharp spike sticking out of it.
Takata did nothing wrong.
Jesus fuck! What the fuck is it with these fuckers!?!? really? Cars are too safe!??! WTF?
I am guessing they want to deregulate the safety laws so that they can take the money that they spend on it and stick it into their pockets and still keep the price of cars the same!
I do think we need to rethink cars though. The mandatory concept with a crumble zone in front doesn’t translate well to EV.
Why not? A crumple zone is a crumple zone. To the extent EVs facilitate steer by wire so we don’t need a steering column is even better
Because it’s not a motor block in front anymore but (inflammable) batteries and stuff.
It’s not safe to have the motor block in front. It can be shoved into the cabin and gasoline is ready to ignite on hot exhaust or sparks if the fuel line is ruptured.
A motor block is also not a good crumple zone. I’m happy not to have that in front of me.
Battery fires are much less likely than people fear, even in accidents, although obviously horribly bad when they happen. More importantly this is currently popular battery technology, not endemic to EVs. There have been announcements for newer batteries that prevent this
The crumple zone is to slow the car down so the occupants don’t get tossed forward as hard.
It has nothing to do with the engine block. That has its own safety system to push it under the car instead of back in to the cab.
As a cyclist, I kind of agree. Apparently the introduction of seat belts caused an increase in cyclist deaths because people started driving less carefully.
You know, I’ve had a similar thought to what you’ve offered here. It’s always been a tongue in cheek observation, but because cars are so safe, people literally take their safety for granted driving them. If cars were less safe, people might take the responsibility of driving more seriously.
Make it so, if you get in an accident, it chops a foot off. So not life ending, but certainly life altering. People drive knowing “I’ll be fine,” and then they look at a text, daydream, all that. If you knew, every time you got in the car, you risked losing a foot, you’d take that shit seriously.
I’m willing to bet that the design of modern trucks is killing more pedestrians than seat belts are. But go off.
The source of that claim seems to be a single article written in 1985, and has absolutely no data to support the claim that feeling safer so driving more dangerously is the actual cause, but states it as fact nonetheless.
Hello ghost of John Forrester!
This is the only excuse for the massive inflation of new car prices vs. rate of wage increases over the decades. I will give auto engineers props for this accomplishment; cars are so much safer now than 30 years ago.
Dont sleep on either “many new cars are electric” or “cars last a fuckton longer”.
Per-capira “total cost of ownership” for a car from purchase to retirement hasnt increased nearly as much as first-sale price would suggest. (Though the “financing cost” of the one-or-more transactions is a separate matter.)
Never buy new. Let someone else deal with the frequent hassle of getting all the problems fixed “under warranty” while the lemons get sent to salvage. Give me the vehicles that survive. Case in point, I bought my first car for $500, drove it for 24 years, and the biggest age-related expense was rebuilding the front end for $600. I sold the car in 2011 for $1000. I bought my current SUV in 2009 and the biggest mechanical failures have been replacing the power steering pump and the 4WD short axles.
I had a friend who insisted he needed to spend all his money buying new cars. He tried to tell me how much money he was saving because the dealership was fixing all the problems for free. I pointed out that he had barely even driven his new car because it was spending more time at the dealership every week or two and he was constantly wasting his own time taking it back for yet another problem.
Good advice, though not really germane to the topic.
Somebody has to buy the new cars for there to be used cars for you to buy, and the price you offer has to be more valuable to them than the car they’re selling.
FWIW, A good argument for buying new isn’t “look what the dealer’s fixing”, but rather “I don’t want hidden surprises”. Private party sales can very much be caveat emptor, and even getting a dealership to stand by their claims can be unprofitable.
That’s what rich people are for – to suffer for the benefit of the working class.
For the high end. Sure.
And poor, financially illiterate people buy up the low end.
But who buys the middle?
Imo that the sweet spot for leases. People who want modern safety/reliability/warranty, and resigned themselves to the fact that they’ll always have a car payment if they prioritize these things.
What year was that? I don’t believe a $500 car would last 24 more years. These days you can’t even buy a 24 year old car for $500
It was a '74 Pontiac LeMansthat I bought in 1987. And sorry, I did forget about one thing… I had to replace the transmission a couple times, but back then you could get them from a junkyard for cheap, and it only took a couple hours to replace. Probably would have lasted a lot longer if I’d taken the time to rebuild the clutches though. Of course it’s not like you can drive any vehicle forever, there was the maintenance as things like bushings and alternators wore out. For this discussion though I don’t count things that you have to do on any vehicle with 300k miles on it. Everything wears out eventually, and yeah even the motor was starting to smoke by that time.
