Memo to Nawbany: "How Cities Can Reclaim Their Streets From SUVs."

 

Something seldom considered hereabouts: “Safety of people outside the vehicle — pedestrians, cyclists, or other motorists — is obviously a legitimate object for regulation.”

How Cities Can Reclaim Their Streets From SUVs, by David Zipper (CityLab)

Pickup trucks and large sport-utility vehicles have flooded the streets of U.S. cities, a trend that’s been lethal for pedestrians and bike riders. Here’s what urban leaders could do about it. 

 The American fetish for SUVs and trucks isn’t just an environmental disaster. It’s an urban safety crisis. Larger vehicles that share streets with pedestrians and cyclists are more deadly than compact or mid-sized cars, both because their greater weight conveys more force upon impact and because their taller height makes it likelier they will crash into a person’s head or torso rather than their legs. Worse, because SUV drivers sit so much higher than similarly sized farm-near-me/">minivans, blind spots can prevent them from seeing people standing in front, especially children.

Typically, The Onion gets down to the heart of the carnage.          

Conscientious SUV Shopper Just Wants Something That Will Kill Family In Other Car In Case Of Accident (The Onion)

“I don’t need anything fancy, just a practical, midsize SUV that gets good mileage and will easily slaughter a family of five during a 60-mph crash. The last thing I want is a flimsy sedan that takes out Mommy and Daddy in the front seat but leaves behind a couple of orphans in the back.”

Do you think a single New Albany city official has so much as considered this issue? Most of them OWN vehicles like these, don't they? 

It makes this sentence particularly poignant: "If local leaders want to make a statement about the importance of safer, smaller automobiles, they could start by looking at the vehicles the city buys." 

I can't stop laughing. Or is it crying? It's so hard to tell the difference here in His Town.