16 ms·

Bigger vehicles are directly resulting in more deaths of people walking

387 points by tonyedgecombe 5y ago

FridayoLeary 5y ago
Which is ironic since cars needs to be bigger today in order to conform to safety regulations, which include pedestrian safety.
- Causality1 5y ago
  You're getting downvoted but that's a valid point. If you spend any time around older vehicles you notice how "chunky" modern cars are, how little passenger volume they have compared to their outer dimensions. I'm not saying those measures aren't worth it, but they are making cars bigger.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    It depends on the timeframe. 30-40 years ago there were cars like the Caprice. You can't even get a car with that size and capacity today (look at how small the modern caprice is). I would say the general trend is cars are getting smaller and people are opting for larger types of vehicles like SUVs.
    - MobiusHorizons 5y ago
      I think you are describing a different phenomenon: Large sedans getting replaced by other vehicle types leaving smaller sedans. The case of the caprice seems to be a totally different vehicle if I am understanding the years you have in mind correctly. Certainly the newer models of caprice are targeting a very different audience than the old ones did.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        "I think you are describing a different phenomenon: Large sedans getting replaced by other vehicle types leaving smaller sedans." Basically, but it's also that the meaning of the terms have changed. The Caprice is and was a full size car. Today's full size car has about the same capacities and room as an older midsize car.
- newacct583 5y ago
  I don't think that's responsive. Regulations are forcing up the size of the smallest vehicles. The median vehicle in the US is a SUV with almost twice the curb weight of those "larger" compacts. The change in median vehicle weight is absolutely not being caused by safety regulations.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Regulations are forcing up the size of everything short of a fullsize truck or van. Cars in various segments (compact, midsize, crossover, midsize crossover, etc, etc) have set ranged of interior dimensions. For example, a Civic will always be about the same width as a CRV (same platform) and an Accord will always be wider than both. But all these cars have grown a lot compared to their 90s counterparts. With regulations requiring thick doors, pillars, etc. the exteriors of all these vehicles have grown and interior space has stayed closer to constant. Obviously the pressure is less the bigger the vehicle is so this doesn't explain modern trucks but the pressure is definitely felt everywhere, not just as the small end.
- Someone 5y ago
  FTA: “federal policymakers have so far failed to make any significant changes to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) to include testing, ratings, or safety standards for people outside a vehicle, whether on foot, bike, or using assistive devices. Read that again: we do not test for, or even consider, the impact of a new car’s design on potential collisions with human beings not in a vehicle—an action that results in a death more than 6,200 times per year and increasing almost every year.” ⇒ I don’t think what you say is true in the USA.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Yes and no, but I think mostly yes. Asian and European regulations on pedestrian safety for autos have an effect on design worldwide as most makers want to sell their cars into most markets. Many of the cars you buy in the US meet those pedestrian safety regulations, even though there’s no US regulation requiring it. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15118822/taking-the-hit-how-pedestrian-protection-regs-make-cars-fatter-feature/ https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15118822/taking-the-h...
    - stefan_ 5y ago
      These two markets are increasingly divorced. Absurdly huge trucks are an unique US obsession.
      - underwater 5y ago
        I'm beginning to see them creeping into Australia. Absolute insanity to drive a massive RAM or Ford pickup in a crowded city.
  - wyager 5y ago
    Only 6200 per year? Reducing this by maybe a few hundred does not seem like a productive thing to spend political energy on. I question if it would be utilitarian even ignoring the political cost. That’s really far down the cause of death list.
- wyager 5y ago
  The front ~1foot of my car is 90% air, presumably to create some crumple zone. Very space-inefficient.
  - Someone 5y ago
    Don’t try this at home, but if any part of your body with that 90% air at car speed, what do you think will crumple first? That crumple zone does very little to protect people outside the car.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I have a friend who was hit by a car doing around 25 mph. Those plastic bumpers do prevent damage. If he got hit with an older car with steel bumpers, it would be a different outcome.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Not to ruin your witty comment with reality but... If his car is sold internationally that "mostly air" bulbous nose is likely specifically engineered to reduce damage to pedestrians.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Doesn't seem like that is necessarily true. The 4th-generation Mazda Miata is lighter than the 1st-generation, despite conforming to all relevant modern safety standards, and being a generally all-around better vehicle.
  - magila 5y ago
    The Miata is an outlier. Mazda went to great lengths to keep the car's weight down since being light weight is a big part of the car's appeal. The extra development cost and tradeoffs wouldn't make sense for the typical sedan, let alone larger vehicles.
- michaelrpeskin 5y ago
  I’m no apologist for new big cars, but…I was dropping my kids off at school and a 1st grader was riding her bike through the crosswalk and another driver didn’t see her. He bumped her at less-than walking speed so no one was seriously injured. I was amazed at how she bounced up and away from the car. If I would have hit her with my (old) truck, even at that super low speed, I’m sure she would have gotten caught on the bumper and pulled under the wheels. The new pedestrian safety designs are cool even though they do make all cars look the same and bulbous now.
barney54 5y ago
Did I miss the part where they show that pedestrian deaths have actually increased? They show that the proportion of SUVs hitting pedestrians have increased which makes sense because there are more SUVs, but I didn’t see that the actual deaths have increased. Maybe I missed it!
- jdavis703 5y ago
  I can’t find data going up until 2020, but there are easily searchable news articles reporting on 2020 being a record year for deaths. Here’s some data, but it only goes to 2018: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians19 https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians19
- wgjordan 5y ago
  The linked Dangerous by Design 2021 report [1] shows the data on increased pedestrian deaths: > The number of people struck and killed by drivers nationwide while walking increased by an astonishing 45 percent over the last decade (2010-2019). [1] https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/ https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/
  - unclebucknasty 5y ago
    Interestingly, the article you linked doesn't mention SUVs or refer to vehicle size at all. It attributes the increase to an emphasis on speed over safety: >state and local transportation agencies place a higher value on speed (and avoiding delay) than they do on safety...When faced with decisions that would elevate and prioritize safety for people walking but increase delay for vehicles, the decision-makers’ true priorities are laid bare. The original linked article, however, does point to another article on a govt site that gets into vehicle size. [0] But, in total the conclusions vacillate between the issue being lack of visibility (implying more accidents) and increased lethality owed to mass and, possibly the higher profile of the vehicle. Of course, you could conclude it's both more accidents and increased lethality, but the data doesn't seem to bear that out. For instance, the report cites a meta study that found a 2x-3x increase in fatalities when trucks or SUVs are involved, but the report also states the fatality rate for those vehicles is 40%. The original article further notes sales of trucks and SUVs have outpaced smaller vehicles since at least '07 and other assessments show these larger vehicles now make up 50% of vehicles on the road. So, the data seems to show disproportionately fewer fatalities for these larger vehicles. [0] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31323/new-car-assessment-program https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31...
grawprog 5y ago
I know it's not science, there's no data or anything. But, i've almost been hit as a pedestrian just under 10 times. Every single time it was by either a Mercedes or BMW sedan. My sister was hit by a BMW sedan driver, her back's been fucked ever since. Almost everyone I know that's been involved in an accident as a pedestrian has been hit by either a Mercedes or BMW sedan. ETA: Seeing as I'm getting downvoted, might as well keep going they've also always inevitably hit and run, or been incredibly rude and scream at you as they almost kill you with their half ton of plastic and metal when they're not paying attention to the road.
- HugoDaniel 5y ago
  they can (pun intended)
- zuminator 5y ago
  That's an extraordinary amount of times to be struck by vehicles. Are there any unusual factors at play? (You live by a highway, have difficulty walking, live in area with poor traffic enforcement, are visually impaired, etc.?)
  - jerrysievert 5y ago
    the OP said almost been hit - I've almost been hit by vehicles while walking more times than that, usually because of a vehicle driver breaking the law. that happens a lot. as far as almost being hit while driving, drive a small car and you'll find out how many large vehicle drivers just don't see you.
