A pedestrian, standing at the corner of a busy intersection, noticed that a large truck had come to a stop in the far right lane — with half of the truck on the crosswalk.
The pedestrian snapped a photo, which they posted to Reddit. "Do you guys think that big truck guys still have trouble colouring in-between the lines?" they wrote sarcastically. "I do."
Fellow Redditors were similarly annoyed — but their frustration wasn't solely directed at the driver.
"It's hard to color between the lines when you literally can't see them," one person observed wryly. "I mostly blame car manufacturers. There is zero justification for trucks marketed to consumers to have a hood so long and tall that it creates a 30+ foot frontal blind zone."
Indeed, in the photo, two pedestrians walking next to the truck are dwarfed by its height. Their shoulders barely clear the hood; it's easy to imagine that children would be completely invisible to a driver situated in such a large, boxy vehicle.
"It should be considered criminal negligence to sell that to untrained drivers," one person vented.
Another agreed, saying, "I've driven a normal size sedan and a much taller van and I have way better visibility of my immediate surroundings in the shorter car."
There is growing awareness of the dangers of increasingly large trucks, according to an NPR report. In fact, vehicles with higher front ends are 45% more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than smaller cars, according to recent research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
"Over the past three decades, the average U.S. passenger vehicle has gotten about 4 inches wider, 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller and 1,000 pounds heavier," NPR reported.
Redditors suggested that pedestrians could be better protected if municipalities added more speed bumps, moved the right lane lines back several feet, or even reconsidered allowing right on red in busy intersections.
But even aside from pedestrian safety, trucks like this are still an imminent threat to all people via the damage they do to the environment. According to the World Economic Forum, pickup trucks produce, on average, about 4,500 pounds more toxic carbon pollution per year than a smaller car.
Given this, many people are looking to opt for public transit, biking, and walking as often as they can — and opting for smaller, electric vehicles instead of pickup trucks.
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