this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Cars are like tanks.. there I said it
Literally
I'm confused, how exactly is a size comparison of two vehicles meant to add anything to the conversation here? Size implies lethality?
A standard city bus is about twice as long as those tanks, so is a bus twice as problematic?
Weight matters more than size, but that’s omitted from this graphic. I suspect the tanks are much heavier.
But speed matters exponentially more than weight. (kinetic energy = 1/2 * mass * velocity squared) And I’d imagine that trucks regularly go much faster than tanks.
The height of the impact point also matters The higher the front grill/bumper, the more lethal the impact. The current fad for high vehicles with flat front grills has significantly increased pedestrian deaths.
These vehicles are unacceptable large for public spaces. The threshold for CDL style licensing needs to be lowered to make modern trucks/SUVs require the training their design deserves. Also tax the bajesus out of them when they're in city spaces. Either they're in the neighborhood for business reasons or get out.
The point I was snarkily trying to make is that lining up tanks and trucks is a nonsense comparison, any point such a comparison attempts to make is based entirely on a knee jerk emotional reaction, one worthy of r/circlejerk
Even comparing kinetic energy of different vehicles is pretty silly, tanks were never designed for nor get used as battering rams, they're a mobile armored gun meant to shoot shit far away. The typical truck on the road today is meant to give suburban dads a delusional sense of masculinity, to the point of sacrificing near vehicle visibility.
One was designed to kill people far away, one kills people nearby due to operator negligence
I think it makes the point that needlessly large cars add even more risk than necessary.
Buses on net reduce the number of vehicles on the road which makes them a net benefit for safety.