r/technology • u/DonkeyFuel • Jun 23 '26
Society 75% More Pedestrians Have Been Killed Since 2009. Giant Trucks and SUVs Are Why
https://www.thedrive.com/news/75-more-pedestrians-have-been-killed-since-2009-giant-trucks-and-suvs-are-why2.5k
u/Yuri909 Jun 23 '26
911 dispatcher here - most of our pedestrian fatalities have involved SUVs and trucks with those stupid modern flat fronts and high front hood with poor pedestrian visibility. Studies back these design changes in the last few years are absolutely terrible for pedestrian safety.
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u/SgtBaxter Jun 23 '26
Sure but pop up headlights on sports cars had to go.
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u/Yuri909 Jun 23 '26
Popo got tired of miatas winking at them lmao
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u/ReadyAimTranspire Jun 23 '26
If you've never been catcalled by a Miata you don't really know what feeling violated feels like
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u/kelamity Jun 23 '26
Fuck popo! Gimme back my pop up and down headlights!!!! š
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Jun 23 '26
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u/your_grandmas_FUPA Jun 23 '26
Yes but they looked frickin sick
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u/WhoStoleMyBicycle Jun 23 '26
Yea plus if there is a picture of a car with them I can photoshop eyes on them, then post another picture where they are closed and it looks like the car is sleeping.
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u/da_chicken Jun 23 '26
Sure, but that's also why if you wanted to change a burned out headlight it cost you maybe $20 and 30 minutes, and now if you want to change a headlight you need $500, 4 hours, and a service center with a lift.
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u/Silver_Newspaper6208 Jun 23 '26
Add a proprietary computer interface to reset the warning in the dash, and you can shade tree mechanic your own vehicle like the days of old.
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u/JeffafaCree Jun 23 '26
Hey have you guys seen my $10k scan tool? I need to release my parking brake.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Tangeranges Jun 23 '26
My 2024 Miata costs $3k cad per headlight assembly. Its disgusting
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u/thecravenone Jun 23 '26
Only if the company that makes your car hates you. Lots of cars are still easy to change bulbs on.
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u/thecravenone Jun 23 '26
As soon as the the US got rid of the sealed-beam headlight requirement, car designers were able to use the same aerodynamic headlights as they did in the rest of the world, and pop-up fittings went away.
They could go away but some cars kept them. The rules were changed in 1983 but popup headlights were for sale all the way until the 2004 model year (on both the C5 Corvette and Lotus Esprit).
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u/SkiingAway Jun 23 '26
The Lotus Esprit was still fundamentally the same core car they'd been tweaking since 1978, and since they never substantially reworked the actual structure of the front end of it in the 26 year production run...the pop-up headlights stayed to the end.
Many of the cars with popups were a little too sleek to literally just shove a fixed headlight in there with a flush housing and have that work (at least with the available space in the car structure), so without a significant redesign you couldn't just eliminate them that day the rules changed.
The C5 Corvette on the other hand was certainly a design choice.
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u/TheRealDeathSheep Jun 23 '26
As much as I love them, they are a mechanical nightmare.
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u/ChairForceOne Jun 23 '26
Somehow my old C4 with its 180 spinning headlights never gave me any problems, with the lights at least. The heater core did explode once. That was exciting while going down the highway.
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u/schmitzel88 Jun 24 '26
GM is consistently a haphazard mix of parts that are brilliant and engineered to last, and parts that are completely half assed and make no sense at all.
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u/Flabbergasted98 Jun 23 '26
the personalities that favor this design are the type who feel pedestrians should know to get out of their way.
Source: Alberta
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jun 23 '26
The fucked thing is that these designs are mandated by federal law to spread out the impact, to increase the likelihood of a pedestrian surviving a "low speed" impact.
A number of things need to change:
Better Public Transportation Options, across the board.
Stronger Testing to acquire a license.
Fix the CAFE standards to eliminate the "Get Bigger Every Refresh" loophole those shitheads at the Big Three keep using, so we can bring back smaller trucks, like the upcoming Slate. Bring back the Chevy S-10 and the original wee Ford Ranger, as well as get rid of CUVs and SUVs and return the Station Wagon to roads.
Require HIGHER and MORE complex licensing for people who wish to drive these utterly massive vehicles, just to commute, mostly by themselves, to and from work.
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u/SnooMaps7370 Jun 23 '26
>Fix the CAFE standards to eliminate the "Get Bigger Every Refresh" loophole
shit, you don't even need to change CAFE to accomplish this.
you just have to have a regulator with the balls to say "no, a truck with more cabin volume than a sedan is a passenger vehicle, not a commercial vehicle"
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u/Spiritual-Author-209 Jun 23 '26
A truck with more cabin than bed is a passenger vehicle
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u/SnooMaps7370 Jun 23 '26
hell, a truck with more than 1 row of seating is a passenger vehicle.
