Just look at that. This truck is taller than a used kid (10 years old). I assume the truck can run over pretty much any other age but probably the driver might be able to see older kid’s heads. Or we could teach our kids to jump to school rather than walk. If you see a truck, jump and make eye contact before jumping while crossing the street. Or we could tell our kids to never go outside until they are 21.
Okay, a question: Can you understand why other people—pedestrians and bicyclists especially—might look at that kind of vehicle rolling on city streets and be inspired to say, “fuck cars”?
Trust me, I get it. There was a brief period of overlap where I owned a condo in a downtown area with this truck. Most of my movement within the city was walking so I’d often encounter vehicles with a complete disregard for the safety of pedestrians.
In my personal opinion, it’s typically the attitude of the driver that impacts my safety in a crosswalk more than the type vehicle. I’ve almost been run over by tuned civics racing between lights, clueless tourists in a Prius gawking at buildings, city busses, and the occasional truck driver who has never driven downtown before. Like any type of vehicle, I believe awareness of your surroundings and limitations of the vehicle is key to ensuring your safety and the safety of others.
However, the Prius driver has the chance of seeing a pedestrian while you have a blind spot covering 40% of your field of view. So no matter how much you drive under the speed limit with your arm hanging out the window, you’re still driving a significantly more dangerous vehicle and pissing off everyone around you and making anyone near you less safe by decreasing their visibility.
Many adults can see over the roof of a parked prius to cross a street, many of those same adults cannot see over the truck the same way. This makes the truck more dangerous just by being parked on the street, no driver needed.
Thanks, I appreciate the thoughtful reply, and I agree that the attitude of the driver has a lot to do with perception of a particular vehicle.