    - zuminator 5y ago
      Ah, right you are. For some reason I mistakenly read that as him saying he had been actually hit almost ten times.
  - dionidium 5y ago
    Is it? He's describing "almost being hit." That's pretty squishy. I think most people who do a lot of walking or biking could come up with 10 "close calls" for some definition of that term.
deleted 5y ago
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ramoz 5y ago
Lol. What the hell is this? What's the real motive of this org? My "no phd"/"intuition" (their words) questions why they're not addressing the fact that most deaths likely happen in large cities. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/03/the-worst-us-cities-for-pedestrian-fatalities-infographic/?sh=5ac76b8bbf38 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/03/the-wo... ...But, maybe only republican cities for this org? https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/ https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/
- ramoz 5y ago
  And where are tractor trailers and buses in their statistics? https://www.paulsoncoletti.com/bus-accident-statistics/ https://www.paulsoncoletti.com/bus-accident-statistics/
- ramoz 5y ago
  Florida's response: https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2021/03/10/florida-dot-secretary-pedestrian-fatality-report-inaccurate/6938246002/ https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/...
- tbihl 5y ago
  The statistics you cited show more "urban" than "rural", yes, but nowhere do they explain the distinction. Both words are poor descriptors of areas with unlimited access, 45mph roads linking gas stations and big box stores. In all likelihood, they just slap one word or other on to each death based on the municipality it was in, which is worthless for most places in the US.
- zip1234 5y ago
  Road deaths in the US are highest in Wyoming: https://twitter.com/Maps_US_EU/status/1429034525242318848 https://twitter.com/Maps_US_EU/status/1429034525242318848
  - 1123581321 5y ago
daxuak 5y ago
I haven't read all the linked materials, but the reference provided[1] with the sentence "To put it simply, pickup trucks and SUVs are two to three times more likely than smaller personal vehicles to kill people walking in the event of a crash." said the following: "The majority of fatal pedestrian crashes involve light vehicles.[210] About one-third of pedestrians who are injured are struck by an SUV or pickup truck (see Appendix VII, Table VII-1), which corresponds closely to the make-up of SUVs and pickups in the U.S. vehicle fleet. However, SUVs and pickups account for closer to 40 percent of pedestrian fatalities, which suggests that injuries may be more severe when sustained in collisions with these vehicles. " So at least for this one relieable source, SUVs or pickups are not hitting more people because of size/hight as argued by the blog. They tend to result in more damage in the accidents, instead. [1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31323/new-car-assessment-program https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31...
- lazyasciiart 5y ago
  The blog is not, by my reading, arguing that SUVs are hitting more people. It lists quite specific reasons that the impacts are worse when hit by an SUV etc than by a smaller car.
  - daxuak 5y ago
    It is strongly implied in figure1, figure 3, and explictly expressed ("You don’t need a PhD to see why trucks and SUVs are more likely to kill people walking: They’re taller, have worse visibility, and are more likely to produce head/neck injuries than leg injuries."). The cited reference did not directly support the visibility argumentt or the specific injury types (although I do not doubt that they could be true).
rishflab 5y ago
You can beat physics. Big cars means more energy to dissipate in a crash. If the regulators had half a brain they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass. Large cars also reduce visibility which further reduces safety. There has been a car size arms race for the past 30-40 years. Cars are getting bigger so you get an even bigger one to feel safe and have enough seat height to see around you.
- tbihl 5y ago
  They do tax cars based on weight (in the US). If your car weighs too little, it's a personal vehicle. If it's heavy enough to be "transportation equipment" (large SUV) you can get effective tax breaks by deducting its cost from your income to a much greater degree than for reasonable passenger vehicles[0]. [0]https://bradyware.com/business-vehicle-deductions-2020/ https://bradyware.com/business-vehicle-deductions-2020/ (not a primary source but it should give an idea.)
  - ruddct 5y ago
    For those surprised by this (as I was when I first heard about it), this is talking about Section 179, which allows someone to fully deduct the purchase price of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150) if it’s used for business. These vehicles are also not subject to the pedestrian safety requirements that 3-box vehicles (sedans, etc) are in the US.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      > of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150) I don't think a heavyweight vehicle has been built since the 1930s, when they started building lightweight vehicles. Today, if you see a passenger vehicle referred to as heavyweight that is likely due to a marketing spin on how well it performs or the load it can carry. Even in that sense, a Ford F-150 is marketed as a lightweight and F-250 is a medium.
      - bratcomplex 5y ago
        150 from f150 refers to its carting and load capacity.. not its actual weight. the weight difference between a 150,250,350 is not a very significant one. This issue is a 150 is being used outside its original use case. And dose the job a Corolla is intended for. But with twice the weight and size.
JJMcJ 5y ago
The comparisons in the article are for trucks from 1990s. Look at a picture of a pickup from the 1960s: https://cdn1.mecum.com/auctions/fl0116/fl0116-243533/images/fl0116-243533_1@2x.jpg https://cdn1.mecum.com/auctions/fl0116/fl0116-243533/images/... The old one seems positively dainty compared to current models.
- ramoz 5y ago
  You mean newer models like this: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/pedestrian-crash-prevention-earns-safety-award-for-ram-1500 https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/pedestrian-crash-prevention... This blog is trash. Propagating political motive on HN. Quite obvious.
  - 1986 5y ago
    > when equipped with specific headlights and optional front crash prevention. How many purchasers are actually paying extra for optional pedestrian safety add-ons?
    - igetspam 5y ago
      I do. Reverse cameras are federal now, I believe. Most of the truck stickers I looked at had front cameras too. It's a minimal cost.
  - addicted 5y ago
    > In vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention tests, the Ram 1500 avoided collisions at both 12 mph and 25 mph. In most of the vehicle-to-pedestrian tests, it avoided hitting the pedestrian dummy or slowed substantially to mitigate the force of impact. However, the system failed to slow the vehicle at all in the 37-mph trial designed to simulate an adult pedestrian walking in the travel lane in the same direction as the vehicle. So the standard they met fails to even slow down the car when seeing an adult pedestrian at a speed that is a fraction of the driving speed in nearly every American city. A handful of American cities have 25mph limits within the city but most drivers are driving at east 5-10 mph above that, which is kind of written into American DOT standards (which require speed limits to be set at 85% of the average driving speed on a road).
RyanGoosling 5y ago
Bigger cars are safer for the occupants
- trog 5y ago
  Is that true if everyone else just starts driving bigger cars? Seems like we'll just end up in a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario where everyone loses, but especially the people outside of the giant cars.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    It still makes sense when you consider the increased internal space. You can see this in single vehicle crash tests that do not rely on a second vehicle's size.
  - BarryMilo 5y ago
    We saw this in my philosophy class 15 years ago as a classic opportunist's dilemma. What you are describing is basically what happened though.
    - deleted 5y ago
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- jeffbee 5y ago
  Not wrong, but it has been estimated that for every occupant saved by larger cars in recent years, 2.2 pedestrians have died. Not a great balance.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  On the balance, yes, but SUVs have their own risks, notably rollover due to the highest center of gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_sport_utility_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_sport_utility_veh...
just_steve_h 5y ago
I think the fact that "automotive safety" begins at the headlights and ends at the tail lights is extremely relevant (and frightening). The safety of cars for literally everyone in the world EXCEPT for the 1-5 people inside that car is not considered. It was only a few years ago (2016, in Paris) that Christoph von Hugo, a safety engineer from Mercedes, was asked how a self-driving car would handle a "trolley problem" type situation, where the car could either hit a group of pedestrians, or swerve in a way that could injure or kill the driver, and he said, "Save the one in the car."
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Would any non-trivial population choose a self-driving car that would make the other choice?
  - haihaibye 5y ago
    Humans can beat these kind of problems via legislation. People need to remember they're inside at most 1 car, but outside of a billion.
lordgroff 5y ago
