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Trucks are more dangerous to pedestrians because of the higher and flatter front--means people end up underneath rather than above if they are struck. I underst

Trucks are more dangerous to pedestrians because of the higher and flatter front--means people end up underneath rather than above if they are struck. I understand why they kept the look the same and why they used that space but in the future would prefer that they made changes to make it safer for everyone and not just the occupants. The high hoods make for poor visibility around the front.

philshem 5y ago
Thank you. As a cyclist and pedestrian (who does own a normally-sized car), I was getting pretty frustrated by the lack of safety discussed in the comments. https://twitter.com/lloydalter/status/1395326192908218371?s=20 https://twitter.com/lloydalter/status/1395326192908218371?s=...
- Miner49er 5y ago
  I agree this is less safe for pedestrians, which matters in cities, but it is maybe safer in rural areas? I'd much rather hit a deer or moose going 80 in a tall truck then a short truck. Also, in my experience, people drive much slower in smaller towns, and are therefore less likely to hit a pedestrian or cyclist. Plus the added visibility is nice and certainly would increase safety, I would think.
  - philshem 5y ago
    I guess suburbs are where these trucks and people most often encounter each other.
  - akira2501 5y ago
    > but it is maybe safer in rural areas? People walk in rural areas, too; and those roads are often not designed for it and these accidents tend to happen at night. There's a significant percentage of pedestrian deaths that happen out of the city under these circumstances.
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  Sounds like a common sense reasoning about this. Are there stats to back it up? Do trucks pose a significantly greater risk to cyclists and pedestrians? I'm actually a truck owning cyclist myself.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    You'd need a study that actually looked at more than just "what happens if you hit a pedestrian at 25 mph" - because it's quite possible that a truck does more damage when it hits, but hits less often because it's higher up and has better visibility.
    - rxhernandez 5y ago
      I feel like I'm much more able to see pedestrians in my Cayman than in my 4Runner. People seem to blend in with the surroundings the higher up I am.
  - reportingsjr 5y ago
    Yes, there are lots of studies on this. If you want info a good place to start is London's upcoming ban on large vehicles with low visibility (I would provide more info, but I'm limited on time right now).
  - gregsq 5y ago
    Front visibility issues come up from time to time. Especially with children sometimes hidden from sight. https://www.wthr.com/mobile/article/news/investigations/13-investigates/13-investigates-millions-vehicles-have-unexpected-dangerous-front-blind-zone/531-9521c471-3bc1-4b55-b860-3363f0954b3b https://www.wthr.com/mobile/article/news/investigations/13-i...
  - mike_d 5y ago
    The commonly cited study (that of course nobody reads) from the Governors Highway Safety Association showed that if you get hit by a truck or SUV you have a higher chance of dying. They also found that if you adjust for how many of each are on the road, you are 15% more likely to be hit by the driver of a car. Trucks and SUVs are on average newer than cars and at a higher price point, which means more newer safety features like object detection and driver warnings. I also suspect the feeling of mass in driving a larger vehicle makes you take driving more seriously.
- jacurtis 5y ago
  > As a cyclist and pedestrian (who does own a normally-sized car) I love that you threw in some completely unnecessary information into that short comment to virtue signal that you aren't evil like all the pickup truck drivers are.
WhompingWindows 5y ago
This is a true point, but it applies to SUV's as well as trucks. This is more an argument for moving to a sedan-dominated fleet than an argument against trucks... but good luck: in the USA, SUVs and trucks are two very hot market segments.
- ScarZy 5y ago
  Here's one for you on that topic from London: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56647128 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56647128 Cities should start taxing the size of vehicles too if they're going to let people park on the street. Smart cars are a fantastic utility vehicle for example, but are not incentivised enough.
jessriedel 5y ago
Pedestrians make up only a small minority of people killed in car crashes. (Like 6k of 40k per year.) So sure, it's good to make easy adjustments if they lead to big reductions in deaths, but it's not reasonable to care a ton about seriousness restricting the form factor yet think cars are fine in general. Best would be indexing car/truck sales tax to the size of the negative safety externalities, which would be a quite small fraction of the total car price, and letting people buy what they want to buy. It's clear consumers in the US value the large truck format and are willing to pay for it.
- SECProto 5y ago
  Cars&trucks cause a large majority of the pedestrians killed in walking-around-the-city accidents, though. Lumping those deaths in with highway deaths makes the statistic meaningless.
  - taneq 5y ago
    Not if saving 5k pedestrians kills 10k highway drivers. (Numbers made up, I’m just saying you have to consider them.)
    - Chico75 5y ago
      Why would design changes that improve visiblity to avoid killing pedestrians end up killing more highway drivers?
      - ttyprintk 5y ago
        From other threads, one might conclude that animal accidents in rural areas inspire some apprehension about wedge-profiled designs. In USA, 1m out of the 6m auto accidents each year involve one car and one animal, with a human death rate of 200 per year.
  - jessriedel 5y ago
    No. That would only be potentially true if people were proposing a law to limit the form factor of trucks that are driven in cities (and even if so, it would not be obvious; you'd have to look at the numbers). Since that isn't feasible, and all the proposed laws are about limiting the form factor of all consumer trucks, the average statics are the relevant ones. You can always find a subpopulation where some effect is large; that can't be good reason to make rules that constrain the entire population.
HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
Every single near-miss I've had while walking in Minneapolis has been due to the driver not paying attention. There wasn't a single time it was due to lack of visibility from inside the vehicle. My yelling at one driver who was staring at her phone while driving out of a parking ramp and across the sidewalk where she nearly hit me, probably woke her up enough to avoid driving into traffic and being hit by a bus! No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.
- tuxone 5y ago
  Totally agree with you. Now, would you prefer being hit by a Ford F-150 or Fiat 500 (same speed)?
- jszymborski 5y ago
  The gp was simply stating that being struck by a truck is more lethal than a car due to their flat, tall fronts. They weren't, by my reading, insinuating that trucks are more likely to hit people. That is indeed, in my opinion, a function of operator error all things equal.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    The GP said also, " The high hoods make for poor visibility around the front." to which your parent responded.
  - jorvi 5y ago
    Yup, this is also why the Cybertruck (probably) won't be road legal in Europe. Too many sharp edges that would seriously hurt a pedestrian on collision.
    - carlivar 5y ago
      Also no side mirrors. It's kind of a joke how poorly defined it is with people seriously expecting it this year.
      - 5y ago
yboris 5y ago
Related: Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? by Douglas Husak Because of high crash incompatibility, more overall damage and death occurs because of SUVs (and other similar vehicles). https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447?seq=1
dmtroyer 5y ago
especially more dangerous when they've been retrofitted with even higher steel off-roading bumpers.

