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+--- Thread: Walking in Waterloo Region (/showthread.php?tid=189)
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 02-18-2024
(02-18-2024, 05:52 AM)plam Wrote:(02-17-2024, 11:38 AM)bravado Wrote: https://x.com/wrpstoday/status/1758836538794774932?s=46&t=rDVs03CoIgMyNKLTCpUIuA
An innocent woman has died after being hit on Pinebush, the same stretch of road where 4 people were hit back in December in a crosswalk. The same stretch of road that doesn’t even have sidewalks in the next block east. 100m from the roundabout that I emailed regional councillors about in October and received no reply.
I’m sick of this place and everyone who runs it.
That stock photo of the police SUV that appears with the post could, like, not be an SUV.
I'm pretty sure WRPS exclusively operates SUV cruisers these days. You all can infer what that choice says broadly about cop's egos and behaviour.
I'm not saying Dutch police are good, I have no opinion and so far, almost no experience with them...but I will say I saw police responding to something today and the four subcompact sedans were considerably less dangerous feeling than the SUVs in Kitchener.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - nms - 02-19-2024
The SUVs were introduced after Ford stopped making Crown Victorias. What are some other North American police forces that don't use SUVs?
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - bravado - 02-19-2024
(02-19-2024, 08:49 PM)nms Wrote: The SUVs were introduced after Ford stopped making Crown Victorias. What are some other North American police forces that don't use SUVs?
Dodge Chargers are the only remaining one these days, fairly common in the US.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - tomh009 - 02-20-2024
(02-19-2024, 09:35 PM)bravado Wrote:(02-19-2024, 08:49 PM)nms Wrote: The SUVs were introduced after Ford stopped making Crown Victorias. What are some other North American police forces that don't use SUVs?
Dodge Chargers are the only remaining one these days, fairly common in the US.
And those appears to be gone soon, too, as the next Charger will have two doors only.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - the_conestoga_guy - 02-20-2024
(02-20-2024, 12:51 PM)tomh009 Wrote:The Ford Taurus is an extremely popular sedan model of police cruiser, too. I can’t think of any Region police that use them, but most OPP cruisers I see are this type.(02-19-2024, 09:35 PM)bravado Wrote: Dodge Chargers are the only remaining one these days, fairly common in the US.
And those appears to be gone soon, too, as the next Charger will have two doors only.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - timc - 02-20-2024
Ford doesn't make Tauruses anymore either.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 02-20-2024
(02-20-2024, 02:24 PM)timc Wrote: Ford doesn't make Tauruses anymore either.
Ford doesn't make sedans anymore... (except the mustang)
The auto industry has lost the plot at this point... they have become full on evil villains at this point.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - KevinL - 02-20-2024
Yes, many things defineable as 'family cars' have specific regulations around them (which adds expense to design and manufacturing). By making vehicles not designated in that category (SUVs, pickups) they can save money. Every corporate decision comes down to the dollars.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - ac3r - 02-20-2024
WRPS do not exclusively operate SUVs. They still have a number of Police Interceptor Sedan vehicles in the fleet used for traffic units, auxiliary units, supervisors, court services, general spares, training vehicles and so on. To run a successful police force you need to have a wide variety of vehicles for different situations.
Some are also just historical show pieces. In fact you'd be surprised at how many old vehicles they keep as show pieces including the classic Crown Victoria Interceptor, a Plymouth Caravelle (possibly more than 1) from the 1980s and I think a couple more. I'm no fan of the police but it's kinda cool seeing those when they do events.
They also have a wide variety of other vehicles. Mercedes Sprinters, Ford E-250s, Ford Transits are some of the vans they have for things like forensics, transportation, commercial vehicle enforcement units and so on. They have a few pickup trucks, mostly the Ford F-250s for different uses. ERT has a few of these for some of their equipment. They also have a heavily armoured vehicle that was originally used to defend the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (which has quite impressive highly trained tactical units...they've won a lot of awards and are almost like a military unit). They may have upgraded this to a new one, though. WRPS also has an assortment of other utility vehicles such as the large mobile command units, golf carts, unmanned aerial vehicles, possibly a bomb robot and things meant for underwater diving but I can't recall if they still have those. Naturally, they also have an assortment of both unmarked vehicles and undercover vehicles (undercover being regular civilian vehicles with little to no indication they're police, unlike unmarked which have obvious signs).
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - tomh009 - 02-20-2024
(02-20-2024, 02:47 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Ford doesn't make sedans anymore... (except the mustang)
The auto industry has lost the plot at this point... they have become full on evil villains at this point.
Can't really blame the car companies for not making sedans when people don't want to buy them. If people wanted them, there would be many more sedans available. Car companies don't really care what body shape they sell, as long as they sell (profitable) cars.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - ijmorlan - 02-20-2024
(02-20-2024, 03:05 PM)KevinL Wrote: Yes, many things defineable as 'family cars' have specific regulations around them (which adds expense to design and manufacturing). By making vehicles not designated in that category (SUVs, pickups) they can save money. Every corporate decision comes down to the dollars.
