reminds me that almost every vehicle eligible for the EV credit now is a huge massive SUV
love too save the environment with my incredibly large and heavy electric vehicle
Gonna be fun times when the average pro enviromentalism EV driver gets basically the same taxes as with his ICE car because it'd be literally impossible to pay for road usage otherwise
- Trucks Got Huge/ Gas got cheap
- Commutes got longer
- Drivers can't get off their damn phones
People are driving fucking crazy now. I don’t know if more people are texting or what. I also now see someone weaving in and out of traffic at 80 or 90 mph regularly, which used to be like a once or twice a year thing.
I don’t know what’s going on. I got a dashcam though. And of course these big trucks are ridiculous, my in laws bought one that comes up to my neck and I’m just shy of 6’.
I don’t know what’s going on.
covid brain, slightly-too-high-CO2-for-too-long brain, sugar/caffeine/cheese/nicotine/fentanyl addiction brain, posting brain
take your pick. I think all of these are warping peoples' perceptions of risk
depression also increases the likelihood of aggressive and unsafe driving behavior, I feel like a lot of people on the road simply don't give a fuck anymore.
they're probably already sneaking it back in and the court will just rubberstamp it, as is their purpose
I don't think there's realistically any likelihood of leaded gas returning. More modern antiknock agents are less damaging to the vehicle, more effective at their job, and cheaper.
A lot of people point towards aviation's continued use of tetraethyl lead as an example of it being something that oil or aviation companies like, but that's not true at all. When people hear that leaded gas is still in use in aviation, they tend to assume that means that all or even most airplanes are using this fuel. Nope. Only about a third of "gasoline-powered" prop planes and helicopters use leaded gas, and no jet planes use gasoline. Leaded avgas is still a thing because a number of airplanes still flying are basically from the 1930s and 1940s, and the FAA considers it too much of a dick move to just tell everyone who owns one of these very old planes (or, old designs at least) to either buy a new plane or stop flying.
Old cars mostly ran fine (if a bit low on lubrication) with unleaded gas, but a handful of aviation fuel requirements, like the very high octane needs, have made it difficult to create an unleaded avgas for these old planes. For people who are particular sticklers about continuing to drive their classic car and retain its original configuration and condition, it's still possible here in Canada to find gasoline with MMT as the additive, and other sandwich compounds are being researched as options for replacing leaded avgas as well, although this is a controversial topic because it's been "coming soon" since before Reagan was president.
A big problem with running leaded gas in any car manufactured since 1975: it destroys the catalytic converter. As little as two tanks of leaded gas can completely destroy the cat, meaning that bringing back leaded gas would mean that every catalytic converter would need to be removed, and every car would need to be retuned, in exchange for... Literally no noticeable benefit to your driving experience. The higher octane rating you could get with leaded gas would not in any way improve your current car's driving experience, and auto manufacturers would have to basically restart from scratch with new engines if they wanted to take advantage of the different fuel chemistry, largely working off of 50 year old technology to try and even reach parity with modern engine optimization.
However, for most cars, ethanol is now used as the antiknock agent, and it's functionally free for oil companies in the US and Canada thanks to AG subsidies for corn. I think there's a high possibility that we'll see an increase in the amount of ethanol added, with E15 becoming more popular. E85 actually has a higher AKI (octane rating) than leaded race gas, meaning it's able to be compressed more before detonation.
Tldr: leaded gas will destroy catalytic converters, is incompatible with other anti-smog measures, offers zero improvements to your driving experience unless you're a tuner trying to make 1000 hp with a crazy turbo setup, is worse than e85 for those tuners trying to make 1000 horsepower, and most importantly for the capitalists: it costs more for the oil companies than current additives, while simultaneously being worse in all these ways. The handful of prop airplanes that still use it only use it because they have to.
I think the biggest possibility if someone does try to bring leaded gas back to trigger liberals is that it becomes "legal again" but is just not available anywhere. The possibility of a gas station selling leaded gas which almost instantly fucks up every single car that fuels up with it would be a nightmare for everyone involved.
Something I forgot to mention, the gas pump nozzles are legally defined in the US and the diameter of a leaded gas nozzle is larger than that of an unleaded nozzle. Sure, somebody could just using unleaded nozzle with leaded gas, but that would be a second thing that's illegal and would have to be changed... Assuming you could actually get someone to change the law specifically so that you could sell people more expensive gasoline which also destroys their car.
And the second thing that I entirely forgot to mention is it's entirely legal to sell leaded gas in the US right now and you could go buy it right now if you wanted to. What is banned is utilizing leaded gas in a road vehicle operated on public roads (because it is incompatible with legally mandatory catalytic converters). You can continue to use it for aviation, off-road dirt bikes or quads, farm equipment, Marine engines, racing cars not destined for public roads, generators, or really any other thing that isn't intended to be a road vehicle... But of course it's not widely available because these are all fringe uses and literally the only scenario where it's not actively worse and more expensive than the alternatives is in small prop aviation. Today, you can legally go to an airport or some drag strips and purchase good old 100LL, just like in the 70s... For $6-8 a gallon. The additives genuinely are that much more expensive, the taxes on avgas are cheaper than road fuel.