philshem 5y ago

Thank you. As a cyclist and pedestrian (who does own a normally-sized car), I was getting pretty frustrated by the lack of safety discussed in the comments. https://twitter.com/lloydalter/status/1395326192908218371?s=20 https://twitter.com/lloydalter/status/1395326192908218371?s=...

Miner49er 5y ago
I agree this is less safe for pedestrians, which matters in cities, but it is maybe safer in rural areas? I'd much rather hit a deer or moose going 80 in a tall truck then a short truck. Also, in my experience, people drive much slower in smaller towns, and are therefore less likely to hit a pedestrian or cyclist. Plus the added visibility is nice and certainly would increase safety, I would think.
- philshem 5y ago
  I guess suburbs are where these trucks and people most often encounter each other.
- akira2501 5y ago
  > but it is maybe safer in rural areas? People walk in rural areas, too; and those roads are often not designed for it and these accidents tend to happen at night. There's a significant percentage of pedestrian deaths that happen out of the city under these circumstances.
DangitBobby 5y ago
Sounds like a common sense reasoning about this. Are there stats to back it up? Do trucks pose a significantly greater risk to cyclists and pedestrians? I'm actually a truck owning cyclist myself.
- bombcar 5y ago
  You'd need a study that actually looked at more than just "what happens if you hit a pedestrian at 25 mph" - because it's quite possible that a truck does more damage when it hits, but hits less often because it's higher up and has better visibility.
  - rxhernandez 5y ago
    I feel like I'm much more able to see pedestrians in my Cayman than in my 4Runner. People seem to blend in with the surroundings the higher up I am.
- reportingsjr 5y ago
  Yes, there are lots of studies on this. If you want info a good place to start is London's upcoming ban on large vehicles with low visibility (I would provide more info, but I'm limited on time right now).
- gregsq 5y ago
  Front visibility issues come up from time to time. Especially with children sometimes hidden from sight. https://www.wthr.com/mobile/article/news/investigations/13-investigates/13-investigates-millions-vehicles-have-unexpected-dangerous-front-blind-zone/531-9521c471-3bc1-4b55-b860-3363f0954b3b https://www.wthr.com/mobile/article/news/investigations/13-i...
- mike_d 5y ago
  The commonly cited study (that of course nobody reads) from the Governors Highway Safety Association showed that if you get hit by a truck or SUV you have a higher chance of dying. They also found that if you adjust for how many of each are on the road, you are 15% more likely to be hit by the driver of a car. Trucks and SUVs are on average newer than cars and at a higher price point, which means more newer safety features like object detection and driver warnings. I also suspect the feeling of mass in driving a larger vehicle makes you take driving more seriously.
jacurtis 5y ago
> As a cyclist and pedestrian (who does own a normally-sized car) I love that you threw in some completely unnecessary information into that short comment to virtue signal that you aren't evil like all the pickup truck drivers are.