I can't wait for things like Hummer EV which might as well be a jumbo jet airplane compared to pedestrians, cyclists, hell, even other vehicle traffic.
sjg007 5y ago
The front end of a truck is designed to be directly proportional to the size of a man’s …. ego.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
twobitshifter 5y ago
The thing about trucks is that a taller fatter truck is not a better truck for truck activities than one with a reachable long bed. The gigantic noses do nothing to make the truck more capable. Ground clearance is helpful but even the S-10 pickup had 8.5” of ground clearance. Trucks today have 10-11, excessive, but that ground clearance doesn’t grow as much as the height of the trucks. It all started with the 90s Dodge RAMs, which today look very reasonable, and ever since then trucks have been in a fat nose arms race that nobody seemed to ask for.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  I fully understand the design intentions to grow cars and crossovers. You need to expand the exterior if you want to keep constant interior space despite a bunch of legally mandated engineering goals that cost interior space. I don't see what engineering goals are causing fullsize trucks to get so tall. They could have kept interior space constant with a very slight increase in width. NVH could be driving it somewhat but not that much.
- ip26 5y ago
  Maybe nobody is screaming "give us fat nose trucks" in the press, but buyers apparently love it. To me it seems pretty obviously meant to evoke big rigs, ala Mack trucks.
  - s0rce 5y ago
    My wife has a truck and I read a few truck forums and reddit and people seem to love the giant "aggressive" looking trucks. Even though for most applications its detrimental.
- jupp0r 5y ago
  Ground clearance is almost meaningless for off road driving once you've got a good baseline. Approach, departure and break over angles are what determines capability. That and the ability to fit big tires that can be aired down a lot.
dghughes 5y ago
Is it just the size of vehicles or the design of the streets and roads also to blame? The "stroad" which we seem to love here in Canada and I'd assume the USA is dangerous by design. Roads should be simple, medium speed, no traffic circles, few traffic lights, controlled access, no driveways exiting onto it, no bike lanes, no sidewalks, no crosswalks, no bus stops etc. Streets should be simple two lane, slow speed, more pedestrian friendly. But often the two are often mixed together meaning both pedestrians and traffic efficiency suffer.
- drivers99 5y ago
  I assume you’re also a fan of StrongTowns & Not Just Bikes? I’ve taken a deep interest in the topic. https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I suppose it's more proof I'm a bad person for laughing so hard that this just showed up directly below the 'On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking' article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28268136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28268136
jwilber 5y ago
Big trucks are the perfect example of untaxed negative externalities running free.
Supermancho 5y ago
The bigger the vehicle, the less fatalities overall for passengers/drivers of that vehicle in car accidents in the US. This has lots of compounded factors, but the increase in size is easily a survival factor against other large vehicles. I'll take the trade for the pedestrian death increase, which is a fraction of total car-related fatalities. I also feel that the number of pedestrians has increased due to various factors, which has led to a predictable increase in accidents and fatalities. This study feels like a lot of hand waving on a slow news cycle, when those numbers aren't alarming in the slightest.
- gbrown 5y ago
  [citation needed]
  - Supermancho 5y ago
    There are multiple resources, which you would have found with less keystrokes. https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-... Play with the dropdowns. Vehicle safety is pretty serious business with millions of injuries per year. I'm not citing everything that's casually available.
- jwmhjwmh 5y ago
  The article mentions that car safety standards do not take pedestrian safety into account. Surely these standards should be based on a complete picture, even if the revised standards do not end up incentivizing smaller cars.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Fatalities per mile driven have been trending down over time, drifting over the years towards 1 fatality per 100 million miles driven. It will keep improve automatically based on the standardization of various safety tech like blind spot monitoring, collision detection, collision avoidance, automated braking, sensors for cross traffic when reversing, and so on. Many of these features are increasingly becoming a standard feature rather than an option. Like most urbanist blogs this one also ignores that these vehicles, large and moving at high speed, deliver massive utility to all of society. For the low fatality rates we experience overall, I don’t see a problem. It’s worth the tradeoff to me and most others. We don’t fear everyday life due to rare negative circumstances, and we shouldn’t unless everyone is going to be consistent about it and just permanently remain indoors in search of perfect safety.
- after_care 5y ago
  Our transportation system is hardly the result of utility maximization. Cars are remarkably inefficient from a large variety of viewpoints. Parking spaces eat our urban real estate, traffic eats our time, emissions pollute our air and all of this leads to the second largest expenditure in the median household budget. Sure, this article is overstating the danger of traffic accidents, but you can’t say cars are a great choice because of the utility it provides society.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    I’m saying that private motor vehicles are a huge net positive despite all of that. This is hard to fully discuss in the context of a comment, and we may not see eye to eye on this, but I hope I am able to explain my perspective well: For many urban areas, real estate is desirable in part because of its accessibility, including by cars. Without that, many who live outside the downtown core wouldn’t be there, lowering the value of that real estate. Sure pollution is undesirable but we can address that, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that being able to get places quickly via cars has improved the richness of our lives and added tremendously to the economy over the last several decades. Traffic eats our time but that’s not true everywhere, and traffic also reflects demand. Traffic is evidence that a lot of people value being able to get to the activities they want, whether that’s work or leisure. And traffic can be alleviated by just building more roads and highways to meet demand - induced demand is a myth that relies on the illogical notion that there is literally infinite demand, which is not true. Are cars expensive? Sure but so are a lot of desirable things in life. The fact that we still purchase them reflects their value to us. There’s no other transportation option that gives me fast, weather proof, point to point transportation, on my own schedule, for me and any cargo or passengers I have. Public transit will never meet the travel times and flexibility of driving in locations with adequate road infrastructure. And there are no alternatives if I want a life where my day might span a variety of people and activities, which usually mean traveling across a wide area. Having lived in very dense metropolises with only public transit, I can confidently say there’s just no comparison - without a car you’re forced to live on a limited set of routes and on timetables with wait times. Your freedom to experience life is reduced because you just can’t get as much done on any given day, and for me it was hard to even see that until I moved out of an urban jungle. A high density transit only life may be great for young urbanites whose range of activities and circle of people matches that situation, but it isn’t what everyone desires. I’m fine with some cities like NYC optimizing for subways and buses but not every place has to be that way, because people are different and live differently. In my view, cars enable that variation in who we are, and unlocks lifestyles that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
baryphonic 5y ago
The complete lack of hard data and game-able statistics made me curious, so I went to the cited journal article. > It analyzes all 231,675 pedestrian fatalities recorded between 1977 and 2016 in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database. Over 40 years, most pedestrian fatalities occurred in darkness (65%) and involved male pedestrians (70%) and male drivers (67%). They were commonly in roadway lanes (90%), away from intersections (80%), and involved vehicles traveling straight (83%). Most occurred on roadways with speed limits of 35 mph (56 km/h) or higher (70%) and four or more lanes (50%). Trends were compared across eight 5-year periods. Between the earliest and latest periods, there were significant decreases in the proportion of pedestrian fatalities among children younger than 15 (from 18% to 5%) and involving drivers who were drinking (from 15% to 8%). There were significant increases in pedestrian fatalities during darkness (from 63% to 73%), involving large vehicles (e.g., pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs) (from 22% to 44%), on roadways with speed limits 35 mph or higher (from 60% to 76%), and on roadways with four or more lanes (from 41% to 58%). [0] That comes out to around 5,792 pedestrian deaths per year. And note that the "think of the children" motif of this post is totally undermined by the cited data: whatever increase in fatalities can be blamed on SUVs and pickups, kids are apparently much less likely to get hit as pedestrians today, for whatever reason. Just for sake of comparison, in 2016, the total number of highway fatalities tracked by the NHTSA was 37,461, (of which 5,987 were pedestrians, quite close to the 40-year mean).[1] Thus, the ratio of non-pedestrian highway fatalities to pedestrian fatalities is roughly 5.25:1. "Smart Growth" endorses this recommendation: > "Cars can be designed to be safer if they strike pedestrians by using softer materials on lower bumpers and hoods and incorporating more space between the hoods and engine components, and automakers that opt not to do this will suffer lower safety ratings. Yet, hard materials that crunch and break off are used in bumpers because of the conservation of momentum, and the fact that people in other cars are clearly at a much greater risk than the average pedestrian. Other recommendations like making the front ends longer run into problems with fuel economy standards. The auto industry is not immune from criticism, but automotive engineers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems utterly insane to me that they should be expected to optimize for this case when auto-auto collisions are much more common and deadly, and when the pedestrians personal choices are clearly a factor. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198120933636 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198120933636 [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/usdot-releases-2016-fatal-traffic-crash-data https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/usdot-releases-2016-fat...
