I thought this article put the guns thing into a sensible perspective:
Would love to see this done with police shooting civilians too.
The repeated surprise some people express when confronted with the notion that more people are going to get shot when there are more guns around astounds me. Anyway, sorry for starting gun chat!
I don’t accept your apology.
Isn’t there a gun chat somewhere else? I want more stories of drivers getting punched in the face
Yeah wtf folx. Please take this shit elsewhere
Same experience; I’ve never owned a car of my own, and when I drove frequently it was usually old shitboxes. When I’ve rented modern cars I’ve been astounded by just how clearly the design encourages high speeds and simultaneous isolation from the world around you. They’re terrifying in how easily they can lull you into complacency behind the wheel while ratcheting up the consequences of that complacency.
These experiences re-framed for me a lot of the arguments motorists make re: bicycle safety, but especially those surrounding headphones, mirrors, and road awareness generally. When motorists criticize cyclists for these things I now think it’s fair to say that they either are stupid enough to have never considered their own experiences with vehicles, or else that they willfully ignore them for the sake of working themselves into a frenzy about cyclists.
I felt that hard the one time I rented a F150. Goddam thing was huge, sounded angry, and made me anxious because of all the blind spots (most notably the one directly in front of the grill).
Sure was comfy though 
Still miss our Tahoe
All trucks are 1982 Chevy S-10s with different geometry
Eh, you get used to the blind spots and the extents of the vehicle, it just takes time.
Lots of effort goes into modern cars to reduce NVH and make these rolling couches more comfortable. I’d argue that’s not a huge factor in driver awareness, which is that every goddamn motorist on the road has their goddamn phone in their hand and are busy doing a dozen things that aren’t driving.*
*I split lanes on the freeway 90 miles a day for a couple years a while back. Got to look into a lot of cars. It was more unusual to see someone not staring at their phone.
Disagree.
When I had a shitty 4 banger s10 and a late model V6 minivan the UI was radically different and I had to be much more attentive to speed in the latter. A big powerful yet quiet vehicle absolutely makes it easier to relax into complacency as a driver.
The phone issue is a whole different can of worms.
Eh, I’m just pointing out that phones are a bigger deal.
There’s a whole host of driver aids in modern vehicles that have been proven to increase complacency. Thing is, they also tend to reduce traffic fatalities. Kind of a double edged sword.
They reduce fatalities for DRIVERS.
#1 contributing factor to bike/ped death at the hands of a motorist is speed.
Modern cars and modern roads encourage speed, disconnection from the environment, and a disregard for non-motorists.
Correct.
Take it back to car chat.
No, you.
It’s the jackass human thread, so driver chat 99%of the time.
Right … so why are we discussing how cars are better at protecting the jackasses?
That’s why they’re jackasses.
Right. As stated the tech enables jackassery.
I like the old econ 101 story about unintended consequences: if you want safer driving, remove airbags and seatbelts, put a massive iron spike facing the driver on the end of the steering column.