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Trump wants to bring Japan's 'cute' tiny cars to America — but it may not be easy (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40818280

If there's anything we should take from Japan, it's treating cars like second class citizens behind transit instead of the other way around. The cute tiny cars are more a side effect of that.

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[–] 66 points 10 months ago (30 children)

“It’s easy to want to drive one of these cute kei cars. It’s another thing to put your family in them and travel down the highway at 70 mph between a Suburban and an F-150,” said Tifani Sadek, director of the University of Michigan Law School’s Law and Mobility Program.

Making sure people can't get small car because of big car does sounds like concern about safety at first, but it's just a hidden way to say car need to be bigger and bigger, hence throwing safety of everyone else out the window and stop people from having preferences. Where's the freedom fighter when you need it.

And why do they call her an "expert" when her main job is teaching anf study about law and not safety. Her opinion is not more valuable than mine.

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  • [–] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I fucking hate when people say they prefer an SUV or a truck because they feel safer or because of the "increased visibility". It especially bugs me coming from people who generally hold more progressive views because one of the reasons driving is so dangerous is due to the proliferation of large vehicles, so what they are essentially saying is very analogous to "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun".

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago*

    Different visibility though. When I was younger and everyone drove similar sized cars, you had much better visibility while driving since you could see through or around everything. Now too many vehicles are just huge blocks of steel: cant see beyond the car in front of you, can’t see next to you, can’t see behind you past that wall of steel. It’s an “arms race” to prevent others from blocking your view.

    Consider driving up to an intersection, then a huge truck pulls up in the other lane: now you can’t see and may have to wait for him to go just to be able to see. And of course if you still can’t turn, there may be another huge truck pulling up to block your sight linesagain. Very frustrating. UCertainly the fact that stop lines are ignored is part of the problem, but if my car were the same height as yours, at least I’d behave a partial view

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Yeah, but this is a legitimate concern in the US.

    In most of the world, safety checks for cars include making sure that they are safe enough for people outside the car. There are rules about crumple zones and sharp edges, that effect how they hit pedestrians, and what they can do to other cars. 

    You can't drive a cyber truck in Europe or the UK. In the US, it's a free for all. 

    If you want smaller cars/trucks back on the road, you need to copy the safety laws from countries where people drive small cars.

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  • [+] 5 points 10 months ago (23 children)
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  • [–] 16 points 10 months ago (14 children)

    They are extremely safe in the rest of the world. The problem isnt the car, its other shit

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  • [–] -2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (12 children)

    In the U.S, there's at least one challenge to consider, that you could cross many of the world's countries in the same time you cross some of our states. Tiny cars work really well in Japan because they have a functioning and modern mass transit system, and not a whole ton of landmass that needs to be traversed somewhat quickly by highway alone.

    (Yeah. Quite jealous lol)

    I imagine their vehicles don't really need powerful engines either, to reach practical speeds.

    It's almost like we should have "city/town cars" and rarer "highway-only cars" as separate vehicle classes, but. . .that would likely just lead to the necessity of people having both, and we have too many cars as is lol.

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  • [–] 6 points 10 months ago* (6 children)

    China and India both prove your ignorant comment completely wrong.

    American exceptionalism at its finest, give us all a break.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Ah yes, India and China, both well known for building massive sprawling suburban developments instead of increasing urban density, horrible mass transit, and big box stores alongside Euclidean Zoning regulations which isolate residential, commercial, and manufacturing into their own zoning types which must be removed from each other.

    Give us all a break from your ignorant hate-boner and start hating America for the right reasons: the shitty situation that car companies have put the infrastructure of the entire country into that makes small cars impractical for much of the population and any other options a mere dream.

    Where I live, things are spread so far apart that we don't measure things in terms of distance, we measure them in terms of the time it takes to drive there. It's not 2 kilometers to the closest grocery store, it's 10-15 minutes without traffic. It's not 81 kilometers to the closest city from my suburban town, it's an hour and a half if you're lucky and more likely two hours away.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

    Bro his point absolutely collapses and makes no sense. Every single criticism against America cannot be defended due to the countries size, that makes no sense. Especially when you have countries the same size and larger doing many things (especially transportation) much better and more efficiently. America is falling so far behind the rest of the world it's a joke.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    Read my comment again. The point isn't just the size of the country - it's the shitty car-centric design philosophy that goes alongside the size of the country.