boramalper 5y ago
> more deaths of people walking I genuinely found it difficult to understand. Why not use “more pedestrian deaths” instead?
dalek2point3 5y ago
related: https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/81/2/535/1517632?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/81/2/535/15... Pounds That Kill: The External Costs of Vehicle Weight Heavier vehicles are safer for their own occupants but more hazardous for other vehicles. Simple theory thus suggests that an unregulated vehicle fleet is inefficiently heavy. Using three separate identification strategies we show that, controlling for own-vehicle weight, being hit by a vehicle that is 1000 pounds heavier generates a 40–50% increase in fatality risk. These results imply a total accident-related externality that exceeds the estimated social cost of US carbon emissions and is equivalent to a gas tax of $0.97 per gallon ($136 billion annually). We consider two policies for internalizing this external cost, a weight-varying mileage tax and a gas tax, and find that they are similar for most vehicles. The findings suggest that European gas taxes may be much closer to optimal levels than the US gas tax.
- fy20 5y ago
  EVs are probably going to make this problem worse as they are typically heavier than the ICE equivalent. For example the Porsche Panamera weighs 2000kg and the Porsche Taycan weighs 2800kg. The VW Tiguan weighs 1500kg, where as the VW ID.4 weighs 1800kg.
adam0c 5y ago
Not to poop all over this article but doesn't the advance in automotive industry also bring things like automatic brakes etc to protect against collisions, lane swerve etc. :/ and I also enjoy a lot of cycling and have been hit by plenty idiots drived opening doors or making turns and not looking.
yboris 5y ago
One of my favorite philosophy papers: "Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked?" by Douglas Husak. He argues, base on data that SUVs have a high crash incompatibility with other cars, they are immoral. SUVs impose disproportionate damage to other cars, resulting in excess deaths and injuries that otherwise would not happen. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447
- giantg2 5y ago
  Why not set SUVs and trucks as the default then? One ould have to select the vehicle capable of accommodating the most people and situations. Many large/tall people have trouble fitting into cars. You can't pull livestock in a car either. It's like two people are in a room. One says they're hot. The other says they're cold. The hot person can only take off so many clothes, while the cold person could put on warmer clothes. Edit: is nobody reading this in the context of the parent comment?
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Why should there be a single default, instead of a default for each actual use case?
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Because they are claiming that the energy mismatch is immoral. Still allowing larger vehicles on the road does not address that mismatch and the "moral" aspect.
  - ironman1478 5y ago
    Car makers are making this the default. Ford is (or has?) eliminated cars from their American offerings. The problem is that even within the class of SUVs and trucks, those vehicles have gotten larger and faster over time. The analogy of the hot and cold person assumes the hot person is wearing a t-shirt and sweater, when in reality when you compare it to vehicles, it's more like they are wearing that gortex jacket from Seinfeld + 3 layers of sweaters. People don't need to cater to somebody unreasonable. People don't need SUVs. They provide like no advantage compared to a wagon to most people and endanger everybody else.
noduerme 5y ago
I was literally having this conversation yesterday with my girlfriend as we were driving country roads in my Datsun, which is significantly lower than the front grill of some of these jacked up, military style pickups. She made the classic small dick comment, but I was more hung up on the way our society has changed to make people want to style themselves in these militaristic, confrontational ways on a civilian road. You could argue that guys who drive turbo sports cars or restored classics or anything unique are compensating for something... but whatever they're compensating for isn't some sense that they aren't taking up enough space. I was going through a tunnel a few weeks ago when a modified F150 decided to roll coal on everyone behind them in the tunnel. The thing that's broken about our society is the fact that people who modify trucks to roll coal can afford to do that. They should really be out growing potatoes if we didn't have so much cheap credit.
- deleted 5y ago
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ck2 5y ago
We can't get people to give a damn about 700K deaths in a year. What is this fantasy that people are going to drive more carefully and not however they want, or massive lifted trucks or manufacturers are going to take less profit by not making bigger trucks? Yes, of course lawmakers could fix this. Never, ever going to happen. Hint: neither is preventing earth from boiling over in several decades because that also would require behavior change and less profit
lazyjones 5y ago
In general, protecting pedestrians is not the main goal of car design. They are built to protect the passengers of the car. As long as there are very heavy, dangerous (in case of an accident) vehicles on the road (samis/trucks, buses), I don't see a strong case for making passengers more vulnerable to benefit pedestrians, especially considering the market forces involved. Pedestrians are better protected with assisting technology without compromising the safety of the passengers. Also, the article is a bit sloppy with its claims. For example, it cites the SUV increase in market share and later the increased involvement of SUVs in accidents with pedestrians, as if the 2 things were not related. It's as partisan as expected.
gigel82 5y ago
And yet in the US cars are only getting bigger and bigger. I was looking for a small EV for commuting recently and found that both Smart ForTwo and Fiat 500e withdrew from the US market in the past couple of years. There are a lot more new SUVs than sedans, and the ratio has definitely gotten bigger over the past 5-6 years.
- p1mrx 5y ago
  The ForTwo and 500e are considerably smaller than a Chevy Bolt or Hyundai Kona... I don't see the US market ever demanding cars that small. People used to buy small cars for fuel efficiency, but that doesn't matter much between electrics.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    As long as parking is free and plentiful and roads are ridiculously wide people have very little incentive to buy a smaller car. Especially if they have to share the road with giant trucks.
masswerk 5y ago
Salute to the Fiat Multipla, which demonstrated 23 years ago how that problem may be addressed. ("But it looks funny!" – "Hum, it also kills less people." – "Still, I want an impressive car!")
rcurry 5y ago
I'm genuinely curious here - does anyone agree with me that being on foot seems to make it a hell of a lot easier to avoid cars than being out driving with them? I've had three drunk drivers hit me while I've been in a car, and yet have never been run over while just out walking around. When I'm on foot I just look around for the damn things and stay the hell away from them, in my car it's no such luck.
holografix 5y ago
The latest flavour of “fuck you” on the roads in Australia are the grotesque SUV Coupes from Mercedes and BMW. They’re like huge versions of the normal sized cars. It’s as if both companies execs set down and brainstormed how could rich people display wealth and selfishness more pornographically. The answer: enormous German tanks that occupy twice the road and go just as fast. I’ll never be rich because in my reality only very few people would be so childish to buy something like it. They’re everywhere in Sydney.
nobrains 5y ago
Also increasing the front blind zone: Image: https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WTHR/images/9092b67f-2b66-4091-b6da-5846a8abe275/9092b67f-2b66-4091-b6da-5846a8abe275_1920x1080.jpg https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WTHR/images/9092b67f-2b... Article: https://www.indiatimes.com/auto/current/it-took-13-kids-in-line-for-an-suv-driver-to-spot-them-and-this-highlights-a-disturbing-issue-504387.html https://www.indiatimes.com/auto/current/it-took-13-kids-in-l...
Borrible 5y ago
Sure, but the SUV driver think it is safer for them. https://injurylawyersoftampa.com/whats-safer-in-an-accident-is-an-suv-safer-than-a-car-or-sedan/ https://injurylawyersoftampa.com/whats-safer-in-an-accident-...