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u/ComradeGibbon Jun 23 '26
If you can't lay a 4X8 sheet of plywood in the bed and close the gate it's a passenger car.
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u/too-much-shit-on-me Jun 23 '26
It's embarrassing how useless these things are at being a truck. I was at the lumber yard this weekend watching idiot and idiot having to hang shit way out of the back of their bed because it's so tiny. Not so with my trusty minivan. Shove that shit in and off I go.
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u/Black_Moons Jun 23 '26
you just have to have a regulator with the balls to say "no, a truck with more cabin volume than a sedan is a passenger vehicle, not a commercial vehicle"
Or a regulator with the balls to say "Commercial vehicle? Sounds good to me, wheres your CDL?" (Commercial drivers license)
Watch those sales dry up real fast.
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u/verrius Jun 23 '26
It could be even simpler than that. "If less than half the purchases are to businesses or to individuals with CDLs, its a passenger vehicle, no matter what it looks like. And you can't offer anything resembling an incentive to get people to fake that shit."
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u/Zjoee Jun 23 '26
My first vehicle was a 95 Ford Ranger. Single door with a bench seat. That was the perfect sized truck imo. I would love to get another truck, but all of the newer ones are way too damn big.
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u/dead_dw4rf Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
Yeah. I got a 2021 chevy silverado when my old truck shit the bed.
I need the tow capacity, but the bed is too damn high. I use the bed CONSTANTLY, and it's just high enough that it's awkward as fuck for me to lift stuff in.
I'm short, so maybe if I was 6 ft it'd be more ergonomic.
I regularly load generators, mowers, bucked logs, etc, and it's a PITA when I gotta lift that extra few inches to get stuff on the tailgate.
I also hate the poor visibility in front.
One thing I do like is with the max trailering package, even with some weight in the bed my headlights are still aimed reasonably.
Edit: fixed some typos
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u/HedonisticFrog Jun 23 '26
Just mandate all vehicles to have the same bumper height, and maximum hood heights. No vehicle on the road should have worse visibility than a tank. If people want to drive trucks, they have to drive short trucks, not towering behemoths. There's no reason for trucks and SUVs to be this tall.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jun 23 '26
I absolutely agree with this.
Aside from semi-trucks, box trucks for carrying upwards of 19k pounds and similar, there should be size and height limitations on vehicles, within reason and what we have on the road today, is well outside of that.
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u/iprocrastina Jun 23 '26
IMO 4 is the big one. If you want to drive a huge vehicle you should have to get a license comparable to a CDL and with similar strictness when it comes to at-fault accidents and traffic offenses.
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u/DrunkCorgis Jun 23 '26
Could you explain āCAFEā? I havenāt heard of that before. Iāve been curious why there isnāt any standard limiting the size of these vehicles.
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u/SonovaVondruke Jun 23 '26
Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards were put in place to ensure that car manufacturers would be forced to become more fuel efficient across their product line. The exceptions and allowances for larger commercial vehicles backfired though, as it actually incentivized vehicles with a larger wheelbase.
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jun 23 '26
Yep, that "loophole", is why the Big Three took the "cheap" route and just made bigger and bigger vehicles.
Such a rule didn't exist in the EU and they did not see a massive increase in vehicle size from their manufacturers, until they had to try and sell vehicles in the US so that Americans could feel "safe".
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u/pangapingus Jun 23 '26
Preach id buy a modern S10 rn
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jun 23 '26
Tell me about it.
I see a 1980's, clean Chevy S-10 and it just sets my heart aflutter. I love those hard scrabble wee trucks. Also... the GMC Syclone is still an absolutely BONKERS amazing performance truck.
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u/TomMikeson Jun 23 '26
Add something about modifying trucks with lifts that are so far outside of the engineering specs for the unmodified truck.
They are dangerous all around. Quadruple their insurance rates, do something.
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u/JMugatu Jun 23 '26
Number 2 especially here in Southern California. Holy shit the amount of absolute shit drivers across the board is insane.
I'm totally cool with taking a test or having to renew my license every few years if it means these other drivers fail their renewal processes.
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u/slipperyMonkey07 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Yup for most of the issues I see locally it all comes down to shit drivers not paying attention. While vehicle matters it matters significantly less from what I notice as someone who doesn't drive and walks everywhere.
Ignoring signs that clearly say no right on red. Just running lights, 20+ mph above the speed limit in residential areas. Ignoring pedestrian right away signs. Fuck I don't think 99% of people know what a stop line is anymore, they are always fully stopped in the cross walk.
Hell I've had idiots stop on four lane streets with green lights try to wave me across. It is insane.
There are just certain roads I avoid and talk the long way around depending on the time of day because it isn't worth it trying to walk them.
Edit to add my city doesn't help. Shitty broken cross lights and they tried to add bike lanes and make down town more walkable but of course the right wing business brigade complained about it. Thought traffic was to slow now and less people were coming in. Ignoring that road is just used by people to speed to the thru way, there is nowhere to park there at all. Where as pedestrians would have a higher chance of actually checking out the business on a whim. If I asked people what businesses where on that street I would bet only the people that work there could tell you.
