Why are off-road vehicles with high bumpers allowed on the road?

Maintenance/Repairs
21

Yeah, blame the technology. It’s the cell phone. It’s the radio. It’s the mp3 player on the passenger seat.

It’s not the technology, it’s the idiot drivers. People don’t pay attention when driving. How many wrecks were NOT caused by cell phones last year? Plenty.

I know it’s fun to blame easilly visible things - cell phones cause wrecks, violent video games cause Columbine, and so forth, but it’s also stupid and won’t solve the problem.

The solution is better driver training (hint: knowing how to parallel park does not mean you’re competent on the road) and stricter licensing (one DWI and you’ve lost your license for good, distracted driving loses your license for 6 months first offense, a year second offense, permanently third offense, things like that).

22

I don’t think the number of injuries is greater from high bumpers. High bumpers don’t cause accidents. However the likelyhood of a fatality is much greater when a high-bumpered vehicle hits a low-bumpered vehicle. This is well-documented.

I am not arguing that cell phone use isn’t dangerous. It is. But mismatched bumper height is a real problem that results in many deaths when accidents happen.

Russ

23

The cell phone comments really should have their own thread.

Personally, it bothers me when, as I sit in my RX-7, I see the top of a pickup’s tires at my eye level.

If they want to jack them up, I wish they would really jack them up – high enough that they could go right over me without touching.

Several years ago in our area, there was a Ford pickup jacked up so high that you could look over the top of the right rear tire and see the top of the left front tire. It’s not around anymore. Apparently, he took a corner a little too fast and it fell over.

24

Several years ago in our area, there was a Ford pickup jacked up so high that you could look over the top of the right rear tire and see the top of the left front tire. It’s not around anymore. Apparently, he took a corner a little too fast and it fell over.

LOL, it does seem to be a self-limiting problem. Most of these silly things will eventually end up on their roofs, hopefully they don’t take anyone else out when they lose it.

25

No, I’m not saying bumper laws should be ignored; only that if you compare the number of deaths/injuries caused by high bumpers against cell phone caused deaths/injuries, the bumper numbers would pale in comparison.

The high bumper trucks are a very miniscule percentage of the vehicles on the road, whereas the cell phone problem is hovering around the plague level.

26

That’s not what he’s saying. As far as I can tell.
He’s saying that it’s not just one thing. It’s a bunch of things. And all of them should be addressed.

But also, since money is king, the politicians want the money, the politicians control the judges, and the judges and the politicians control the policia, that we as ordinary citizens without gobs of excess money have very little power.

So we should use what we have to tackle the biggest issues first, and work our way down to the least common denominator.

One of the largest causes of crashes are distracted driving. I beleive I saw a number around 50% of all crashes in some recent year were attributed at least in some crucial part of distracted driving, and more than that had some kind of distraction involved. The number of fatal crashes resulting from distractions was also a double digit percentage, 20’s I beleive.

That’s ALOT of people dying over distractions.

So take care of the problem by eliminating its causes. That’s how problem solving works in most cases. Sure there are other methods of problem solving but this is one of the best and most frequently used.

If someone’s attacking you is it easier to fight back hand to hand (overcoming the problem) or to take one swift sweep at their knees (eliminate the problem)? Anyone who’s been in a fight where the guy was a foot taller and twice as built will tell you the answer.

So we eliminate the problem. Start with the biggest of the root causes and eliminate down to the smallest roots.

Biggest root, by statistics: cell phones.

Radios after that.

Bumper height isn’t even a distraction, unless you like to try and visually measure bumper height. It’s in the miscelaneous catagory. Maybe the unsafe vehicle catagory, which is a low cause of crashes and a low cause of deaths. And even then, bumper height would be way down on the list of roots for unsafe vehicle problems.

Just trying to shed some enlightenment on the issue.
Is this even somewhat like what you were thinking ok?

-Matt

27

It is my duty to relay this sad message to the Car Talk community.

Everyone would be safer if bumpers were required to match bumpers. When Mercedes Benz designed their first mass production SUV in the 1998 ML320, the designers did indeed design the ML bumpers to line up with automobile bumpers. I can be done and it’s not too hard, but few manufacturers bother.

As far as I know, Ford is the only other maker of SUV’s that followed the MB example and applied this two or three years ago to thier line up.

Why don’t others follow? Maybe some have that I’m unaware of, but the lack of sanity comes from a largly
uncaring government (they are sooo busy on building bridges to nowhere and attacking each other) and an ignorant commercial sector.

end soapbox

28

Well, I’m one of the guys driving a lifted truck and I’ve kept my truck completely legal here in Maine; It’s an 86 K5 Blazer with 3" of suspension lift, 33" mud tires, and a heavy duty winch bumper. Like many states, there are bumper height laws and tire size laws and I’ve stayed within the legal limits.

It’s not realistic to force manufactures to make truck and SUV bumper heights the same as cars. This limits the ground clearance too much for off-highway use.

I also strongly oppose any additional regulations for these vehicles. The laws here in Maine are too strict as it is, which is strange considering a significant part of the state is undeveloped and there are hundreds of miles of roads that are only passable with a 4wd.