387 points by tonyedgecombe 5y ago

Which is ironic since cars needs to be bigger today in order to conform to safety regulations, which include pedestrian safety.

Causality1 5y ago
You're getting downvoted but that's a valid point. If you spend any time around older vehicles you notice how "chunky" modern cars are, how little passenger volume they have compared to their outer dimensions. I'm not saying those measures aren't worth it, but they are making cars bigger.
- giantg2 5y ago
  It depends on the timeframe. 30-40 years ago there were cars like the Caprice. You can't even get a car with that size and capacity today (look at how small the modern caprice is). I would say the general trend is cars are getting smaller and people are opting for larger types of vehicles like SUVs.
  - MobiusHorizons 5y ago
    I think you are describing a different phenomenon: Large sedans getting replaced by other vehicle types leaving smaller sedans. The case of the caprice seems to be a totally different vehicle if I am understanding the years you have in mind correctly. Certainly the newer models of caprice are targeting a very different audience than the old ones did.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      "I think you are describing a different phenomenon: Large sedans getting replaced by other vehicle types leaving smaller sedans." Basically, but it's also that the meaning of the terms have changed. The Caprice is and was a full size car. Today's full size car has about the same capacities and room as an older midsize car.
newacct583 5y ago
I don't think that's responsive. Regulations are forcing up the size of the smallest vehicles. The median vehicle in the US is a SUV with almost twice the curb weight of those "larger" compacts. The change in median vehicle weight is absolutely not being caused by safety regulations.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Regulations are forcing up the size of everything short of a fullsize truck or van. Cars in various segments (compact, midsize, crossover, midsize crossover, etc, etc) have set ranged of interior dimensions. For example, a Civic will always be about the same width as a CRV (same platform) and an Accord will always be wider than both. But all these cars have grown a lot compared to their 90s counterparts. With regulations requiring thick doors, pillars, etc. the exteriors of all these vehicles have grown and interior space has stayed closer to constant. Obviously the pressure is less the bigger the vehicle is so this doesn't explain modern trucks but the pressure is definitely felt everywhere, not just as the small end.
Someone 5y ago
FTA: “federal policymakers have so far failed to make any significant changes to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) to include testing, ratings, or safety standards for people outside a vehicle, whether on foot, bike, or using assistive devices. Read that again: we do not test for, or even consider, the impact of a new car’s design on potential collisions with human beings not in a vehicle—an action that results in a death more than 6,200 times per year and increasing almost every year.” ⇒ I don’t think what you say is true in the USA.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Yes and no, but I think mostly yes. Asian and European regulations on pedestrian safety for autos have an effect on design worldwide as most makers want to sell their cars into most markets. Many of the cars you buy in the US meet those pedestrian safety regulations, even though there’s no US regulation requiring it. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15118822/taking-the-hit-how-pedestrian-protection-regs-make-cars-fatter-feature/ https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15118822/taking-the-h...
  - stefan_ 5y ago
    These two markets are increasingly divorced. Absurdly huge trucks are an unique US obsession.
    - underwater 5y ago
      I'm beginning to see them creeping into Australia. Absolute insanity to drive a massive RAM or Ford pickup in a crowded city.
- wyager 5y ago
  Only 6200 per year? Reducing this by maybe a few hundred does not seem like a productive thing to spend political energy on. I question if it would be utilitarian even ignoring the political cost. That’s really far down the cause of death list.
wyager 5y ago
The front ~1foot of my car is 90% air, presumably to create some crumple zone. Very space-inefficient.
- Someone 5y ago
  Don’t try this at home, but if any part of your body with that 90% air at car speed, what do you think will crumple first? That crumple zone does very little to protect people outside the car.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I have a friend who was hit by a car doing around 25 mph. Those plastic bumpers do prevent damage. If he got hit with an older car with steel bumpers, it would be a different outcome.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Not to ruin your witty comment with reality but... If his car is sold internationally that "mostly air" bulbous nose is likely specifically engineered to reduce damage to pedestrians.
jeffbee 5y ago
Doesn't seem like that is necessarily true. The 4th-generation Mazda Miata is lighter than the 1st-generation, despite conforming to all relevant modern safety standards, and being a generally all-around better vehicle.
- magila 5y ago
  The Miata is an outlier. Mazda went to great lengths to keep the car's weight down since being light weight is a big part of the car's appeal. The extra development cost and tradeoffs wouldn't make sense for the typical sedan, let alone larger vehicles.
michaelrpeskin 5y ago
I’m no apologist for new big cars, but…I was dropping my kids off at school and a 1st grader was riding her bike through the crosswalk and another driver didn’t see her. He bumped her at less-than walking speed so no one was seriously injured. I was amazed at how she bounced up and away from the car. If I would have hit her with my (old) truck, even at that super low speed, I’m sure she would have gotten caught on the bumper and pulled under the wheels. The new pedestrian safety designs are cool even though they do make all cars look the same and bulbous now.

barney54 5y ago

Did I miss the part where they show that pedestrian deaths have actually increased? They show that the proportion of SUVs hitting pedestrians have increased which makes sense because there are more SUVs, but I didn’t see that the actual deaths have increased. Maybe I missed it!

jdavis703 5y ago
I can’t find data going up until 2020, but there are easily searchable news articles reporting on 2020 being a record year for deaths. Here’s some data, but it only goes to 2018: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians19 https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians19
wgjordan 5y ago
The linked Dangerous by Design 2021 report [1] shows the data on increased pedestrian deaths: > The number of people struck and killed by drivers nationwide while walking increased by an astonishing 45 percent over the last decade (2010-2019). [1] https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/ https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/
- unclebucknasty 5y ago
  Interestingly, the article you linked doesn't mention SUVs or refer to vehicle size at all. It attributes the increase to an emphasis on speed over safety: >state and local transportation agencies place a higher value on speed (and avoiding delay) than they do on safety...When faced with decisions that would elevate and prioritize safety for people walking but increase delay for vehicles, the decision-makers’ true priorities are laid bare. The original linked article, however, does point to another article on a govt site that gets into vehicle size. [0] But, in total the conclusions vacillate between the issue being lack of visibility (implying more accidents) and increased lethality owed to mass and, possibly the higher profile of the vehicle. Of course, you could conclude it's both more accidents and increased lethality, but the data doesn't seem to bear that out. For instance, the report cites a meta study that found a 2x-3x increase in fatalities when trucks or SUVs are involved, but the report also states the fatality rate for those vehicles is 40%. The original article further notes sales of trucks and SUVs have outpaced smaller vehicles since at least '07 and other assessments show these larger vehicles now make up 50% of vehicles on the road. So, the data seems to show disproportionately fewer fatalities for these larger vehicles. [0] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31323/new-car-assessment-program https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31...

grawprog 5y ago

I know it's not science, there's no data or anything. But, i've almost been hit as a pedestrian just under 10 times. Every single time it was by either a Mercedes or BMW sedan. My sister was hit by a BMW sedan driver, her back's been fucked ever since. Almost everyone I know that's been involved in an accident as a pedestrian has been hit by either a Mercedes or BMW sedan. ETA: Seeing as I'm getting downvoted, might as well keep going they've also always inevitably hit and run, or been incredibly rude and scream at you as they almost kill you with their half ton of plastic and metal when they're not paying attention to the road.

