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I own one of those trucks. There's several feet in front of me that I literally cannot see. Some models had an optional front facing camera to address the issue.

There's no reason for the height, other than "We can't be shorter than other brand". It's less fuel efficient, less convenient for hauling things (you have to lift stuff that much further into the bed), makes it handle worse, and makes it less good for towing. Unfortunately there are no heavy duty short trucks being made. Nor can you really lower the current truck due to the design of the rear axle. You might get a few inches, but that's about it.

I really like the Ridgeline, but it cannot handle the work we do with our 3/4 ton pickup (towing a heavy trailer).

Had a friend in tenth grade die that way, large truck hit him while he was crossing an intersection on a bike (they didn't stop at a stop sign). Even on the bike he wasn't tall enough to be seen over the hood.

And not just big ass trucks. I sat in a toyota highlander the other day and the hood was tall and massive. Why? Just for style. It has a small 4 cylinder. The nhtsa or whoever needs to add a car safety category for visibility. Until then massive grills and low visibility will be the norm.

Yeah but on the flip side isn't this really driver Ed problem? I drove a semi truck, which you can hide an entire car in the frontal blindspot of, and I never hit anything (well not with the front of it, backing is hard okay!)

Visibility should always be a consideration in vehicle safety but I feel the bigger problem is people who don't know how to handle that. If you have limited frontal visibility you should always be paying attention at lights to be sure no one has walked in front of your vehicle, simply doing this almost entirely eliminates the risk. Sadly people are too impatient to wait to get where they are going to fuck around with their phones.

Always the same, self absorbed people causing havoc for everyone else.

Though I also agree that Americans are way too obsessed with trucks but I think that's a tougher change than long term improvements in drivers education and safety culture. Full size pickup trucks just won't die, even though they have taken the place of things like minivans and SUVs they don't have any of the stigma wagons or minivans and SUVs built up with the same trend/bust cycle. My parents think SUVs are cool, I think they are lame family cars or yuppie mobiles.

Also have you seen a new escalade in person? It's offensive.

The quality of driving on American roads has continually gotten worse year over year from my subjective point of view. It really needs to be turned around if we want to make any progress on road safety for everyone.