WhompingWindows 5y ago

This is a true point, but it applies to SUV's as well as trucks. This is more an argument for moving to a sedan-dominated fleet than an argument against trucks... but good luck: in the USA, SUVs and trucks are two very hot market segments.

ScarZy 5y ago
Here's one for you on that topic from London: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56647128 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56647128 Cities should start taxing the size of vehicles too if they're going to let people park on the street. Smart cars are a fantastic utility vehicle for example, but are not incentivised enough.

jessriedel 5y ago

Pedestrians make up only a small minority of people killed in car crashes. (Like 6k of 40k per year.) So sure, it's good to make easy adjustments if they lead to big reductions in deaths, but it's not reasonable to care a ton about seriousness restricting the form factor yet think cars are fine in general. Best would be indexing car/truck sales tax to the size of the negative safety externalities, which would be a quite small fraction of the total car price, and letting people buy what they want to buy. It's clear consumers in the US value the large truck format and are willing to pay for it.

SECProto 5y ago
Cars&trucks cause a large majority of the pedestrians killed in walking-around-the-city accidents, though. Lumping those deaths in with highway deaths makes the statistic meaningless.
- taneq 5y ago
  Not if saving 5k pedestrians kills 10k highway drivers. (Numbers made up, I’m just saying you have to consider them.)
  - Chico75 5y ago
    Why would design changes that improve visiblity to avoid killing pedestrians end up killing more highway drivers?
    - ttyprintk 5y ago
      From other threads, one might conclude that animal accidents in rural areas inspire some apprehension about wedge-profiled designs. In USA, 1m out of the 6m auto accidents each year involve one car and one animal, with a human death rate of 200 per year.
- jessriedel 5y ago
  No. That would only be potentially true if people were proposing a law to limit the form factor of trucks that are driven in cities (and even if so, it would not be obvious; you'd have to look at the numbers). Since that isn't feasible, and all the proposed laws are about limiting the form factor of all consumer trucks, the average statics are the relevant ones. You can always find a subpopulation where some effect is large; that can't be good reason to make rules that constrain the entire population.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago

Every single near-miss I've had while walking in Minneapolis has been due to the driver not paying attention. There wasn't a single time it was due to lack of visibility from inside the vehicle. My yelling at one driver who was staring at her phone while driving out of a parking ramp and across the sidewalk where she nearly hit me, probably woke her up enough to avoid driving into traffic and being hit by a bus! No, it's not the vehicles, it's the people driving them.

tuxone 5y ago
Totally agree with you. Now, would you prefer being hit by a Ford F-150 or Fiat 500 (same speed)?
jszymborski 5y ago
The gp was simply stating that being struck by a truck is more lethal than a car due to their flat, tall fronts. They weren't, by my reading, insinuating that trucks are more likely to hit people. That is indeed, in my opinion, a function of operator error all things equal.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  The GP said also, " The high hoods make for poor visibility around the front." to which your parent responded.
- jorvi 5y ago
  Yup, this is also why the Cybertruck (probably) won't be road legal in Europe. Too many sharp edges that would seriously hurt a pedestrian on collision.
  - carlivar 5y ago
    Also no side mirrors. It's kind of a joke how poorly defined it is with people seriously expecting it this year.
    - 5y ago

yboris 5y ago

Related: Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? by Douglas Husak Because of high crash incompatibility, more overall damage and death occurs because of SUVs (and other similar vehicles). https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447?seq=1

dmtroyer 5y ago

especially more dangerous when they've been retrofitted with even higher steel off-roading bumpers.