[bobince]

It needn't have been this tall. With the internal combustion engine out, Ford could have designed a lower, more curved, less deadly front end.

Instead, they kept the high nose and used the space as a trunk. After all, injuring fewer pedestrians sells no cars. Indeed, the market prefers an enormous, deliberately threatening-looking chariot that makes you feel big and virile.

Ford are behind this game in that they haven't given their truck an explicitly hostile name like “People Mulcher”.

[chrisseaton]

> an enormous, deliberately threatening-looking chariot that makes you feel big and virile

Most people with a truck are just trying to get their job done. They aren’t trying to look or feel anything.

[BitwiseFool]

I bet that the people criticizing trucks for being high off the ground has never driven a truck through a jobsite or a non-paved road.

[isoskeles]

As someone who doesn't own a truck, I always find it funny when people bring up "big and virile" type lines about truck owners. "They're compensating for something..." These people need to get their minds out of the gutter, stop thinking everything is about penis. Trucks are functional vehicles, like a giant tool for transporting bulky stuff, and I remember this every time I think about asking a friend if I can use his truck for anything.

No insult intended here: I assume people who have never had this thought have also never done things like replacing their kitchen cabinets or some other simple home improvement project. That's fine, but it's also quite relatable to many people, and it has nothing to do with penis.

[stfp]

Incorrect based on 50% of trucks on the road today being absolutely pristine, and simply looking at commercials and their wording ("commanding the road")

[ben7799]

Blame for killing falls on the driver of the vehicle, not on the company designing it or the shape of the front of the vehicle.

Don't hit anyone with your vehicle and you won't kill anyone. I've been hit by a truck bicycling, thankfully not too hard. But I don't really think it would have been better to have been hit by a low slung sleek car. It would have put all the force through my legs.

[ajross]

"Blame" is something you argue in a civil suit.

Vehicle safety regulations aren't about "blame", ever. They're designed to save lives. If you can do that with better driver behavior, great. If you can do it with assistive technology, great. If you can do it with different vehicle designs, great. You do what you can, based on the techniques available and the costs involved.

To wit: if you start your safety analysis with "fuck the pedestrians, that's the driver's fault, not Ford's", then you're doing it wrong.

[xxpor]

The problem is the high front makes it such that there's a huge blind spot.

[buzzy_hacker]

That’s why I wish car manufacturers would affix big metal spikes to the front of cars for the aesthetic value. After all, they’d be blameless for any casualties.

[zip1234]

Blame for killing almost never falls on drivers. Look at news headlines--"Car runs over person" and not "Driver runs over person" and you can see how this is viewed. There is a term to describe this--"windshield bias." Auto safety takes multiple approaches and not just saying the drivers are responsible because they are currently not, at least in the US. Does the person that hit you with a truck still have their driving license?

[pm90]

Please no more of the personal responsibility bullcrap. “Don’t make a mistake and you won’t make a mistake” is a pretty useless statement.

When designing mass manufactured items, it is a responsibility of manufacturers to ensure that their products are as safe as they can be.

[piyh]

I'm sure there's some societal tradeoff between global electrification and pedestrian deaths. Until the government adds pedestrian safety to US crash standards, Ford will make what the image conscious truck market wants.

[stfp]

The market can go nuts, and regarding vehicle size, it is. It's basically an arms race.

[dls2016]

Smells like a steak and seats 35!

https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA

[jtdev]

Roads are made for large dangerous machines that move fast and can hurt you.

[chubot]

Cities are made for people; the number people outside of cars greatly exceeds the number inside cars in every city.

If what you say is true, then cities should not have roads.

[hrktb]

That's so sad this sarcasm basically became fact after so many decades of going the wrong way.

It's also why cities are taking back whole roads from cars when they can, as it's so hard to preserve a middle ground in a lot of areas.

[chrisseaton]

Roads predate cars. Cars took them over from people and far slower horses.

[woah]

That’s why they should only have one lane for cars with a 25mph speed limit.