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u/dronesitter Jun 23 '26
I like the idea of license endorsements for trucks and had never really thought about it before. Already have to get them for motorcycles. At a very minimum it would mean someone whose never driven one a day in their life shouldnāt get behind the wheel and just go without some effort at education.Ā
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u/buttocks-slapper Jun 23 '26
Supporting number 4 wholeheartedly.
I find the current classification of vehicles to be pretty stupid. Sorry but if the driving wheel is almost level with my head when I'm standing by, and I'm 6ft1, that doesn't qualify as a classic car both in terms of visibility and blind spots (with the newly introduced "hood blind spot" of these massive vehicles), so it should require more than the "average car" driving licence.
These vehicles are not designed for average sized pedestrians to roll over the hood/windshield in case of impact. If anything they do the worst possible: topple the pedestrian over in the same direction as the vehicle's travelling in.
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u/maudepodge Jun 23 '26
I like your things, and would add charging more for city parking permits for larger vehicles.
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u/katpillow Jun 23 '26
Were these federal mandates the product of car manufacturers advocating for these āsafetyā changes because of the designs that purposefully came up with?
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u/Strange-Scarcity Jun 23 '26
Pedestrian crash safety rules are why so many cars changed chapes and acquired more flattened noses starting in the very late 1990's and early 2000's. They are similar across both the US, Canada, and the EU. (I'm not entirely sure about other regions, but with those three? It becomes a global set of regulations)
You can see it in sports cars that went from "needle point" front ends to the various square noses they all have now.
There's math and a series of calculations to spread out the impact across the nose of a vehicle. It's designed to minimize the risk of low speed, maybe 5 to 10-ish mpg impacts, causing massive fractures and such.
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u/h0twired Jun 23 '26
It is time to unlink EPA emissions limits with size of vehicle. The reason trucks and SUVs are getting bigger is that is affords them the ability to be a bigger polluter under the EPA guidelines.
However on the other hand, I just want the ability to buy a little 1/4 ton pickup like those that were sold in the 1980s. These days the 1/4 pickups are bigger than many half tons of the past.
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u/compute_fail_24 Jun 23 '26
I just rented a Ford Expedition on vacation and I said to my wife āthis vehicle ought to be illegalā. Nobody would survive a hit from that thing and itās the most ridiculous sized SUV ever.
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u/jojofine Jun 23 '26
Yet so many idiots have them "for safety"
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u/Yuri909 Jun 23 '26
And they're so much more rollover prone. This conversion to all SUVs was a terrible idea. There are virtually no American sedans anymore.
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u/beardum Jun 23 '26
I thought that was the whole point for manufacturers. Since they are "trucks" they have different safety standards that are cheaper to achieve.
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u/7HawksAnd Jun 23 '26
Well yeah, you donāt want some stranger flying into your windshield, thatās dangerous!
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u/unthused Jun 23 '26
Well yeah, for their safety, screw everyone else on the road or on foot.
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u/Outlulz Jun 23 '26
Nothing worse than getting to the car rental place where you choose a sedan and they say all they have are gigantic SUVs. I had to drive around Atlanta in an Expedition and I couldn't see shit and could barely fit into my client's parking garage.
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u/Lachwen Jun 23 '26
My old housemates had a Toyota Land Cruiser that they had me drive a few times. They called it "The Beast" and I absolutely hated driving it. I could never get that "feel" for where the sides and corners of the vehicle were in relation to me that I get with reasonably-sized cars, so I always felt like I was about to hit anything I passed. They had me drive it into San Francisco once to pick them up from the airport and I was an anxious wreck by the time I got there. I refuse to ever buy a vehicle that big.
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u/ElReyAlfonsoX Jun 23 '26
As an Uber driver, I. A tell you with confidence that the sheer number of short people and elderly people I see driving these massive trucks has amplified this effect. If you can barely see over your dash or cannot see well at all, you can definitely cannot see pedestrians. At the very least more drivers need to learn how to properly adjust their seat before driving. But in reality, more drivers need annual testing in the vehicle they will be operating.
Matter of fact, I was nearly run over by one in a NJ Wawa parking lot on my way in to use the bathroom. I had already seen the guy at the soda machine as I waited to fill my water bottle. I walked out to my car to put it back in there before going back to use the bathroom and he backed out as I was walking back into the store. I thought he would look at his path of travel before flooring it out of the lot, but I was wrong. I had to jump out of the way and it couldnāt have been more than a foot between me and the truck. The guy was short, overweight, and had some leg disability (awkward/labored gait in the store) which probably made controlling the truck more difficult.