To be fair, lawmakers should have known that and designed the laws to avoid these sorts of perverse incentives. For example, implement a carbon tax, rather than having weird efficiency rules that apply only to certain classes of vehicle. The effect of a certain amount of carbon emissions on the environment does not depend on why the carbon was emitted.
Nobody should be writing legislation who doesn’t understand that as soon as a descriptive category becomes a legal criterion for whether certain laws apply, it will become the subject of gamesmanship.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - bravado - 02-21-2024
(02-20-2024, 09:02 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(02-20-2024, 02:47 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Ford doesn't make sedans anymore... (except the mustang)
The auto industry has lost the plot at this point... they have become full on evil villains at this point.
Can't really blame the car companies for not making sedans when people don't want to buy them. If people wanted them, there would be many more sedans available. Car companies don't really care what body shape they sell, as long as they sell (profitable) cars.
Then it’s just a coincidence that the only cars they are selling these days are higher margin monstrosities, spurred along by “consumer choice” in the highway mad max arms race.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - dtkvictim - 02-21-2024
(02-21-2024, 12:41 AM)bravado Wrote:(02-20-2024, 09:02 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Can't really blame the car companies for not making sedans when people don't want to buy them. If people wanted them, there would be many more sedans available. Car companies don't really care what body shape they sell, as long as they sell (profitable) cars.
Then it’s just a coincidence that the only cars they are selling these days are higher margin monstrosities, spurred along by “consumer choice” in the highway mad max arms race.
Many manufacturers still make sedans, hatchbacks, and other lower, smaller cars (although wagons are almost extinct here). Without total cooperation from every vehicle brand there can't be a conspiracy to simply remove them as an option from the consumer. The ones who dropped those types of vehicles simply decided it's not worth competing in that segment, but the segment still exists. Even more so outside of North America.
That's not the say they couldn't be achieving a similar end by means of advertisement, regulatory capture, and lobbying.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 02-21-2024
(02-21-2024, 02:17 AM)dtkvictim Wrote:(02-21-2024, 12:41 AM)bravado Wrote: Then it’s just a coincidence that the only cars they are selling these days are higher margin monstrosities, spurred along by “consumer choice” in the highway mad max arms race.
Many manufacturers still make sedans, hatchbacks, and other lower, smaller cars (although wagons are almost extinct here). Without total cooperation from every vehicle brand there can't be a conspiracy to simply remove them as an option from the consumer. The ones who dropped those types of vehicles simply decided it's not worth competing in that segment, but the segment still exists. Even more so outside of North America.
That's not the say they couldn't be achieving a similar end by means of advertisement, regulatory capture, and lobbying.
Yes, nobody is saying that sedans don't exist anymore...in the Netherlands...they're still very much the norm (although I did have a large F-150 pickup--it is nice that an unmodified F-150 is large here--come flying out of a side street in my neighbourhood the other day, so this is a growing problem). But in North America, advertising by the auto industry has been largely successful in changing the culture towards larger less safe vehicles. This isn't driven by inherent demand of people, this is clearly a policy choice by the auto industry with the goal of boosting profits (as all corporate policies are).
Now, I'm not saying that they are any more evil villain than any other corporation, they have been allowed to do this by the failure of regulators (or the capture of regulators). I very much believe that all corporations are inherently evil villains, because if they could boost profit by being villainous they would. It's not even controversial, it's literally the law (or at least civil law). Now, you might argue that they don't care if they hurt people, that isn't their intention, it's just incidental, and I'd agree with that...but now we're pedantically arguing between "cartoon evil villain" and "monstrously indifferent to human suffering".
What I think is missed much of the time though, is just how much control these large corporations have over our collective culture and social narrative. We are products of our experience, and our experiences are more and more consumed by advertising. I'm not saying people have no agency, but we have much less than we believe ourselves to have. I've made a conscious effort to remove as much advertising from my life as I can, and whenever I visit my family, I am shocked by just how much advertising there is. But it is subliminal to my parents and inlaws...they don't even notice it.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - tomh009 - 02-21-2024
(02-21-2024, 12:41 AM)bravado Wrote:(02-20-2024, 09:02 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Can't really blame the car companies for not making sedans when people don't want to buy them. If people wanted them, there would be many more sedans available. Car companies don't really care what body shape they sell, as long as they sell (profitable) cars.
Then it’s just a coincidence that the only cars they are selling these days are higher margin monstrosities, spurred along by “consumer choice” in the highway mad max arms race.
It's not coincidence. But don't confuse correlation with causation.
If you look at the sales data by model (a lot can be found with the right search phrases) you'll see that the sedan sales, from Taurus and Impala to Corolla and Jetta have been in a steady decline for a decade or so, which is why many of those are not being replaced. (Jetta and Corolla still exist as the cost-conscious sedans still have more demand than the large ones.)
That said, many of the smaller SUVs/crossovers are really just slightly taller hatchbacks/wagons with "tougher" styling. But it seems that this what most people (not including me, though) are looking for.