Yep, strangely one of the rare places where a market-based solution would come to the same answer as everyone else. Literally nobody involved would want to deal with the fallout of actually going through with it, so if somebody really wanted it sold, it would have to be something that they made mandatory to sell, which would likely result in lawsuits from automakers and gas stations who themselves don't want to be sued, and then no one would end up wanting to buy it because it's three times the price of regular gasoline and the only "coal rolling" you could do with it is in the tow truck bringing your ass straight into the shop to buy a new catalytic converter after you broke your car and now it won't turn on anymore.
Driving with my knees, a whole ass pizza propped up in my lap
Glass of red wine on the dash
Salad in the cup holder
Napkin tucked into my shirt
I don't know why so many people who know not to drink and drive will smoke and drive like it's no big deal.
Long time ago I was riding with a buddy of mine in high school who always swore up and down he was a better driver when he was high. One day dude ran straight through the stalest red you've ever seen, neither of us said anything, we both just slowley turned to eachother in horror at what he had just done. It's a funny story now but god damn how badly things could have gone. I knew better after that not to listen to anyone who said that again.
I've done it cause apparently everyone else thinks it's "no big deal" like you say and it's fucking terrifying. I wasnt stoned off my ass or anything, but it definitely made me hyper aware cause I wasn't enjoying myself and felt like I was putting everyone else in danger if my attention lapsed for a moment.
Sucked ass, never again, idk why anyone does it, but they're probably just car-brained and not afraid of the road.
People are driving like fucking maniacs on the stroad near me, literally 70+ miles per hour on a 40mph road just inches away from sidewalks where school kids walk every day. (and yes, the school kids have to cross that street, and yes they have been getting killed by maniac drivers). My neighbor across the street had some fucking truck jump the curb and crash into the side of their house (fortunately little damage, but wtf). It's crazy to me that my neighbors are so anxious and gossipy about every little crime happening in town, but are just completely oblivious to the danger of these gigantic fucking SUVs being piloted death-racer style through the places they're trying to walk. I can't fully wrap my head around why it's happening, but it's become more dangerous than ever to just exist as a pedestrian near roads.
Are there any studies that say why this is? I think we can all make some safe assumptions but I'd be curious to know if it's been researched at all
It looks like it started rising again around the time texting on phones became easier and more popular, and then surged again after covid.
He probably made it worse with the “cash for clunkers” trade-in scheme.
Nah, the CARS rebate was mostly used to trade in SUVs and Pickups for Compact cars.
On the one hand, this is horrific and signifies a fundamental failure of transit public policy.
But on the other... I guess this means more people are becoming pedestrians, which is good I think.
Or does it just mean that more drivers are killing existing pedestrians
Very hard to tell, because the only search results I'm getting back and the only content of these articles just restate the headline a dozen different ways.
Would be nice for a more comprehensive analysis and maybe some more granular details about the nature and circumstances of pedestrian travel relative to deaths. But fuck me if any of these search tools are going to help find it.
Blaming this on weed legalization might be the most reactionary take I’ve heard of on this website.
In the replies of @Assian_Candor@hexbear.net Comment.
It’s just a question form. But to discount smart phones becoming a majority in 2012, SUVs and pickups hitting 30% in 2012 and rising to over 50% of cars today, and the clearly defined Covid spike just to go with the drug that makes you drive below the speed limit seems very very silly to me.
I was just throwing ideas out there based on my personal observations of my friends driving high over the speed limit all the time
I didn't even blame weed itself I blamed irresponsible users
NUMBER GO UP BABY, i was reading about how often underride crashes happen and how the solution to that is actually not that expensive and how those numbers are generally under reported and have been like that for like decades but the trucking lobby is generally blocking any effort for stoping those real grim stuff america, CAR BAD, learn from your mistakes
I felt like my current city had the worst drivers over ever seen. But maybe it's just getting worse everywhere. Had to do front and back dashcams
There are a lot of things that probably contribute. I look at this and think smartphones.
I drive an ambulance and Honestly multiple times per week I see people straight up watching YouTube or Netflix while driving. I saw a woman that had a tablet mount in the middle of her steering wheel.
Like is driving a vehicle not interesting enough to hold people's attention anymore??
I think there have been studies that show exactly that. It is worse than driving drunk because it is total impairment vs partial impairment.
Manufacturers really started moving a fuck ton of SUVs and pickup trucks in the 2010s.
COVID broke a ton of people's grains and driving had been visibly worse since then imo.
More people might be using their cars less, because life has become very expensive, even if gas has gone down. More pedestrians in areas with very little pedestrian infrastructure, more dead pedestrians.
is it because more people are biking
It says pedestrians deaths,
what happened 14-16 and 20-22
Gamergate and Covid