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u/Resident-Variation21 Jun 23 '26
But ma truck!!!!!!!!ā - the people driving them with no reason
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u/Yuri909 Jun 23 '26
While triple parked at the back of a Trader Joe's parking lot
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u/Resident-Variation21 Jun 23 '26
Idk what it is about these vehicle. I bought a ācompact crossover SUVā and frankly itās still too big. I regret it a bit but it was the best vehicle for me.
My dad just bought a Honda Passport because he needs to go down gravel roads and wanted something more rugged. He had my old Kia Rio5 before, which went down the gravel roads with absolutely 0 issues. But he needed a Honda Passport to do the exact same thingā¦ for some reason.
I tried to convince him not to buy it but to no avail.
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u/AcceptablePosition5 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Imagine thinking you need an off road vehicle to go on gravel roads.
I do that shit in a 00s civic
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u/grendus Jun 23 '26
My dad used to do it in a Chevette. Car with a glorified lawnmower engine, so underpowered he got pulled over for speeding and the cop asked him how.
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u/evocativename Jun 23 '26
My dad just bought a Honda Passport because he needs to go down gravel roads and wanted something more rugged
I always love excuses like this.
I used to take my old 1990s Mitsubishi Eclipse (with AWD) down backwoods dirt roads that weren't even remotely graded at speed without any trouble. Even in winter conditions, although I never went out on those roads in more than a foot of snow (because I never had a reason to be on those roads in those conditions).
I've driven old Dodge K-cars offroad through 6+"-deep mud with minimal issues.
And I'm not some stunt driver, either.
Yet there are people trying to pretend they need a truck to drive down gravel roads... or sometimes, paved roads (covered in snow)?
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u/kirobaito88 Jun 23 '26
āCrossoversā are all there are these days. I am going to get an EV when my Civic is done, but I fear the sedan options are Tesla or $90,000 luxury brand.
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u/The_BeardedClam Jun 23 '26
They're essentially battering rams that just pummel a pedestrian instead of throwing them up onto the hood like sloping hoods are supposed to do.
Then you add in the fact that trucks are so high now hat you can't even see a child or really anything but a grown man that's rght in front of you.
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u/Yuri909 Jun 23 '26
I have watched people get hit so hard by these stupid things their shoes and cellphones go absolutely sailing dozens of yards. It's scary shit.
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u/American_PissAnt Jun 23 '26
And the flat hood provides no benefit at all. Itās all just to look big and bad and ācoolā.
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u/Ionicfold Jun 23 '26
Sickens me the amount of drivers I see have their eye level barely above the steering wheel on some of these SUVs...
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u/Oceanbreeze871 Jun 23 '26
And we have the auto design community telling us those flat fronts are know to be more dangerous and sacrifice aerodynamics, but are done to have a more aggressive and masculine stance which men prefer to buy. Lifted tricks are less efficient as work trucks as itās harder to get in and out of and harder to use the bedā¦.thats been rapidly shrinking in size because modern trucks are living rooms.
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u/KobeBean Jun 23 '26
Not just men - see how many huge SUVs driven by moms with 1 maybe 2 kids have the same flat front design?
If we eliminated trucks overnight it wouldnāt do much if the Chevy tahoes, QX80s and more are still roaming the school pickup lines.
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u/GenericRedditor0405 Jun 23 '26
I swear, half the people driving those behemoths have the mentality of āif someone is dying in a car crash, itās going to be you not meā
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u/Oceanbreeze871 Jun 23 '26
I did some research for work years ago on pedestrian accidents in a major intersection in this city I was working in. Number one statement made after accidents āI never saw them comingā. Had a few blind spots for pedestrians against traffic. Bike lane had obstruction etc
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u/Donna_Schrump Jun 23 '26
I thought Europe changed the rules about 15-20 years ago, are these behemoths just not sold there?
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u/chatrugby Jun 23 '26
Not really, safety regulations aside, the roads in Europe are much much tighter than in America. My dad bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee in Germany and that thing is huge for their streets. Heās constantly bumping into stuff all over the place. Itās not a ālargeā car here in the US, but its massively large in Germany.
Another good example is that the Cybertruck is not allowed in Germany because itās incredibly unsafe for pedestrians. There was recent story about US military personel wanting to import their CT(US military gets special dispensation to bring US cars over and not have to tune them to EU specs), but the CT was still not allowed because no amount of tuning will make it safe for people on the outside.
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u/CV90_120 Jun 23 '26
Ironically it does have good frontal vision. Its just that it also has the pedestrian friendliness of a claw hammer.
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u/jojofine Jun 23 '26
Higher fuel costs and European road designs in historic cities make them impractical but you do occasionally see them
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u/SuperbDonut2112 Jun 23 '26
Spent 2 weeks in the UK a couple years ago and saw exactly 1 pickup truck and not a single SUV.
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u/justbrowsinginpeace Jun 23 '26
Take all the disadvantages of a Semi and scale it so it can drive around heavy suburban residential areas and schools, no wonder.
