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Wellness Wednesday for December 7, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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That is the most nanny state shit I have seen in a long time. Is America some kind of an alternate reality where people are getting into accidents while backing out of parking lots?? Or did too many toddlers get run over by Ford Mctrucks with absurd blindspots?

did too many toddlers get run over by Ford Mctrucks with absurd blindspots?

Note that the reason Ford McTrucks (and the jacked up station wagon, more politely called a "crossover") are themselves so dominant is because, as I understand it, it's functionally illegal to sell their previous (smaller) versions. Lighter trucks and station wagons don't have particularly great aerodynamics as-is, so if your regulatory scheme gives more leeway for bad fuel economy the larger the vehicle gets, manufacturers will focus on larger trucks (balanced by smaller cars) at the expense of total fuel economy.

It doesn't hurt that aging drivers like jacked-up cars- they're easier to get in and out of, they put you above other drivers' illegal-but-unenforced hyper-bright high beams they're too stupid to turn off, and being higher gives you the illusion that you can see more out those larger and larger blind spots that arise due to collision standards, to the point where I suspect that in the future a car entirely without windows will be the most practical option.

Both of those plus American car companies ask for weird and arbitrary regulations (like "fleet fuel standards") to make it harder for foreigners to sell here.

Or did too many toddlers get run over by Ford Mctrucks with absurd blindspots?

This.

Backover: Vehicle backover injuries and deaths occur when a person is positioned behind a vehicle without a driver's knowledge as the driver backs up. Most victims of backovers are children and the elderly. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that backover incidents cause at least 183 fatalities and between 6,700 and 7,419 injuries annually; however, the number of fatalities and injuries from those incidents is subject to debate because no comprehensive statistics are collected on vehicular accidents on private property. Some safety groups assert that the number of backover-related injuries and fatalities is higher. Because these accidents often occur on private property, rather than on public roads, they are not typically included in traffic-crash fatality data.

In preventing backover accidents, the size of vehicle blind spots, the area behind the vehicle where the driver cannot see using his or her side or rear-view mirrors, is a key factor. Generally, the larger the vehicle, the larger the blind spot. Children are especially vulnerable since their small stature makes them harder to see within a blind spot. As larger vehicles, including SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans, have become more popular, more drivers are confronted with larger blind spots. Currently, without a standard, automakers can design similar-sized vehicles that have dramatically different blind spots. For example, among midsized SUVs, a 5 foot 1 inch driver of a 2006 Jeep Commander Limited has a 69 foot blind spot versus an 18 foot blind spot for a similar-sized driver of a 2005 Nissan Pathfinder LE.

Probably regulatory capture.

Big 3 car companies dream of making the same kind of money as the Silicon Valley, they want to sell software bundled with a metal box with wheels, coupled with DLC and subscriptions... Dude technology!

There's a great convergence with the governments that want the ability to shut down cars remotely and prevent the Nick Fuentes of this world to go anywhere with no fly / nodrive lists.

Or, you know, trucker honking protests.