[mitthrowaway2]

That's a pure negative sum game though. The elevation gives you only a relative improvement in visibility if other vehicles don't increase in elevation in response, at the cost of sightlines for other road users and especially pedestrians, unless they wear platform shoes.

The same of course goes with mass.

Usually this kind of negative-sum-prisoner's-dilemma incentive matrix is resolved by government intervention which changes the payoff structure.

[toast0]

Elevation doesn't have to be zero sum. My compact pickup (a class of vehicles that is barely manufactured anymore) is a little elevated and has an upright seating position, but it also provides good visibility for other street users. The space over the bed is clear (unless I'm carrying something big) and the rear and side windows are vertical and clear allowing vision through; the windshield is raked less than most other vehicles, so it's better for looking through.

Of course, as I mentioned, compact pickup trucks are basically dead in the US. You can get a four door car with a three food bed that is marketed as a small truck. If you want a single cab and a six foot bed, you have to buy a full size truck and those are usually taller and bigger and less efficient than a compact truck would be; it can do bigger truck things, but I only need little truck things.

Maybe the Bezos truck brings back small trucks to the US.

[aidenn0]

A big part of the issue is styling:

I was next to a GMC pickup on my bike the other day at a stoplight. When I stood up, the hood was roughly shoulder-height for me. They can easily make the hood at least a foot shorter (and probably more) and still fit everything under the hood, or even go with a cab-forward design.

But people think those look dorky.

At the extreme end of things, it's hard to argue they are wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshkosh_NGDV

[toast0]

The NGDV is dorky as hell. But I bet they're very effective for drivers.

I've got an old cabover passenger van, visibility for me is pretty good, but if you were next to it on a bike, you wouldn't be able to see over the hood cause there isn't one.

It's also pretty dorky, but it's got essentially a porsche engine, which makes it a rear engined mid-life crisis sports car. I have to run it at red line for 30+ seconds to get up to freeway speed...

[gostsamo]

Well, in the absence of government, it is pure profit for the suv driver and for the car manufacturer who sells higher margin product. And fuck the pedestrians and those in smaller cars.