HugoDaniel 5y ago
they can (pun intended)
zuminator 5y ago
That's an extraordinary amount of times to be struck by vehicles. Are there any unusual factors at play? (You live by a highway, have difficulty walking, live in area with poor traffic enforcement, are visually impaired, etc.?)
- jerrysievert 5y ago
  the OP said almost been hit - I've almost been hit by vehicles while walking more times than that, usually because of a vehicle driver breaking the law. that happens a lot. as far as almost being hit while driving, drive a small car and you'll find out how many large vehicle drivers just don't see you.
  - zuminator 5y ago
    Ah, right you are. For some reason I mistakenly read that as him saying he had been actually hit almost ten times.
- dionidium 5y ago
  Is it? He's describing "almost being hit." That's pretty squishy. I think most people who do a lot of walking or biking could come up with 10 "close calls" for some definition of that term.

deleted 5y ago

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ramoz 5y ago

Lol. What the hell is this? What's the real motive of this org? My "no phd"/"intuition" (their words) questions why they're not addressing the fact that most deaths likely happen in large cities. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/03/the-worst-us-cities-for-pedestrian-fatalities-infographic/?sh=5ac76b8bbf38 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/03/03/the-wo... ...But, maybe only republican cities for this org? https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/ https://smartgrowthamerica.org/dangerous-by-design/

ramoz 5y ago
And where are tractor trailers and buses in their statistics? https://www.paulsoncoletti.com/bus-accident-statistics/ https://www.paulsoncoletti.com/bus-accident-statistics/
ramoz 5y ago
Florida's response: https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2021/03/10/florida-dot-secretary-pedestrian-fatality-report-inaccurate/6938246002/ https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/...
tbihl 5y ago
The statistics you cited show more "urban" than "rural", yes, but nowhere do they explain the distinction. Both words are poor descriptors of areas with unlimited access, 45mph roads linking gas stations and big box stores. In all likelihood, they just slap one word or other on to each death based on the municipality it was in, which is worthless for most places in the US.
zip1234 5y ago
Road deaths in the US are highest in Wyoming: https://twitter.com/Maps_US_EU/status/1429034525242318848 https://twitter.com/Maps_US_EU/status/1429034525242318848
- 1123581321 5y ago

daxuak 5y ago

I haven't read all the linked materials, but the reference provided[1] with the sentence "To put it simply, pickup trucks and SUVs are two to three times more likely than smaller personal vehicles to kill people walking in the event of a crash." said the following: "The majority of fatal pedestrian crashes involve light vehicles.[210] About one-third of pedestrians who are injured are struck by an SUV or pickup truck (see Appendix VII, Table VII-1), which corresponds closely to the make-up of SUVs and pickups in the U.S. vehicle fleet. However, SUVs and pickups account for closer to 40 percent of pedestrian fatalities, which suggests that injuries may be more severe when sustained in collisions with these vehicles. " So at least for this one relieable source, SUVs or pickups are not hitting more people because of size/hight as argued by the blog. They tend to result in more damage in the accidents, instead. [1] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31323/new-car-assessment-program https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2015/12/16/2015-31...

lazyasciiart 5y ago
The blog is not, by my reading, arguing that SUVs are hitting more people. It lists quite specific reasons that the impacts are worse when hit by an SUV etc than by a smaller car.
- daxuak 5y ago
  It is strongly implied in figure1, figure 3, and explictly expressed ("You don’t need a PhD to see why trucks and SUVs are more likely to kill people walking: They’re taller, have worse visibility, and are more likely to produce head/neck injuries than leg injuries."). The cited reference did not directly support the visibility argumentt or the specific injury types (although I do not doubt that they could be true).

rishflab 5y ago

You can beat physics. Big cars means more energy to dissipate in a crash. If the regulators had half a brain they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass. Large cars also reduce visibility which further reduces safety. There has been a car size arms race for the past 30-40 years. Cars are getting bigger so you get an even bigger one to feel safe and have enough seat height to see around you.

tbihl 5y ago
They do tax cars based on weight (in the US). If your car weighs too little, it's a personal vehicle. If it's heavy enough to be "transportation equipment" (large SUV) you can get effective tax breaks by deducting its cost from your income to a much greater degree than for reasonable passenger vehicles[0]. [0]https://bradyware.com/business-vehicle-deductions-2020/ https://bradyware.com/business-vehicle-deductions-2020/ (not a primary source but it should give an idea.)
- ruddct 5y ago
  For those surprised by this (as I was when I first heard about it), this is talking about Section 179, which allows someone to fully deduct the purchase price of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150) if it’s used for business. These vehicles are also not subject to the pedestrian safety requirements that 3-box vehicles (sedans, etc) are in the US.
  - IncRnd 5y ago
    > of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150) I don't think a heavyweight vehicle has been built since the 1930s, when they started building lightweight vehicles. Today, if you see a passenger vehicle referred to as heavyweight that is likely due to a marketing spin on how well it performs or the load it can carry. Even in that sense, a Ford F-150 is marketed as a lightweight and F-250 is a medium.
    - bratcomplex 5y ago
      150 from f150 refers to its carting and load capacity.. not its actual weight. the weight difference between a 150,250,350 is not a very significant one. This issue is a 150 is being used outside its original use case. And dose the job a Corolla is intended for. But with twice the weight and size.

JJMcJ 5y ago

The comparisons in the article are for trucks from 1990s. Look at a picture of a pickup from the 1960s: https://cdn1.mecum.com/auctions/fl0116/fl0116-243533/images/fl0116-243533_1@2x.jpg https://cdn1.mecum.com/auctions/fl0116/fl0116-243533/images/... The old one seems positively dainty compared to current models.

ramoz 5y ago
You mean newer models like this: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/pedestrian-crash-prevention-earns-safety-award-for-ram-1500 https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/pedestrian-crash-prevention... This blog is trash. Propagating political motive on HN. Quite obvious.
- 1986 5y ago
  > when equipped with specific headlights and optional front crash prevention. How many purchasers are actually paying extra for optional pedestrian safety add-ons?
  - igetspam 5y ago
    I do. Reverse cameras are federal now, I believe. Most of the truck stickers I looked at had front cameras too. It's a minimal cost.
- addicted 5y ago
  > In vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention tests, the Ram 1500 avoided collisions at both 12 mph and 25 mph. In most of the vehicle-to-pedestrian tests, it avoided hitting the pedestrian dummy or slowed substantially to mitigate the force of impact. However, the system failed to slow the vehicle at all in the 37-mph trial designed to simulate an adult pedestrian walking in the travel lane in the same direction as the vehicle. So the standard they met fails to even slow down the car when seeing an adult pedestrian at a speed that is a fraction of the driving speed in nearly every American city. A handful of American cities have 25mph limits within the city but most drivers are driving at east 5-10 mph above that, which is kind of written into American DOT standards (which require speed limits to be set at 85% of the average driving speed on a road).

RyanGoosling 5y ago

Bigger cars are safer for the occupants

trog 5y ago
Is that true if everyone else just starts driving bigger cars? Seems like we'll just end up in a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario where everyone loses, but especially the people outside of the giant cars.
- giantg2 5y ago
  It still makes sense when you consider the increased internal space. You can see this in single vehicle crash tests that do not rely on a second vehicle's size.
- BarryMilo 5y ago
  We saw this in my philosophy class 15 years ago as a classic opportunist's dilemma. What you are describing is basically what happened though.
  - deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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jeffbee 5y ago
Not wrong, but it has been estimated that for every occupant saved by larger cars in recent years, 2.2 pedestrians have died. Not a great balance.
Clewza313 5y ago
On the balance, yes, but SUVs have their own risks, notably rollover due to the highest center of gravity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_sport_utility_vehicles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_sport_utility_veh...

just_steve_h 5y ago

I think the fact that "automotive safety" begins at the headlights and ends at the tail lights is extremely relevant (and frightening). The safety of cars for literally everyone in the world EXCEPT for the 1-5 people inside that car is not considered. It was only a few years ago (2016, in Paris) that Christoph von Hugo, a safety engineer from Mercedes, was asked how a self-driving car would handle a "trolley problem" type situation, where the car could either hit a group of pedestrians, or swerve in a way that could injure or kill the driver, and he said, "Save the one in the car."