Yeah kinda burying the lede on this. Cars built in the 70s had a much more simple, serviceable construction.
By the time you let it go, it was also probably grandfathered in to emissions requirements because it’s a classic car.
Anything from the 90s- 2010 will not hold up like that one did.
Lots of ways. My first car was free because the owner kept getting oil leaks from the plug or filter and didn’t want to deal with selling it. Said she had tried three different oil filters and had the plug checked. Due to the big unknown problem she felt she’d have a hard time. Funny thing is when I got it home I checked it out, and someone had pierced it with a flathead screwdriver. I know that cause I took one and put it in the hole and it was a perfect fit. Horrible woman, so I’m sure she just pissed someone off.
My second car was $300 because my neighbors ex boyfriend had left his car at her place long past the limit to qualify for abandonment and she spite sold it to me. He loved that ugly car and it was souped up. I practically stole it. LOL
So it is possible, but I suppose not normal.
The cheapest car I ever owned was listed on Craigslist for $1,000 but I managed to talk it down because it had a broken fuel gauge, only lasted me about a year. It was a 1993 Dodge Dakota, so we’re in OBD1 era here. I’m currently driving a late 90s Honda with almost 300,000 miles, it burns oil but it’s still drives fine. I’m going to drive it until it dies and then hopefully I’ll have enough money to buy something on Craigslist. In my experience $500 would only buy you a mechanic’s special. I first got my driver’s license in the 2010s and I live on the west coast, if that makes any difference
I should also add the first one only lasted me three years because it was Jerry-rigged beyond any comprehension and I had already heard from my neighbor she was thinking of seeking the abandoned car, so when the transmission gave out on mine I just made her an offer and she took it. My second car is still going 15 years later, although I sold it to someone when I moved away and still see them with it when I visit.
Everything is a special model these days which makes the price higher. You don’t see mid range, average cars anymore.
Don’t forget CAFE abuse. It incentivizes the boom of CUVs and SUVs we have now, and makes it challenging to have a good coupe/sedan platform. Pretty much killed the 3-door/5-door wagon, imo the superior car.
Instead of patching over the rising costs, maybe we can move to living in communities that aren’t so dependent on such a costly, depreciating asset for every home?
Cars in some ways are too coddling, giving people a false sense of safety. All these new features like lane keeping and blind spot warnings make people drive with reckless abandon.
They were driving with reckless abandon before…
Maybe the one thing I could see is people letting go of the steering to do something thanks to lane assist, but those same people were thigh-driving before, and I might trust the system more…
I drove much more conservatively since getting a car with these features.
I.e…im more likely to just go a steady speed behind someone with ACC on, whereas before I’d be passing frequently.
And in general, it makes driving in heavy traffic far less draining. Oh it’ll worry about pulling up and stopping constantly for me? Yes please.
I’ll agree with this, that my mild annoyance at being 2mph slower than I want to be is greatly reduced by adaptive cruise control. Which means my following distance is nicer and I’m less likely to bother to change lanes.
Biggest thing is that it doesn’t begin slowing down for traffic ahead like I would like it to, and I don’t trust it enough to see if it even would, but maybe that much engagement is good to make sure I don’t get too complacent.
Also, mitigating the mind numbing monotony of hours on a freeway. The wheel naturally staying in the center (lane centering, not lane keeping) does a lot for keeping me feeling more well rested on a longer trip.
I don’t think these politicians are thinking about this, but some of these safety features really are masking the lack of driving skill in the US.
It’s easy to say that it’s the same thing with aviation: every time something bad happens, we have to improve the technology and introduce safety features to planes.
Yet it’s surprisingly easy to forget that that’s only a small part of the entire safety process. They also improve pilot training. They set new requirements for infrastructure. New rules for air traffic control.
When I look at a lot of traffic accidents, I usually don’t say “wow, a new car safety feature would have saved the day” but “why were these people given a licence again?” or “what were they thinking when they designed this bit of road?”
I’ve seen people over rely on bad lane assist and just kinda ping pong from side to side in their lane. It’s… kinda stupid.
Also, what’s the deal with the side mirror light that turns on when someone is near? My car has a small convex mirror attached to the standard one and I can see my blind spot quite clearly.
You can see your blind spot if
- Your side mirror is adjusted properly
- You look
Blind spot monitoring helps alert you in case you didn’t
My car has a camera on the sides that shows the lane where the speedometer/tachometer are when I turn on a signal. In addition to the mirrors, lights, audible alerts, etc. All very helpful.
I once got into a wreck, in the leftmost/passing lane on the interstate, because the asshat in front of me slammed on his brakes at the exact moment that I was checking my blind spot to move over. I’dve much appreciated being able to keep my eyes forward.
