“I’m terrified of being near her.”

An F-150 driver shared his devastation online after damaging his beloved truck, but instead of compassion, users responded with sincere disapproval.

In a video shared on TikTok, molesrcool (@molesrcool) describes the incident, which began in an empty parking lot and ended with the driver crashing into a large yellow concrete bollard.

@molesrcool giant lift truck defeated by a bright yellow concrete slab in a parking lot #liftedtrucks #trucks #f150 #pedestriandignity ♬ Yacht Club – MusicBox

The driver of a smaller car would have seen the big yellow bollard long before he had the chance to hit it. But the truck’s absurdly enormous size and elevated suspension created a blind spot larger than the immobile chunk, giving him little chance of seeing it until it was too late.

Luckily, as commenters on TikTok pointed out, it was just a piece of concrete and not a person.

“I’m terrified of being near these trucks in my wheelchair,” one user wrote. “I’m smaller than their hoods.”

You have the right to be worried. Large trucks and SUVs are the main culprits in the increasing number of fatal accidents involving cars and pedestrians. NPR reported in November that pedestrian deaths were at their highest level in more than 40 years and had risen more than 80% since 2009.

This is the result of a global trend in which the average size of newly manufactured cars has increased by 20% or more in the last decade alone, according to a 2022 report from the International Energy Agency. In particular, greater vehicle headways are dangerous for pedestrians because they increase the likelihood of being run over by the vehicle rather than landing on the hood or being thrown to the side.

To add to the horror, large vehicles are also significantly worse for the environment.

They have far worse fuel efficiency than other smaller vehicles and also emit more toxic pollutants into the Earth’s atmosphere. A study by the IEA found that large vehicles such as trucks and SUVs use about 20% more oil than smaller vehicles. The same study also found that the approximately 330 million SUVs on the roads today emit a total of 1 billion tons of CO2 annually.

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Users in the comments section of molesrcool’s video were primarily concerned about the safety of pedestrians and other small vehicles around large trucks and were thankful that no one was injured this time.

“It’s concerning how many times I’ve almost been hit by trucks on my way to work,” one person said.

“This could have been a child or a pet,” wrote another concerned user.

Another person recounted a heartbreaking incident that highlighted the dangers of unnecessarily large trucks: “There was one [motorcyclist] Killed in my city not long ago because the driver of a lifted truck didn’t see him stop at a red light.

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