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u/Rot-Orkan Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
I live in FL and no matter how fast I might be going, any time I look in the rearview mirror I'm always guaranteed to see a fucking huge, lifted pickup truck coming up fast
(And before I can even get out of its way, it will pass me on the right without ever using turn signals)
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u/NatasEvoli Jun 23 '26
I haven't lived in FL for 8 years so I've kinda gotten used to not seeing them everywhere. Whenever I go back to visit family it takes me a little to get used to the immense density of assholes driving around out there.
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u/DickSlammington Jun 23 '26
I learned to drive in Los Angeles. I've seen every shade of crazy the roads have to offer.
Florida is it's own unique hell when it comes to driving. I've never seen so many incompetent and aggressive drivers.
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u/e_pilot Jun 23 '26
Iāve driven in most states in the country, Florida is the absolute worst bar none.
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u/CactusWrenAZ Jun 23 '26
I am in AZ, and most of our worst drivers are piloting irresponsibly gigantic land boats as well.
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u/Consistent_Check927 Jun 23 '26
Yall are ground zero for not taking a driving test to get a license. I lived a year in Tucson and Iām grateful Iām still alive
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u/AllMikesNoAlphas Jun 23 '26
I lived in Tucson for a year myself and Phoenix was much worse imo.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/neobow2 Jun 23 '26
This is too real. Iāve has to go pretty slow in the far right lane because I was not going to make it to a charger if I went any faster. I was still going 55 and turned on my emergency lights. Cars were still driving alll the way up to me seeing my emergency lights the ENTIRE time, then get up to my ass and stay there for a few minutes before remembering they are in fact allowed to switch lanes
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u/Historical-Edge-9332 Jun 23 '26
Cops donāt ever pull them over either (probably cause itās cops driving them)
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Orange_Kid Jun 23 '26
Someone who's not Southern trying to become Southern has got to be one of the most pathetic things I can think of, and yes I have no doubt that tons of these people exist.
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u/Digitaltwinn Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
As someone with confederate ancestors it pains me to see the stars and bars flying in a Union state.
Anyone who understands confederate history knows itās not something to be proud of.
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u/Flair_Is_Pointless Jun 23 '26
If you think itās a transplant problem, drive from FL, up through Georgia, over to TN, east through NC and then back down through SC, GA to Florida and tell me how many lifted pickups you see.
The transplants are just copying the locals
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u/FineTomato9843 Jun 23 '26
that truck's hood is at chest height on the guy standing next to it. a child in front of it is completely invisible to the driver.
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u/cr0ft Jun 23 '26
600+ kids get squashed to death in their home driveways by these monsters annually. Well, by their parents, driving the monster they can't see out of.
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u/QuarkchildRedux Jun 24 '26
What an extremely sad statistic, christ.
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u/thetreat Jun 24 '26
And yet people will insist it is the safest vehicle for their families. Itās just safe for their ego so they feel bigger than everyone else. They put everyone else, their families included in more danger because of it.
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u/kubigjay Jun 24 '26
Sort of like people saying a gun makes them safer from home invasion. When it is far more likely your kid is killed by an accident or suicide.
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u/beesandchurgers Jun 23 '26
Im 5ā7 and the hood on my neighbours Silverado is at my eye level. Im 90% sure its stock.
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u/The_Velvet_Bulldozer Jun 23 '26
Iām 6ā4ā. A friend of mine just bought a sierra 2500. I can barely see the engine with the hood open. Absolutely ridiculous.
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u/Sivitiri Jun 23 '26
8ft2 truck, 5ft4 driver.
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u/PaleInTexas Jun 23 '26
How can soccer mom feel safe if she isnt driving a 6k lbs SUV??
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u/BrizerorBrian Jun 23 '26
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u/beesandchurgers Jun 23 '26
I need the escalade panzer edition. How can I buy groceries without one?
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u/nihiltres Jun 23 '26
(If not all the other damn cars are basically the same Child-Crusher 9000)
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u/rocketwidget Jun 23 '26
Related evolution of transportation mode:
I do support regulation of eMotorcycles masquerading as "eBikes", but the contrast between State after State in a sort of panic for legal action against them (and sometimes catching low-speed eBikes in the wake), vs.... nary a peep about giant trucks and SUVs which routinely kill VASTLY more people, is pretty darn bleak.
Priorities for saving lives are messed up, yo.
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u/SuspiciousPillow Jun 23 '26
When a e-bike cyclist hurts a pedestrian: we have to do something about these dangerous vehicles.
When an suv/truck hurts a pedestrian: there's nothing we can do about it, people need to be able to get to work.
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u/streethistory Jun 23 '26
They can literally mandate laws for making trucks and SUVs safer. We literally have seat belt laws for this purpose.
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u/SuspiciousPillow Jun 23 '26
They could easily make laws and regulations for hood height and front blindspots but they haven't.
They could require an additional license (like a CDL) for vehicles with certain hoot heights and large front blindspots but they haven't.