    From a lack of urban density to a lack of basic public transit options to the fact that local businesses have been destroyed in favor of large shopping centers/companies to zoning regulations favoring separating uses into different locations (like moving groceries and restaurants outside of residential areas and into commercial centers), it all combines to make a singularity of a shitty situation.

    Hell, even our city cores are basically desolate and dying because they're all offices and strangled from any other kind of traffic by highway infrastructure that cuts the city's central districts off from where people actually live, so the only time businesses see customers is basically from commuters on their way in or out of work and buying lunch.

    So it's not "American exceptionalism" that says that these cars wouldn't work here because the country is so big, it's that the shitty urban planning with its focus on cars and low population density has made it incredibly difficult to live without a big car. In most other countries, people often live within 5 minutes of a grocery store because they're generally inside a residential area. In the US, grocery stores are so out of the way that most people go shopping for groceries in a trip specifically for that purpose once every week or two. It's just generally impractical to do otherwise unless your commute happens to pass by a grocery store. The closest place to buy groceries for me is 10-15 minutes down the highway, the next closest is 20-30 in the opposite direction, and my only other option is a sandwich shop/deli.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    That's an interesting point to consider, actually.

    I was in the frame of mind of comparing the U.S vs. Japan's situation, since that's mainly what the article was about.

    Do China and India both have a large market for tiny vehicles for interstate travel? Do those have airbags and adequate crumple zones and such? (I think that might've been a separate thread) I'd like to see how they handle it.

    You didn't need to be a smug ass about it to a total stranger though. :) The internet isn't strictly a friend-or-foe dichotomy. Sometimes people are just incorrect. Lol

    Anyway, thanks for your insight. Hope you have a good one. <3

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago*

    Do China and India both have a large market for tiny vehicles for interstate travel?

    Depends on the province and even the city, some highways ban 3wheelers/slower cars, but in general yes, and the random models I just looked up had airbags, idk about crumplezone effectiveness.

    4 wheel EVs are more common in China than the classic gas-powered Kei van these days, but you see those around too.

    They typically max out at ~100kmh, I dont think they have huge range, but at least 90 minutes on a charge. They're more spacious on the inside than they look.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    The US has pretty low speed limits in most areas.

    Most Kei Cars can reach 140km/h (87.5mph), which is faster than any speed limit I can find in the US.

    If you don't have to move a massive amount of truck, a small engine can go a long way.

    Btw, my first car was a tiny Peugeot 106 with 42 HP. I had no problem getting up to the 130km/h (81.25mph) speed limit on the highways in my country, and the fastest I have ever gone with that car was 160km/h (100mph).

    Modern Kei cars have about 50% more power than that Peugeot 106.

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  • [–] 13 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Now replace the word kei car with toddler/pedestrian and compare your big car data. I think you have something new safety issues to campaign for. Congratulations

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago* (5 children)

    She was specifically talking about high speeds on the interstate - if there is a toddler or pedestrian in this situation, then even something as small ad a motorcycle could cause a deadly crash.

    I am also anti-big car, but if there are things that the manufacturer can do to make these kei cars safer (e.g., increase crumple zones and add airbags) then I don't see why they shouldn't do that. Those are reasonable asks

    In fairness, these cars were designed for environments with narrow, winding highways, not large straightaways like US interstates. They're going to be better at sharp turns and fast braking than an F150.

    I think as long as drivers go in aware of the risks (like motorcyclists) it should be fine, but I don't think we should ignore that those risks exist. I would absolutely get one of these cars, but I am also a careful driver and don't have to get on the interstate for my daily commute. That doesn't fit every US driver.

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  • [–] 0 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    Pick which you would rather me run over your loved one with. Ford 150 raptor with brush guard or a kei truck. The next question is kei truck or a scooter. I'm sure it would destroy our economy to switch to safe reliable public transportation. But keep on thinking the same way your government education propagandized you, how are those school shootings coming along? Better now? I imagine the numbers are lower? /S

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Did you read what I wrote? I am in favor of Kei trucks. I just want them to put in better crumple zones and airbags first.

    Do you disagree with airbags? I really don't know what you're getting at. I know you threw on the /s at the end but that still doesn't make your post make sense.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, but at that point, don’t you have something like the Honda fit? Cars that already are sold in the us, but don’t do well? We don’t need a new class of vehicles as much as we need to encourage better choices among the ones we already have

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    Even then, it's really typical "it won't work here", which imo she's right, because it's the US of the A and american culture is one huge problem. Kei car is popular in Japan, yet the traffic fatality is waaaaaay lower than USA. Kinda makes one wonder what is actually the problem there.

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