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The average American automobile now weighs over 2 tonnes and takes up almost 5 square meters of space.
(europe.pub)
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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some people must have really tiny weiners, so much over-compensation...
Women make more than 60% of all car buying decisions
I don't think choosing color counts as 60%.
I’m a big dude, I like having big cars. Nothing wrong with a personal taste.
If your vehicle is so large it makes you a danger to those around you, it is no longer simply a matter of personal taste.
Kind of a loaded question, a soccer mom with 4 kids and drives a mini van would destroy a Honda civic
Then ride a fucking bus or train then. Those are the top of the food chain.
Not options where we live, not everyone lives in a concrete jungle
Real suburbs were small towns connected to the city with passenger rail. They killed your public transport and you think you don't have access because you don't live in the city. Ha! That's what oil propaganda does to a motherfucker.
This actually can explain a lot of it. Obesity epidemic in US is getting so bad that people need actual trucks to move them. A 300kg person will not be able to drive a sedan.
I think a big chunk of that has to do with how cars are designed today though. Some of it is the unintended consequences of safety regulations, which frankly, don't get me wrong, I'm pro strong safety regulations, but it does mean that cars have way thicker pillars in order to accommodate better crash safety and being able to be flipped upside down.
This also leads to cars having this sort of sitting in a bathtub kind of feel. Things do feel a little tighter inside as well and the window openings are smaller.
It's kind of funny because I remember when I started driving just an observation from like how cars changed like There definitely was a trend from the 90s to the 2000s where car interiors got a lot more roomy for the size and you had more glass better window to look out of well also getting better safety ratings compared to the 90s
I do wonder how much of it is the just unintended result of having to design a car around certain engineering specifications and how much of it is also a way for the car companies to upsell people to the CUV variant of that model. Because it is just wild how small car door openings can be these days and as a result how much of a pain in the butt it can be to put a kid in the car seat compared to what would have been a much smaller car 20 years ago.
Can confirm, I have an 05 Camry and longer with bigger doors then the new ones
How would you feel about a more-compact car designed around an extra large human space? Big seats and high ceilings inside for you and your large kids, so much legroom your humorously tiny spouse has to drive their own tiny car. But with less extraneous bulk on the outside, so you can see when you're running over the neighbors kids. Wouldn't wanna miss
The point being made is that a lot of that 'extraneous bulk' is actually crumple zones and structure. You can't eliminate it without losing crash protection, and that includes pedestrian crash ratings.
Exception rear trays.
I was with you until pedestrian. Lots of dead pedestrians found themselves the one doing the crumpling. And more so because it's so much harder to see them. I've had several times when it's only because I leaned way forward and back to check that I suddenly realized there's been someone walking or scooting or biking right along with my left pillar, thinking I could see them coming out into the crosswalk/intersection. (And I always back into parking places because I can see with the rear camera much better than down the front hood.)
It's a 50-50. I believe it's mostly lower hoods that improve pedestrian safety, not necessarily just shorter hoods.
European compliant cars have a bunch of requirements for pedestrian collisions, particularly trying to improve head safety - the bonnet dents downwards, rather than either the bonnet being solid or the head hitting the windscreen.
My Honda Odyssey hood curves down, but then it seems to stick out farther than I can see over the curve. This may also be a "design for a big man driver" problem because my seatbelt cuts across my throat at its lowest adjustment and the airbag will probably kill me. But we needed a vehicle that could take a passenger in a power wheelchair plus two kids.
An extra seat cushion can help lift you up; my mum used to drive that way.
I assume your seat is fully up already?
I'm already using an extra cushion. I have the seat up and forward as much as possible with 8 inches between me and the airbag.