There is my $0.02 :slight_smile:

29

I just realized I was not logged in when I posted my reply…plus, I wanted to try out the new image thing. So here is a picture of my lifted truck…a little stuck though:)
http://coloradok5.com/photos/data/500/5-28-07_3.JPG

30

I beg to differ… just a little.

It is easy to design SUV bumpers to match car bumpers.
The Mercedes SUV has aboth the same or greater chassis height as the huge majority of SUVs. The real issue is first, caring, and secondly, cost. Yes, it would add $100 or so to adapt the frame design, but they are unwilling to do it.

I don’t care about enacting rigid requirments for modified off road vehicles since, statistically, there are few of them, but there are many stock SUVs produced that could be safer for occupants of other vehicles if designed with lower bumpers.

Not being in the auto industry, I’m sure my view is all too simplistic. For example, lowered bumpers require styling changes to make the overall vehicle look good. I only know that Mercedes did it and Ford did it, so why not everyone.

31

This is a good point. Especially considering most newer SUVs never see any off-highway use.

Lower bumbers do decrease approach/departure angles though.

32

I want to know why we each can’t live in our own little unbreakable glass bubble that will always and everywhere keep us safe from the big, bad, dangerous world.

33

Minimum standards designed to save lives are not the devil. I’d like to design a car with long metal spikes sticking out of a rack at the same height as the windows on tall SUVs. It’ll look really cool, and if the passengers in SUVs don’t like it, too bad. It’s a scary world out there and there is no reason to inconvenience me just because my vehicle might be dangerous to others.

34

I think it is great that you have a vehicle which works well off-road. But if that is what it is designed for, why not keep it there? The features needed for off-road use (e.g. high clearance) are inconsistent with those for on-road use (high vehicle clearance makes a vehicle less safe for evasive maneuvers). My belief is that these vehicles should simply stay off-road. Get a trailer and tow your off-road vehicle to where you want to drive it off-road, and have a blast with it there.

35

Hitting a car a “smidge above the bumper” is exactly where deaths will occur. Cars are designed to absorb the impact of a crash effectively through the bumper and this is how they are crash-tested. They are not designed to effectively dissipate the energy of an impact through the trunk or the hood, and won’t. The fact that you drive a pickup also means that the vehicle is designed with a rigid, non-energy-absorbing frame, such that it tends to transmit its kinetic energy to objects it strikes, rather than crumpling in the engine compartment and trunk area as would a car to absorb energy. Hence, plowing into the rear of a typical passenger vehicle, you’ll find your engine sitting in the car’s back seat, and you’ll minimally have decimated the car owner’s 2.5 children sitting in child seats in the back. Since they will now be dead, this will diminish the amount of the suit (compensation for deaths is typically lower than for life-crippling injuries), so that you’ll merely have killed 2.5 children and destroyed the lives and hopes of their parents and, to some extent, their extended family, while minimizing your out-of-pocket. I hope the joy rides in your jacked up pickup on- and off-road will have been worth it.

36

Hitting a car a “smidge above the bumper” is exactly where deaths will occur. Cars are designed to absorb the impact of a crash effectively through the bumper and this is how they are crash-tested. They are not designed to effectively dissipate the energy of an impact through the trunk or the hood, and won’t. The fact that you drive a pickup also means that the vehicle is designed with a rigid, non-energy-absorbing frame, such that it tends to transmit its kinetic energy to objects it strikes, rather than crumpling in the engine compartment and trunk area as would a car to absorb energy. Hence, plowing into the rear of a typical passenger vehicle, you’ll find your engine sitting in the car’s back seat, and you’ll minimally have decimated the car owner’s 2.5 children sitting in child seats in the back. Since they will now be dead, this will diminish the amount of the suit (compensation for deaths is typically lower than for life-crippling injuries), so that you’ll merely have killed 2.5 children and destroyed the lives and hopes of their parents and, to some extent, their extended family, while minimizing your out-of-pocket. I hope the joy rides in your jacked up pickup on- and off-road will have been worth it.

37

Definitely go the route of the legislature but make sure the lawmakers dont come up with really goofy laws.

During our 2007 session in CO; one lawmaker from either metro Denver or close by metro proposed a driver distraction bill that died in the talking stages. His view was if people were going to eat and drive and cause an accident; they should pay the price ? forgot what his exact reasoning was.

Anywho it made no sense since cellphones by far are the biggest problem when it comes to driver distraction but he didnt want to propose a bill to limit that.

38

[b]Yeah, blame the technology. It’s the cell phone. It’s the radio. It’s the mp3 player on the passenger seat.

It’s not the technology, it’s the idiot drivers.[/b]

Yes it is the driver not the phone. It is the driver who chose to talk on the phone rather than paying full attention to driving. Yes, that same driver is likely to be a poor driver without a cell phone, but you can be sure that they are going to be even worse with one.

The last numbers I say indicate that someone on the cell phone is more than twice as likely to have an accident as someone not on a cell phone.
39

I’ll bet that ‘judge’ would have been singing a much different tune had that woman killed one of his/her relatives.

IMO there are too many panti-waist judges on the bar.

40

Actually you are wrong. Cell phone use does lead to a slightly higher accident rate, but the increase in the death rate per accident is 25 times higher when it involves a truck or SUV with high bumpers.