This is potentially more specific to the US, but I imagine even if that is the case it probably affects everyone else by proxy at a minimum.

One of the big problems with trucks and SUVs is that they are not subjected to the same safety regulations as cars. They have high ground clearances, high noses, stiff suspensions and frames, and so on, and these things make them extraordinarily dangerous in a collision. That being said though, they might be necessary in very specific circumstances, for example if you are going off road and/or towing very heavy loads. If this applies to you regularly, like for work, buy a truck and drive it in good conscience. It is a tool fit for your purpose.

But if you are like most people, you don’t regularly tow heavy loads for work, and you don’t regularly drive off road, but maybe you do need to carry around lots of stuff and/or people, and spacious van might be more suitable. And with that comes a softer suspension, lower ground clearance, and a sloped nose that will make the van much less likely to kill people in a collision

This is potentially more specific to the US, but I imagine even if that is the case it probably affects everyone else by proxy at a minimum.

One of the big problems with trucks and SUVs is that they are not subjected to the same safety regulations as cars. They have high ground clearances, high noses, stiff suspensions and frames, and so on, and these things make them extraordinarily dangerous in a collision. That being said though, they might be necessary in very specific circumstances, for example if you are going off road and/or towing very heavy loads. If this applies to you regularly, like for work, buy a truck and drive it in good conscience. It is a tool fit for your purpose.

But if you are like most people, you don’t regularly tow heavy loads for work, and you don’t regularly drive off road, but maybe you do need to carry around lots of stuff and/or people, and spacious van might be more suitable. And with that comes a softer suspension, lower ground clearance, and a sloped nose that will make the van much less likely to kill people in a collision

This title is a bit misleading, this isn’t the Washington post saying this, they are just reporting a hog farm manager having said this in 1976

From a physics perspective, yes it does. Not much, but yes it does do something.

In order for a crumple zone to work, the material must be at least slightly softer than the rest of the structure. When you have a collision, both the strong structure and the relatively weak crumple zones will flex, but the crumple zones will flex more. In a big collision, like with another car, they might flex so much they have permanent damage (the crumple), but even with a pedestrian they will flex a little. The more they flex, the more it cushions the impact for both the pedestrian and the occupants of the car.

As I said, the amount of cushion for the two parties is massively skewed in favor of the car, and crumple zones alone are not anywhere near enough to make cars safe for pedestrians. But objectively, yes they do slightly cushion the impact for a pedestrian, and in the perfect edge case collision it might mean the difference between life and death.

To an extent it’s both. I mean intent-wise it’s all about the occupants of the car, but as a side effect it also slightly reduces the impact on the pedestrian. The way I would think about it is that crumple zones on their own aren’t nearly enough to protect pedestrians, but removing them would be going completely in the wrong direction

Facebook did the same thing years ago, it’s part of the enshittification cycle. When you post a link to another site, you’re directing traffic away from twitter and it’s advertisers, so Elon would much prefer that you be forced to post the entire article so that no one ever has to leave twitter and give their ad revenue to anyone else.

Obviously no one would agree to this if it was happening from the start, but once your platform has a stranglehold on everyone, you can start tightening the noose like this. Everyone hates it, but people feel like they have nowhere else to go, so they put up with it. Or at least that’s what twitter’s betting on

“This public service is too effective and is apparently something a huge number of people are interested in using. Gotta put an end to that.”