BeFlatXIII 5y ago
Would any non-trivial population choose a self-driving car that would make the other choice?
- haihaibye 5y ago
  Humans can beat these kind of problems via legislation. People need to remember they're inside at most 1 car, but outside of a billion.

lordgroff 5y ago

I can't wait for things like Hummer EV which might as well be a jumbo jet airplane compared to pedestrians, cyclists, hell, even other vehicle traffic.

sjg007 5y ago

The front end of a truck is designed to be directly proportional to the size of a man’s …. ego.

deleted 5y ago
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twobitshifter 5y ago

The thing about trucks is that a taller fatter truck is not a better truck for truck activities than one with a reachable long bed. The gigantic noses do nothing to make the truck more capable. Ground clearance is helpful but even the S-10 pickup had 8.5” of ground clearance. Trucks today have 10-11, excessive, but that ground clearance doesn’t grow as much as the height of the trucks. It all started with the 90s Dodge RAMs, which today look very reasonable, and ever since then trucks have been in a fat nose arms race that nobody seemed to ask for.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
I fully understand the design intentions to grow cars and crossovers. You need to expand the exterior if you want to keep constant interior space despite a bunch of legally mandated engineering goals that cost interior space. I don't see what engineering goals are causing fullsize trucks to get so tall. They could have kept interior space constant with a very slight increase in width. NVH could be driving it somewhat but not that much.
ip26 5y ago
Maybe nobody is screaming "give us fat nose trucks" in the press, but buyers apparently love it. To me it seems pretty obviously meant to evoke big rigs, ala Mack trucks.
- s0rce 5y ago
  My wife has a truck and I read a few truck forums and reddit and people seem to love the giant "aggressive" looking trucks. Even though for most applications its detrimental.
jupp0r 5y ago
Ground clearance is almost meaningless for off road driving once you've got a good baseline. Approach, departure and break over angles are what determines capability. That and the ability to fit big tires that can be aired down a lot.

dghughes 5y ago

Is it just the size of vehicles or the design of the streets and roads also to blame? The "stroad" which we seem to love here in Canada and I'd assume the USA is dangerous by design. Roads should be simple, medium speed, no traffic circles, few traffic lights, controlled access, no driveways exiting onto it, no bike lanes, no sidewalks, no crosswalks, no bus stops etc. Streets should be simple two lane, slow speed, more pedestrian friendly. But often the two are often mixed together meaning both pedestrians and traffic efficiency suffer.

drivers99 5y ago
I assume you’re also a fan of StrongTowns & Not Just Bikes? I’ve taken a deep interest in the topic. https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

I suppose it's more proof I'm a bad person for laughing so hard that this just showed up directly below the 'On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking' article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28268136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28268136

jwilber 5y ago

Big trucks are the perfect example of untaxed negative externalities running free.

Supermancho 5y ago

The bigger the vehicle, the less fatalities overall for passengers/drivers of that vehicle in car accidents in the US. This has lots of compounded factors, but the increase in size is easily a survival factor against other large vehicles. I'll take the trade for the pedestrian death increase, which is a fraction of total car-related fatalities. I also feel that the number of pedestrians has increased due to various factors, which has led to a predictable increase in accidents and fatalities. This study feels like a lot of hand waving on a slow news cycle, when those numbers aren't alarming in the slightest.

gbrown 5y ago
[citation needed]
- Supermancho 5y ago
  There are multiple resources, which you would have found with less keystrokes. https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-... Play with the dropdowns. Vehicle safety is pretty serious business with millions of injuries per year. I'm not citing everything that's casually available.
jwmhjwmh 5y ago
The article mentions that car safety standards do not take pedestrian safety into account. Surely these standards should be based on a complete picture, even if the revised standards do not end up incentivizing smaller cars.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Fatalities per mile driven have been trending down over time, drifting over the years towards 1 fatality per 100 million miles driven. It will keep improve automatically based on the standardization of various safety tech like blind spot monitoring, collision detection, collision avoidance, automated braking, sensors for cross traffic when reversing, and so on. Many of these features are increasingly becoming a standard feature rather than an option. Like most urbanist blogs this one also ignores that these vehicles, large and moving at high speed, deliver massive utility to all of society. For the low fatality rates we experience overall, I don’t see a problem. It’s worth the tradeoff to me and most others. We don’t fear everyday life due to rare negative circumstances, and we shouldn’t unless everyone is going to be consistent about it and just permanently remain indoors in search of perfect safety.

after_care 5y ago
Our transportation system is hardly the result of utility maximization. Cars are remarkably inefficient from a large variety of viewpoints. Parking spaces eat our urban real estate, traffic eats our time, emissions pollute our air and all of this leads to the second largest expenditure in the median household budget. Sure, this article is overstating the danger of traffic accidents, but you can’t say cars are a great choice because of the utility it provides society.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  I’m saying that private motor vehicles are a huge net positive despite all of that. This is hard to fully discuss in the context of a comment, and we may not see eye to eye on this, but I hope I am able to explain my perspective well: For many urban areas, real estate is desirable in part because of its accessibility, including by cars. Without that, many who live outside the downtown core wouldn’t be there, lowering the value of that real estate. Sure pollution is undesirable but we can address that, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that being able to get places quickly via cars has improved the richness of our lives and added tremendously to the economy over the last several decades. Traffic eats our time but that’s not true everywhere, and traffic also reflects demand. Traffic is evidence that a lot of people value being able to get to the activities they want, whether that’s work or leisure. And traffic can be alleviated by just building more roads and highways to meet demand - induced demand is a myth that relies on the illogical notion that there is literally infinite demand, which is not true. Are cars expensive? Sure but so are a lot of desirable things in life. The fact that we still purchase them reflects their value to us. There’s no other transportation option that gives me fast, weather proof, point to point transportation, on my own schedule, for me and any cargo or passengers I have. Public transit will never meet the travel times and flexibility of driving in locations with adequate road infrastructure. And there are no alternatives if I want a life where my day might span a variety of people and activities, which usually mean traveling across a wide area. Having lived in very dense metropolises with only public transit, I can confidently say there’s just no comparison - without a car you’re forced to live on a limited set of routes and on timetables with wait times. Your freedom to experience life is reduced because you just can’t get as much done on any given day, and for me it was hard to even see that until I moved out of an urban jungle. A high density transit only life may be great for young urbanites whose range of activities and circle of people matches that situation, but it isn’t what everyone desires. I’m fine with some cities like NYC optimizing for subways and buses but not every place has to be that way, because people are different and live differently. In my view, cars enable that variation in who we are, and unlocks lifestyles that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.

baryphonic 5y ago

The complete lack of hard data and game-able statistics made me curious, so I went to the cited journal article. > It analyzes all 231,675 pedestrian fatalities recorded between 1977 and 2016 in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database. Over 40 years, most pedestrian fatalities occurred in darkness (65%) and involved male pedestrians (70%) and male drivers (67%). They were commonly in roadway lanes (90%), away from intersections (80%), and involved vehicles traveling straight (83%). Most occurred on roadways with speed limits of 35 mph (56 km/h) or higher (70%) and four or more lanes (50%). Trends were compared across eight 5-year periods. Between the earliest and latest periods, there were significant decreases in the proportion of pedestrian fatalities among children younger than 15 (from 18% to 5%) and involving drivers who were drinking (from 15% to 8%). There were significant increases in pedestrian fatalities during darkness (from 63% to 73%), involving large vehicles (e.g., pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs) (from 22% to 44%), on roadways with speed limits 35 mph or higher (from 60% to 76%), and on roadways with four or more lanes (from 41% to 58%). [0] That comes out to around 5,792 pedestrian deaths per year. And note that the "think of the children" motif of this post is totally undermined by the cited data: whatever increase in fatalities can be blamed on SUVs and pickups, kids are apparently much less likely to get hit as pedestrians today, for whatever reason. Just for sake of comparison, in 2016, the total number of highway fatalities tracked by the NHTSA was 37,461, (of which 5,987 were pedestrians, quite close to the 40-year mean).[1] Thus, the ratio of non-pedestrian highway fatalities to pedestrian fatalities is roughly 5.25:1. "Smart Growth" endorses this recommendation: > "Cars can be designed to be safer if they strike pedestrians by using softer materials on lower bumpers and hoods and incorporating more space between the hoods and engine components, and automakers that opt not to do this will suffer lower safety ratings. Yet, hard materials that crunch and break off are used in bumpers because of the conservation of momentum, and the fact that people in other cars are clearly at a much greater risk than the average pedestrian. Other recommendations like making the front ends longer run into problems with fuel economy standards. The auto industry is not immune from criticism, but automotive engineers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems utterly insane to me that they should be expected to optimize for this case when auto-auto collisions are much more common and deadly, and when the pedestrians personal choices are clearly a factor. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198120933636 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361198120933636 [1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/usdot-releases-2016-fatal-traffic-crash-data https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/usdot-releases-2016-fat...

