cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29061644
We’ve done it, we got rid of another soulless right wing politician!
Peter Dutton first made his party lose this election and now also lost his own seat much like Pierre Pullover
We’ve still got a government that green-lit new coal power plants in it’s last term, screwed over the Aboriginal community with a poorly run referendum, and still doesn’t give a shit about climate change, but baby steps hey.
I’m not Australian and I don’t know much about Australian politics.
However, I know that Australian people drive some of the biggest cars in the world. Car companies just manufacture huge SUVs and sell them to the Australian, thinking “these dumb fucks will buy them”.
That’s not good for the climate. That’s bad for the roads. That’s not even good for Australians themselves, because it’s very unsafe for pedestrians. I heard that Albanese encouraged mandatory rules for better fuel efficiency. Which is a good idea. I just don’t understand why the other bald guy says they are bad.
In the 1990s and 2000s, the US Auto Industry successfully fought against every attempt to impose fuel efficiency rules. After US Auto manufacturers went bankrupt in 2008, President Obama bailed them out and forced them to save some fuel. Because outside North American, no one wanted to buy american cars anymore.
During his first mandate, Trump rolled back all those Obama fuel-efficiency rules:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/trump-obama-fuel-economy-standards.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/climate/cafe-emissions-rollback-oil-industry.html
Lack of strong fuel efficiency rules is the main reason why American cars are so heavy and consume so much oil compared to European cars. The bald candidate is wrong to say fuel efficiency rules are bad.
I dont know the actual justification behind it but i would say:
As to the big cars thing, we have typically had quite regular sized cars and our typical tradesperson vehicles (called “Ute’s” here, “trucks” in the USA) were significatly smaller than their american equivilants, but local manufacturing shut down and now we buy from whats available on the market. Also the laws around taxing work vehicles is worded in such a way that bigger cars get taxed differently and incentivises people buying these cars and slowly our car sizes are increasing and more and more giant ‘Yank Tanks’ are appearing on our roads. And couple this with car manufacturers slowly changing the publics idea of what a ‘family car’ is from a large sedan to a small suv to a full blown suv or 4x4 7 person tank.
Pickup trucks in the USA. “Truck” is a more generic term that covers just about everything from semi trailers (a.k.a. articulated lorry, heavy goods vehicle) to vans.
Fair enough, but it also spins me out when americans call prime-mover trucks ‘tractor trailers’
Are those the trucks that are only able to move 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 or 13 things at once? (I’ve never heard that term before)
Yes, it makes logistics a nightmare doing the maths.
Its basically a class of truck that is for moving the biggest loads, like road trains (truck&+ trailers) or moving giant mining dump trucks,dozers,etc.
In one version of the transformers series optimus prime is actually a prime mover too
English is pretty bad at naming these things. In North-American English they’re often called "Semi"s, which is short for either “Semi-Trailer” or “Semi-Truck”. Why? Who knows, I’m guessing it’s because the trailer part is only half of the whole. The front part with the engine and trailer hitch is sometimes called the Tractor Unit. But, that’s confusing because “Tractor” mostly means the thing you drive around on a farm. The purpose is basically the same, and the name comes from the fact it’s focused on something that pulls, but farming has such a hold of the “tractor” name that that’s what people think of when they hear that.
18 wheeler makes sense for the whole unit together. It’s also good because it identifies the thing that is instantly visually unique about these kinds of vehicles, all the various wheels. But, I’m sure there are many cases where it’s not 18 total wheels. And, when they’re used as road trains with more than one trailer, I’m sure it’s much more than 18 wheels.
The Brits like “lorry”, or “articulated lorry” but where does that come from? And sometimes shortened to “Artic” which makes it sound like it’s really cold.
Other names include “HGV” for “Heavy Goods Vehicle”, but that’s confusing because it’s not clear whether it’s the goods that are heavy or the truck. Presumably they’re also used for light but bulky goods.
Oh well, dumb language, we should start over with Spanish, I’m sure their name is better.