Vehicle Size Creep

[two dogs]

I parked next to this behemoth in a car park at my local suburban shopping centre this afternoon. To their "credit," it's not in the main car park but in a smaller one that's not heavily utilised Monday through Friday. I use it because it's very easy to find a parking spot, and I'm not averse to a 250 m round trip walk to the shops and back!



Of course, in addition to the size, it has to be matte black, with black wheels, and huge tyres, so that it looks more manly/aggressive/intimidating!

[pipbarber]

That reminds me, i was in Broken Hill recently and sitting on the balcony of the Palace hotel enjoying a beer. Just watching the street and the traffic and suddenly i realized that there seemed to be fewer large 4WDs by proportion of cars than your average inner city Melbourne suburb! So you can live on the edge of the outback and get about in a 20 year old sedan, no worries mate, but my god you need a giant American style 4WD to negotiate the speed humps in Richmond?

When the petrol price spikes, my consolation is imaging how much these people are paying to fill up these ugly monster vehicles.

[stevebrooks]

Explains a lot, it seem vehicle size creep isn't consumer driven after all, it's manufacturer driven!

https://imgur.com/gallery/fascinating-TT86d73

[two dogs]

Fuckin' wankers with their penis extensions (in this case a 6.6m Lx2.2m Wx2.0m H Dodge Ram) can't drive for shit! There was no need for the driver to cross the centre line while passing the parked cars!

[stevebrooks]

Interesting article here on news.com;

Oversized American-style pick-up trucks pose a significant risk to the people driving them – not just other road users, according to a new study.

An investigation by America’s Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found super-sized vehicles pose an increased risk of fatalities to road users.

David Harkey, President of the IIHS, said these findings debunk the popular theory that “bigger is safer” when it comes to vehicle safety.

“The conventional wisdom is that if bigger is safer, even bigger must be safer still,” Mr Harkey said.

“These results show that isn’t true today. Not for people in other cars. And — this is important — not for the occupants of the large vehicles themselves.”

Ok what to do about it, I think we need to institute a special licence for large passenger vehicles over a certain height/length/width/weight. For commercial needs this shouldn't be an issue since gaining the licence if you are say a builder and need to haul heavy loads but not large enough for truck the cost of gaining the special licence would be tax deductible and could be taken the same time as the regular licence. But for regular road users with no business connected reason it should be a required extra course and cost, maybe we could combine it with a damn caravan towing licence because some of them are fucking idiots and shouldn't be on the road!

https://www.news.com.au/technology/moto ... 0e4609edf1