Vehicle Size Creep

[Irrev-Black]

Apart from the physics (a few metric fuckloads of engine, shifting tonnes of vehicular deadweight, to get about 300kg of parent + kids on the school run), and the increased threat of "didn't see 'em, Officer", there's all the other negative factors.

Why the mad rush toward Imperial Class Dreadnoughts?

David Zipper
@davidzipper@mastodon.social

Summary: Car bloat is terrible – for road safety, for the planet, for equity, and for road maintenance.

But bigger cars are often more profitable, so automakers like making them.

The only way out: Government action. Examples:
Tax vehicles by weight.
Test vehicles for pedestrian and cyclist safety (still doesn’t happen in the US).
Require a CDL for the most gigantic vehicles.

Left alone, this problem will only worsen. Governments must step up.

https://slate.com/business/2023/01/elec ... biden.html

https://slate.com/business/2022/11/suv- ... eaths.html

[stylofone]

Carmakers have been building and promoting bigger cars because they are more profitable. But this is one of those areas where I think it's also useful to mention personal responsibility. Consumers have not 100% handed over their willpower to the mind control of the marketing machine. On some level they decided themselves to get a bigger car. I remember the old days when you'd see an imported US car and it would be derided as a "yank tank", but it seems we just copy the Americans nowadays.

It's not just American cars, though. If you look at the history of the Toyota Corolla, for example it is peppered with lines like "a major redesign in the 1970s/1980s/1990s resulted in a bigger car".

[c2105026]

In 2020 I bought a brand new 4th Gen Mazda3 sedan.

It was only just shorter and narrower than my 2000 VT Commodore!

My ‘85 Gemini and ‘15 Caprice make for an interesting comparison…. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lFLJ_ ... p=drivesdk

[c2105026]

Three cars that are in fact just about the same size

1963 EH Holden - very popular family car
1986 VL Commodore - many felt it was ‘small’
2014 3rd Gen Mazda 3 Sedan - ‘small car’

[stylofone]

This monstrosity was in front of me on the King's Highway yesterday. As if "BIGRIG" wasn't crass enough, this person seems to have a sexual attraction to their large vehicle.

[two dogs]

Neighbours around 100 m away, who moved in a few months ago, own this fuckin' monstrosity. It's usually parked completely on the road, rather than illegally as it is in this image, and when it is completely on the road, it takes up more than half of the narrow, out-of-the-way, suburban street. I'm not sure which option "irrits" me the most!



It's matte black (possibly a vinyl wrap), rather than glossy black, and badges and most lights have been blacked/smoked. Apparently, that's because
it's the in thing to not only be big but also to look aggressive/menacing/mean/...! (I've seen those words used in Facebook advertisements that appear in my feed for lotteries for tarted-up utes/pickups).

Note how far the tyres protrude past the already flared wheel arches! It used to have additional flares to legally cover them, but for some reason, they've been removed.

FFS, my Jeep Cherokee has these tiny additional flares fitted on the rear in order to meet the Australian Design Rules for vehicles!

[Irrev-Black]

(Much snippage)

If I know somebody has a vehicle like this, I simply won't do business with them.

It speaks of an underlying pathology that makes for the kind of person I'd almost certainly find unpleasant.

[Irrev-Black]

From place of hairy tusk-and-trunk thingy:

Queer Like The Slur
@coolandnormal@aus.social

Family member: Daniel is thinking of getting a land rover 4x4

Me: but... where would Daniel go in a land rover? He thinks Chadstone is The Sticks. He doesn't even need a car.

Family member: it's not for going places, he likes how it looks

Me: oh, it's a dress

Family member: well...

Me: He like how he looks in it and how empowered it makes him feel. That's a dress.

Oct 17, 2023, 16:37 · · 105 · 2

[two dogs]

Fuckin' self-entitled arsehole, parking his penis extension partly on the pedestrian access path from the car park!:

[Irrev-Black]

Fuckin' self-entitled arsehole, parking his penis extension partly on the pedestrian access path from the car park!:
(snip)

I have the misfortune to be broad of shoulder and hip.

Hardly ever do I walk past a vehicle parked like that, without some maladjustment to one or both^* rear-view mirrors occurring en passant.

* = Well, I have to walk back that way, too.