QOTD: Next Stop, Hyperbole?
A strange phenomenon (one of many) cropped up in recent years among the more ardent of very-online quasi-activists, one where people seem to think that jumping to the most hyperbolic potential outcome of their “enemy’s” actions somehow lends weight to their argument — to their opposition to something, anything.
It also manifests as a person attributing the maximum amount of malice to the actions of a person or entity they dislike, as if they hold a special key to the innermost thoughts of their most despised foes.
Which brings us to large pickup trucks and the nation’s children.
sales of mega-pickups, which have basically been deliberately designed to intimidate and kill pedestrians, are booming https://t.co/RpCLHH3PCE
— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) August 3, 2020
I’ve never read The Week and don’t know anything about Mr. Cooper, but I do know this is about as uncharitable as you can get when describing why automakers continue to sell vehicles that have existed for decades, and which consumers buy in enormous quantities.
One can only assume that in this reality, Mary Barra is rubbing her palms, gleefully thinking about the score her heavy-duty products have racked up in the daily Death Race 2000 of U.S. commuting. Perhaps a chainsaw bayonet (hood-mounted, of course) will soon find itself among GM’s newest pickup accessories.
Yes, pickups are large. Tall. Lengthy. They’ve always taken up quite a bit of real estate; the only issue is that they’re being sold in much larger numbers these days. Mr. Cooper elaborates, describing how the towering hoodline of said pickups obscures the roadway in front of the driver, leading to very real collisions in which the pedestrian (or your neighbor’s doe-eyed children) doesn’t stand a chance. We’re not talking a Honda Civic here, nor a Datsun 210.
Yet the height of a 2020 GMC Sierra HD 4×4 is 79.8 inches, and one can assume automakers haven’t shrunken the floor-to-ceiling distance in their modern trucks, so the height of the lip of the hood remains proportionate to the overall dimensions of trucks which came before. A 1985 GMC C/K 2500 4×4 was still a towering 73 inches tall.
A Ford F-250 SuperCab 4×4 from that same year was 75 inches tall.
The trucks have barely changed in proportion; only their sales volume has seen a serious increase. Surely, this doesn’t help the pedestrians who encounter these vehicles in a one-on-one manner. It doesn’t. Yet trucks of yesteryear didn’t carry backup cameras, proximity sensors, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, and other safety nannies.
It’s also worth noting that a current-generation Ford F-150 tested by Motor Trend recorded a 60-0 mph stopping distance of 119 feet. A 1971 Ford LTD? 124.6 feet. A Dodge Charger of similar vintage recorded a distance of 123 feet when equipped with a 383 V8.
But this writer’s job isn’t to serve as GM’s attorney in this case of online hysterics. Just think of the money if it was….!
Let’s approach this from another angle. People are very outspoken today, and it often results in the more level-headed of us avoiding scenarios where we have to hear such opinions. It’s why I haven’t been on Facebook in three years. What “very online” car/truck opinion are you sick of hearing?
That's why the Tesla truck will be a big success, because the quiet electric motor makes it so much easier to sneak up on the pedestrians https://t.co/QCkJbmQJMQ
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 3, 2020
[Image: Ford]
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I think it's relevant to point out that the difference between 73 inches and 79.8 inches is the difference between someone who is 6'1" and someone who is 6'8". Or to put it another way, the difference between a slightly taller than average dude and an NBA center. You can't say that's not a noticeable difference. And its worse because generally as has been bemoaned around these parts, greenhouses havent gotten bigger. So a decent amount of the height increase is below the window line. Let's estimate about 54" as the height on a typical truck. https://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/topic/232541-tailgate-and-hood-height/?do=findComment&comment=2348929 If the window height was relatively the same then the hood height of the truck in 1990 would have been 7 inches lower. Or 47". Looking at this chart of the average height of a child the difference between 54" and 47" is roughly the differencenter between the average 6 year old and the average 10 year old. https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/health/g/normal-growth
Why don’t we start bitching about everything else that has grown in size? A 1970 Honda Civic had a 86.6 inch wheel base, 139.8 long and weighted 1,500 lb. A 2020 Civic 106 in wheelbase, is 177 inches long, and weighs 2763 lbs. The 2020 Civic has doubled in size. Isn’t that a 200% increase? Where is the outrage, the pages and pages of complaining that it is too big?