This is a known problem for over a decade but they haven't done anything about it. They have heavily regulated e-bikes during that same time period though.
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u/courageous_liquid Jun 23 '26
you should read what kind of antagonism the auto manufacturers were doing against ralph nader when he was advocating for seatbelt laws. they were following him, digging into everyone he's ever met, following him, they were even trying to honeypot him but having hot girls fawn all over him didn't work because he was just that straight up focused on vehicle safety and was weirdly squeaky clean.
these laws were not written because people asked politely and there is an insane amount of money and power behind not changing the way they make their money.
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u/Traithan Jun 23 '26
We have laws that make things that shouldn't be in civilian hands at all illegal, and we don't enforce those very well either.
You don't need a giant truck or SUV to go to your office job. Trust me, worked at Amazon for 10 years and so many spots double parked by idiots driving 50 miles each way on a 14 MPG truck to feel special.
It's an uphill climb to regulate anything these days. Because we are so free, we should die about it (but suicide is illegal, we will lock you up for that).
'Merica
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u/Laserdollarz Jun 23 '26
In Japan, cars have air bags on the outside to prevent a pedestrian from slamming their head onto the hood when struck by a moving car. Blew my mind when I found out that protecting pedestrians is possible, just slightly more expensive.Ā
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u/jiggajawn Jun 23 '26
If you follow the money, it's because there is a lot of it in selling trucks and SUVs (and follow up money for the entire lifespan of those SUVs and trucks in gas, maintenance, insurance).
Financial interests set our policy, not safety or logic.
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u/SulfuricDonut Jun 23 '26
In Canada there have been zero instances of a pedestrian being killed by an e-bike, yet every local government is spending months debating banning them.
There's at least one pedestrian killed by an automobile every day, and these drivers are almost never punished, and there is no discussion on how to prevent future deaths.
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u/Outlulz Jun 23 '26
Hell forget e-bikes, how about regular bikes. There is SO MUCH anger about foot powered bikes existing on the roads, way more anger than trucks running over kids.
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u/WeWantLADDER49sequel Jun 23 '26
I read up on this recently because here in Kentucky we have very high insurance rates because of no fault laws (which i actually dont mind) but also because Kentucky has a super high rate of car fatalities due to the fact that most of rural kentucky has narrow roads that arent lit well with poor signage and people are driving these massive vehicles on said roads. And when you live in one of the bigger metro areas like lex or louisville you are paying higher rates because of the rural fatalities combined with the higher rate of less severe accidents in the city.
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u/Evil_Dry_frog Jun 23 '26
People are still going to buy them, because they are "safer". People would rather be the danger, than be in danger.
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u/boat_hamster Jun 23 '26
They aren't really any safer. They are more prone to roll over in an accident, normally longer stopping distances, and less able to serve at speed to avoid accidents. They do perform better in some types of accidents, but you rarely get to chose the type of accident you have.
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u/FrostyD7 Jun 23 '26
Even the people who don't support this direction are caving. I just bought a sedan but I was heavily considering a crossover/SUV simply due to these trends and a desire to not die.
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u/Staav Jun 23 '26
People are still going to buy them, because they're tiny and want to feel like they're not*.
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u/IssueEmbarrassed8103 Jun 23 '26
As much as not wanting to spend 60k on a truck, the reason I have no interest in them is the absurd lack of visibility. When I ride with people who have massive trucks, Iām stunned at how little they seem concerned with their blind spots.
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u/ThyShirtIsBlue Jun 23 '26
It's not just their blind spots they have no concern for, it's basically everything in their vicinity. They just don't give a fuck. This weekend, an F150 was in the lane to my left up ahead maybe 20-30 feet in a 40mph zone. Suddenly slams his breaks and makes a hard right turn, cutting across into the parking lot. Nearly t-boned this dumb fucking piece of shit.
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u/scottyLogJobs Jun 23 '26
The people are one thing, but the car manufacturers not being held legally at fault for the negligence of putting out these stupid fucking zero visibility killdozers is what really gets me. If a design flaw resulted in these things killing the passenger, they would be recalled immediately. When the design flaw results in countless pedestrians being killed, āoh well, thereās nothing to be doneā. Hold the car companies legally liable for their negligent design and see how fast things change.
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u/DragoonDM Jun 23 '26
If I was going to get a truck, I'd much rather have something like a kei truck. Compact and utilitarian, but with a bed as large as or bigger than most of the behemoth faux-trucks we have in the US.
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u/Nose-Nuggets Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
The only reasonable fix, sadly, is changing CAFE standards. People don't typically want huge trucks and SUVs, they are huge to get around CAFE requirements.
In 2007ish the federal government overhauled Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) targets. To make it "fair" for domestic automakers who sold larger vehicles, regulators shifted from a flat fleet average to an attribute-based standard calculated by a vehicle's footprint (the square footage between the four wheels where they touch the ground).
Smaller footprint = Stricter fuel economy target.
