How SUVs Are Making Traffic Worse
TLDR: SUVs cause traffic jams.
Actual study (full article): The rise of trucks and the fall of throughput by Yang Gao & David Levinson
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View original on lemmy.worldhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-25/bigger-heavier-suvs-worsen-traffic-congestion-in-usOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
9 replies
They also make accidents worse and the block vision of cars.
I’m not surprised
Well, it depends, my Sonata, a 4 door sedan, is 16'1", while my Sorento, a SUV, is 15'9"
Yeah I think the article should differentiate large SUVs vs small ones. Many smaller SUVs are shorter in length than most midsized cars.
Mostly because a lot of them are just compact cars with a lift kit.
Yeah, my "SUV" and my wife's sedan take up almost exactly the same footprint.
Yeah, but so what? The goal is to get people onto transit not into smaller cars. And I say that as a tradesman who drives every day with my pickup truck full of tools.
If bigger vehicles make more traffic what does it matter? Line doesn't go up as fast?
If you progressively make cars smaller and smaller, people will move to mass transit faster since it would be way more comfortable than cramming into a Hot Wheels car.
I’d rather be behind an SUV than a Tesla on autopilot.