Bring Back the Land Yacht!

On this episode of Common Sense Soapbox, Seamus explains how bigger, heavier, less fuel efficient SUVs are safer than small sedans.
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CREDITS:
Written by Sean W. Malone and Seamus Coughlin
Animated by LtAmazil, Adamdonk, and Emily Slatt
Voiced by Seamus Coughlin and nosoup4knowles
Layout by Jaime Velasquez, Trevor Smith
Produced & Edited by Sean W. Malone

[bobowon]

stationwagons were the ideal car. they were a reasonable size with great cargo capacity. Trucks in the early 2000s were also very ideal, they handled well, had a good cargo capacity.

Modern vehicles seem to be very large to a point where its hard to even maneuver them into a driveway let alone a parking lot, but yet have even less cargo capacity than the smaller cars of the past

[CowCommando]

"There are no solutions, only compromises." - Thomas Sowell

[ingenparks]

And land yachts would likely be safer for pedestrians. The issue with SUVs is that their tall bumper tends to shove pedestrians under it, whereas the shorter front end on a sedan means that pedestrians are thrown over the top. Getting faceplaneted into the windshield isn't great, but getting smoothed by the wheels is worse.

[TrainfanJanathan]

The issue is that large pickups are SUVs have blind spots, but their drivers aren't trained to look for someone in those blind spots. Commercial vehicles don't really have this issues because we're trained to look for people in our blindspots. We're also trained not to move the vehicle until we've checked all the way around the vehicle.

[mikegillettify]

2:54 got nervous that we wouldn’t see Florida man!

[ericgelinow]

I’ve owned small and large cars, small and large trucks. You can have my Buick Park Avenue when you private from my Cold, dead hands. It seats six people in actual seats that aren’t just a thin piece of fabric stressed over a lightweight aluminum frame. Feels more like a couch. Absolutely quiet inside the vehicle, and despite having a 3.8 L pushrod V-6, I have on multi thousand mile trips averaged above 35 miles per gallon for the entirety of the trip, that’ll be fair, most of that mileage was interstate driving. Around town I average around 24 miles per gallon, and this is on a 21 year old Buick. I also own a three-quarter ton truck, a diesel, because no small vehicle is gonna Safely and effectively pull a 12, 000 pound trailer/RV

[ContentEnjoyer-gmky]

Dude, Seamus in this show is literally always prepared to instantly counter a small rebuttal with a enlightening verbal chapter book.

[joshbenik]

If China is building hundreds of coal power plants I shouldnt have to pass emissions

[Richardzmaxdragway]

and that is why I bought a Lincoln Town Car and don't ever plan on getting rid of it

[jasonligo]

I'm happy that the CAFE loophole for SUVs was mentioned. Thank you.

[ThatGuy-tewh]

Remember that Ice Cube drives a 64 Impala

[Zachary]

Driving a small car, I'm looking to get a somewhat bigger car next time. Being surrounded by all these big trucks, it gets nerve-wracking.

[mcfarvo]

As usual, the government comes in to "help" and it hurts us in ways they predicted as well as ways they did not predict

[mikehenthorn]

Smaller trucks too.
The hood needs to be lower. That is the biggest factor to harming pedestrians .

[blazingfuryoffire]

My sedan is about the weight of a small SUV, but the handling and acceleration/deceleration have saved me from other reckless drivers. Defensive driving should be a standard course.

[Johnny_Cash_Flow]

Anecdotally, I found this to be absolutely true.
I drove a Hyundai Veloster for 10 years; it was a great car and it served me well. That is until one day a guy in a pickup truck came into my lane and hit me on my front right panel, just in front of the front tire.

The guy got a small dent in the side of his rear metal bumper, while my car limped home, a couple miles away.
What should have been a small fender bender resulted in my car being totalled.

I promptly went and bought a pickup truck.

[Sarutaru]

When you have enough kids to need a van, none of this matters apart from government regulators feeling the need to tell me that my children's existance is a threat to polar bears or something.

[ScottWaa]

America sold chickens better than any other country leading to tarrifs in small trucks/vans, then government continued to "help" with CAFE standards and vehicles have been growing in size ever since.

[ryanelliott]

He kinda forgets the part that a bigger suv/ pickup results in a higher chance a pedestrian outside said car is going to get run over instead of hitting the hood due to the heightened ground clearance

[matsv]

One thing that is often ignored, and is also ignored here, is the size of the crumple zones. Having very deep crumple zones, Like on a volvo V70 increases crash protection for BOTH the person IN the car, as well as persons in OTHER cars.