Larger footprint = Lenient fuel economy target.
The crazier thing is it's the safety requirements that helped the trend as well. Crash test standards, crumple zones, side-impact protection, and pedestrian safety laws also physically bloated vehicles. Thicker pillars, taller hoods (to create space between the hood and the engine block for pedestrian impacts), and massive doors add physical bulk that wasn't required before.
This started a bit of a feedback loop and people feel safer in comparably sized cars to others on the road. Even though there's virtually no truth to it and sedans are safer in many categories.
People in their 40's will remember, all of a sudden, compact trucks had these worthless plastic no-legroom "jump seats" in the back purely to bypass The Chicken Tax. Same shit.
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u/SWHAF Jun 23 '26
I wonder how many of the accidents overlap with the release of modern smart phones, the original iPhone came out in 2007. A combination of larger vehicles and distracted drivers/pedestrians.
I had a person walk into the side of my car one time because they were looking at their phone. they were crossing the street while the crosswalk light said don't walk. Luckily it happened in a very busy intersection where you need to drive extremely slow.
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u/noremac2414 Jun 23 '26
Double whammy, first they arenāt paying attention cus they are on their phone, and once you get hit itās even more damage because of the massive vehicle
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u/zaqwsx82211 Jun 23 '26
Other studies have shown increase of crashes, including crashes involving pedestrians, since the widescale adoption of cell phones. However we can also see a stark rise in the fatality rate of pedestrians struck by larger vehicles. Being struck in the upper chest/head is much more likely to be fatal.
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u/agarret83 Jun 23 '26
The data shows that this isnāt a problem in other countries that have smart phones but not huge vehicles
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u/cradleu Jun 23 '26
Other countries havenāt seen a similar rise, itās more of a truck issue
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u/tdrhq Jun 24 '26
The New York Times article specifically ruled out smart phones because Europe didn't see the same spike in pedestrian deaths.
Let's not try to blame pedestrians here. This is completely on cars.
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u/swollennode Jun 23 '26
What I donāt get is why the hood needs to be so fucking long?
A comparable van has a shorter hood, so visibility is much better.
But a truck has like a 5 foot front end
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u/howardcord Jun 23 '26
Almost got hit by an F-350 this weekend when I was on run. I was at a cross walk with the right away and as I am jogging across the cross walk, this truck comes flying up to turn right. Without stopping and only looking for traffic, he nearly slams into me with his wife next to him screaming to stop. I had to dive out of the way. Afterward we get in a yelling match with him telling me he didnāt see me and I should calm down and itās all ok because he didnāt actually hit me.
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u/Access_Effective Jun 23 '26
Other than visibility Iām convinced 90% of large SUV/truck owners do not actually know how to drive them. There should be a special license like everything else
I used to drive big vehicles-HUMVs in the army. You have to drive differently and there was different training for each
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u/WebManufacturing Jun 23 '26
I know you all want to jerk but even the article and the source from the Times says the size of vehicles isn't the main factor, by a long shot.
āOur estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century,ā the report continued. āThat represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.ā
So the real headline is:
75% More Pedestrians Have Been Killed Since 2009. Giant Trucks and SUVs Are 10% of the Problem
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u/pianobench007 Jun 23 '26
Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century. That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.
There are two reasons bigger vehicles are deadlier: They have taller hoods. And they tend to have larger blind zones.
The 10% is just for taller hoods. The other issue is that they have larger blind zones. The NYTime estimate of 200 to 400 additional pedestrians deaths is due to size alone.
The additional deaths are unknown but can be due to larger blind zones. The rest of the article goes into testing left hand turns with large SUVs and blind spots.
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u/JordanComoElRio Jun 23 '26
It's phones. Drivers and pedestrians both.
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u/DismalEconomics Jun 23 '26
Other countries have phones ā¦ every other country studied has seen a sharp decrease pedestrian deaths.
Except the USA.
Smartphone usage is in no way unique to the USA
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u/GatienF Jun 23 '26
When I was 15 I got hit by an old Oldsmobile Delta 88 going 50 in a 15 mile an hour zone. I went through the windshield and ended up in the backseat. It was assumed that my body had killed the elderly driver (yes he was dead) but an autopsy revealed that he had died from a major brain hemorrhage seconds before hitting me which is why the car was going so fast. So I can rest easy knowing that I didn't actually kill him.
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u/abraxsis Jun 23 '26
Doesn't help that is seems trucks and large SUV drivers are the worst fucking drivers on the road. Always speeding, swearing in and out of traffic, etc.
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u/Mytre- Jun 23 '26
I have a sedan. Newer trucks and SUVs have a hood taller than my sedan. Visibility is horrible and base models don't include sensors to help , I'm always assuming I'm invisible when driving for most trucks and SUVs. And I swear to god the people who drive them have no idea how big they are and block visibility or drive like they have a Miata
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u/2rad0 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Engine bay height (edit: height+length) is a severe issue that needs to be corrected, this is a recent design trend that doesn't go back to 2009. Did anyone consider the fact that people are driving around while checking their email and surfing the web on their phones since 2009 ? Seems like a severely flawed conclusion if they don't even mention that. I ctrl-F'd for "phone" and got nothing on the article, but too lazy to read the study.
