A Tesla owner’s dream of taking his new Cybetruck for a spin turned into a nightmare. He landed in the emergency room with blood spurting from a wrist wound before even getting behind the wheel.
A Tesla owner’s dream of taking his new Cybetruck for a spin turned into a nightmare. He landed in the emergency room with blood spurting from a wrist wound before even getting behind the wheel.
We can’t have pop-up headlights because of pedestrian safety, but you can buy a 5,000 pound vehicle that does 0-60 in three seconds and has a hood level with most people’s heads because that’s totally safe for pedestrians.
Well, You can’t buy it in the civilised world.
Are we pretending to care about pedestrians now? The US has long held the attitude that it was their own damn fault for not being in a car. There are a multitude of established, studied, simple changes that could be made to make things safer for pedestrians with relatively little needed in the way of sacrifice from car designers if anyone felt pedestrians have a right to live.
Can you share some of these? I had a small stint in the auto design industry and am genuinely curious.
I don’t have any resources but my Volvo has a long, low hood and a heavily padded engine cover
First and foremost look up the benefits of roundabouts. On the grand scheme of city planning and. Construction, these are low cost life savers for pedestrians and drivers - easy win.
Lower hoods, rounded edges (stares at cyber truck), and smart braking are some of the big design elements that already exist See https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-ratings-address-pedestrian-crashes As a good source.
I don’t have a car and go for a walk most days, where I live drivers treat pedestrians and (bikers/scooters/other alternatives) as enemies/targets/antagonists/etc.
With zero oncoming traffic or an empty second lane, where I live people swerve toward you instead of around when passing you. At a particular intersection I only cross on the ped signal cause its by the interstate, I get cussed out a few times a month just for not being in a car - Its fucking nuts.
Also you can put a steel crash bar on the front that completely bypasses the crumple zones and presents hazards to both pedestrians and passengers solely because it makes the owner feel “tough”.
Machismo culture: Maim yourself and your familial property to own the libs. Now that’s what I call husbandry 🇺🇸🫡🦅🎆🐢🏝
They’re also damage multipliers in otherwise minor accidents. So instead of needing a new plastic bumper cover and some styrofoam, you now also need a new grill, headlights and hood too.
Extra bonus points if you bolt some super bright Led lights to said bar and shine them on people that look suspicious to you.
Although those rules are European, and the Cybertruck isn’t being sold there. If Telsa wanted to sell the cyber truck in Europe, they would need to make some pretty dramatic changes to complying with pedestrian safety laws.
I’ll wager that they’re not going sell this in Europe. Big ass trucks don’t have a big market in Europe, and this thing is like the OG roadster. An expensive impractical toy for rich folks.
Is that the listed reason pop-up headlights were outlawed? I thought it was because the pop-up mechanisms fail and then you don’t have lights, same reason the brake lights can’t be on movable bodywork.
Probably a bit of both. Having that mechanism is just another point of failure, and seems like it would a pain in the ass to install and test on an assembly line.
And here in Canada it’s required that new vehicles have daytime running lights, ie. lights are on (but at a dimmer setting) whenever the vehicle is running. Because it’s easier to see vehicles with lights on them than a vehicle with no lights in poor weather conditions. So pop-up lights would only make the vehicle look nice when it’s parked, but it wouldn’t look good whenever you’re driving, even in the daytime.
I had a car with pop up lights for twenty years and the mechanism was supposed to fail?
Supposed to, no. They just did so, and a lot of them did, felt like at least a quarter or more of them to saw at least one never popped up
You know, I had never considered why we don’t have hood ornaments anymore. It does make sense, though.