boramalper 5y ago

> more deaths of people walking I genuinely found it difficult to understand. Why not use “more pedestrian deaths” instead?

dalek2point3 5y ago

related: https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/81/2/535/1517632?redirectedFrom=fulltext https://academic.oup.com/restud/article-abstract/81/2/535/15... Pounds That Kill: The External Costs of Vehicle Weight Heavier vehicles are safer for their own occupants but more hazardous for other vehicles. Simple theory thus suggests that an unregulated vehicle fleet is inefficiently heavy. Using three separate identification strategies we show that, controlling for own-vehicle weight, being hit by a vehicle that is 1000 pounds heavier generates a 40–50% increase in fatality risk. These results imply a total accident-related externality that exceeds the estimated social cost of US carbon emissions and is equivalent to a gas tax of $0.97 per gallon ($136 billion annually). We consider two policies for internalizing this external cost, a weight-varying mileage tax and a gas tax, and find that they are similar for most vehicles. The findings suggest that European gas taxes may be much closer to optimal levels than the US gas tax.

fy20 5y ago
EVs are probably going to make this problem worse as they are typically heavier than the ICE equivalent. For example the Porsche Panamera weighs 2000kg and the Porsche Taycan weighs 2800kg. The VW Tiguan weighs 1500kg, where as the VW ID.4 weighs 1800kg.

adam0c 5y ago

Not to poop all over this article but doesn't the advance in automotive industry also bring things like automatic brakes etc to protect against collisions, lane swerve etc. :/ and I also enjoy a lot of cycling and have been hit by plenty idiots drived opening doors or making turns and not looking.

yboris 5y ago

One of my favorite philosophy papers: "Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked?" by Douglas Husak. He argues, base on data that SUVs have a high crash incompatibility with other cars, they are immoral. SUVs impose disproportionate damage to other cars, resulting in excess deaths and injuries that otherwise would not happen. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447

giantg2 5y ago
Why not set SUVs and trucks as the default then? One ould have to select the vehicle capable of accommodating the most people and situations. Many large/tall people have trouble fitting into cars. You can't pull livestock in a car either. It's like two people are in a room. One says they're hot. The other says they're cold. The hot person can only take off so many clothes, while the cold person could put on warmer clothes. Edit: is nobody reading this in the context of the parent comment?
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Why should there be a single default, instead of a default for each actual use case?
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Because they are claiming that the energy mismatch is immoral. Still allowing larger vehicles on the road does not address that mismatch and the "moral" aspect.
- ironman1478 5y ago
  Car makers are making this the default. Ford is (or has?) eliminated cars from their American offerings. The problem is that even within the class of SUVs and trucks, those vehicles have gotten larger and faster over time. The analogy of the hot and cold person assumes the hot person is wearing a t-shirt and sweater, when in reality when you compare it to vehicles, it's more like they are wearing that gortex jacket from Seinfeld + 3 layers of sweaters. People don't need to cater to somebody unreasonable. People don't need SUVs. They provide like no advantage compared to a wagon to most people and endanger everybody else.

noduerme 5y ago

I was literally having this conversation yesterday with my girlfriend as we were driving country roads in my Datsun, which is significantly lower than the front grill of some of these jacked up, military style pickups. She made the classic small dick comment, but I was more hung up on the way our society has changed to make people want to style themselves in these militaristic, confrontational ways on a civilian road. You could argue that guys who drive turbo sports cars or restored classics or anything unique are compensating for something... but whatever they're compensating for isn't some sense that they aren't taking up enough space. I was going through a tunnel a few weeks ago when a modified F150 decided to roll coal on everyone behind them in the tunnel. The thing that's broken about our society is the fact that people who modify trucks to roll coal can afford to do that. They should really be out growing potatoes if we didn't have so much cheap credit.

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ck2 5y ago

We can't get people to give a damn about 700K deaths in a year. What is this fantasy that people are going to drive more carefully and not however they want, or massive lifted trucks or manufacturers are going to take less profit by not making bigger trucks? Yes, of course lawmakers could fix this. Never, ever going to happen. Hint: neither is preventing earth from boiling over in several decades because that also would require behavior change and less profit

lazyjones 5y ago

In general, protecting pedestrians is not the main goal of car design. They are built to protect the passengers of the car. As long as there are very heavy, dangerous (in case of an accident) vehicles on the road (samis/trucks, buses), I don't see a strong case for making passengers more vulnerable to benefit pedestrians, especially considering the market forces involved. Pedestrians are better protected with assisting technology without compromising the safety of the passengers. Also, the article is a bit sloppy with its claims. For example, it cites the SUV increase in market share and later the increased involvement of SUVs in accidents with pedestrians, as if the 2 things were not related. It's as partisan as expected.

gigel82 5y ago

And yet in the US cars are only getting bigger and bigger. I was looking for a small EV for commuting recently and found that both Smart ForTwo and Fiat 500e withdrew from the US market in the past couple of years. There are a lot more new SUVs than sedans, and the ratio has definitely gotten bigger over the past 5-6 years.

p1mrx 5y ago
The ForTwo and 500e are considerably smaller than a Chevy Bolt or Hyundai Kona... I don't see the US market ever demanding cars that small. People used to buy small cars for fuel efficiency, but that doesn't matter much between electrics.
- adrianN 5y ago
  As long as parking is free and plentiful and roads are ridiculously wide people have very little incentive to buy a smaller car. Especially if they have to share the road with giant trucks.

masswerk 5y ago

Salute to the Fiat Multipla, which demonstrated 23 years ago how that problem may be addressed. ("But it looks funny!" – "Hum, it also kills less people." – "Still, I want an impressive car!")

rcurry 5y ago

I'm genuinely curious here - does anyone agree with me that being on foot seems to make it a hell of a lot easier to avoid cars than being out driving with them? I've had three drunk drivers hit me while I've been in a car, and yet have never been run over while just out walking around. When I'm on foot I just look around for the damn things and stay the hell away from them, in my car it's no such luck.

holografix 5y ago

The latest flavour of “fuck you” on the roads in Australia are the grotesque SUV Coupes from Mercedes and BMW. They’re like huge versions of the normal sized cars. It’s as if both companies execs set down and brainstormed how could rich people display wealth and selfishness more pornographically. The answer: enormous German tanks that occupy twice the road and go just as fast. I’ll never be rich because in my reality only very few people would be so childish to buy something like it. They’re everywhere in Sydney.

nobrains 5y ago

Also increasing the front blind zone: Image: https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WTHR/images/9092b67f-2b66-4091-b6da-5846a8abe275/9092b67f-2b66-4091-b6da-5846a8abe275_1920x1080.jpg https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WTHR/images/9092b67f-2b... Article: https://www.indiatimes.com/auto/current/it-took-13-kids-in-line-for-an-suv-driver-to-spot-them-and-this-highlights-a-disturbing-issue-504387.html https://www.indiatimes.com/auto/current/it-took-13-kids-in-l...

Borrible 5y ago

Sure, but the SUV driver think it is safer for them. https://injurylawyersoftampa.com/whats-safer-in-an-accident-is-an-suv-safer-than-a-car-or-sedan/ https://injurylawyersoftampa.com/whats-safer-in-an-accident-...