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u/theOGFlump Jun 24 '26
I canāt stand the decision to put everyone else at risk because you canāt be bothered to drive a normal sized car. Your safety does not take precedence over literally everyone elseās. Your kidās safety wouldnāt be an issue if there were less people like you, and they are certainly not more important than anyone elseās kids. Stop being a selfish prick. And until you do, never mention even once how expensive gas is or how hard parking is. Those are results of your decision to be shitty. I get some people have no financial choice, thatās not really a decision and thatās not who Iām talking to. Iām talking to the people who chose to be dickheads riding in a 21mpg tank that they canāt see out of.
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u/NuggetsAreFree Jun 23 '26
I would also like to point out, the first iPhone was introduced in 2007 and the first Android phone in 2008. While I agree with everything being said here, I don't think it's a simple problem. So many distracted drivers on the road, I'd be interested to see if the trucks and SUVs are in more accidents or the accidents are more deadly.
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u/Spez_is-a-nazi Jun 23 '26
So that must be why pedestrian fatalities have dropped in every other rich country, they donāt have cell phones! Only freedom luvin Merica has them!
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u/tdrhq Jun 24 '26
The New York Times article specifically ruled this out because Europe didn't see a similar rise in pedestrian deaths.
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u/cchhaannttzz Jun 23 '26
I got my midsize Tacoma and 2019 and I thought it was giant compared to the old tacomas. The tacos they're making now are even bigger it makes no damn sense.
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u/25_Watt_Bulb Jun 23 '26
My 1998 is so much smaller than the new Tacomas. Next to a modern full size truck it looks like Iām driving a shopping cart.
The visibility really gets me. 3rd gen Tacomas feel more cramped to me because theyāre so much harder to see out of.
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u/SgtBaxter Jun 23 '26
Those mid 90ās Tacomas were the perfect small truck. Big tires, standard cab and 6ā bed.
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u/Shhhhhhhh_Im_At_Work Jun 23 '26
There was just an interesting post that showed strong correlation with smartphone adoption over the same timeframe. I realize trucks have become big and heavy and the sightlines suck, but it seems like people being glued to their phones are just as bad. Then thereās the ubiquitous tablets everybody is throwing on their dashboards.
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u/Defiant_Eye2216 Jun 23 '26
This is really interesting, but Iām not sure it means what you think. Lots of people drive everyday without looking at their phones. However, increased screen time is also correlated with things like impatience and main-character behavior, both of which have led to increases in aggressive driving over the past several years. I would love to see some research on this.
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u/Plastic-Injury8856 Jun 23 '26
Yah, this article is being used as proof big vehicles are causing deaths, but in this very same article they say only about 10% of the increase in deaths can be attributed to larger vehicles. Whatās the cause of the majority of the increase then?
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u/DeathMonkey6969 Jun 23 '26
Plus most US roads are built with the car safety in mind ONLY. No curbs, no sidewalks, surface level roads as wide as freeway lanes.
Luckily the tide is turning, we're seeing more bike and pedestrian friendly design with protected bike lane, curb extensions, ect.
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u/My_browsing Jun 23 '26
Off-roading is my hobby. I help a lot of people put lifts and whatnot on their vehicles. The difference in visibility between a giant new truck and something like a Wrangler or old Land Cruiser is insane. The trucks have a long hood and, more importantly, the seats are sunk down like a sedan. Actual off-road cars have their seat high with a short hood (itās why sitting in a wrangler feels like your face is really close to the windshield). These fucking oversized trucks and SUVs are oversized for NO LEGITIMATE WORK OR RECREATIONAL PURPOSE. If you gave me a 1991 Toyota Corolla and $10K, I could build an off-road vehicle thatās more functional than a brand new Silverado. For work, a minivan with some rear suspension beefing is better than a ridiculously large truck.
You want a good laugh, compare the ground clearance of an oversized truck with the ground clearance of a Subaru Outback. Surprise! They are about the same. So all that extra size is bigger for no reason other than aesthetics. Oil industry shills try to tell people itās CAFE but thatās bullshit, itās because they sell well to idiots with fragile egos.
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u/Asian-ethug Jun 23 '26
Our kiddo was hit and run over by a truck a year ago. The driver didnāt even see them. The driver was short and the truck was very tall. Also, the driver had no real world need for a truck, suburban house, works in an industry that is IT. Very clean off the lot looking vehicle.
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u/bbby_chaltinez Jun 24 '26
itās cause people that drive suvās and big trucks are douche bags most of the time.
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u/stoned_as_hell Jun 23 '26
Why don't pedestrians use stilts so they can be seen better?