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> I doubt vehicle mass and shape are the largest factor contributing to their rise. Distracted driving might be the biggest factor but it's hard to prevent a h

> I doubt vehicle mass and shape are the largest factor contributing to their rise. Distracted driving might be the biggest factor but it's hard to prevent a human from being distracted. It's easy to make smaller cars, we used to have them. The shape most definitely has a large impact (pun intended). The visibility from recent SUVs and trucks is abysmal without extensive assistance, like sensors and cameras. [0] Sometimes those cameras and sensors are another source of distraction and increase the cognitive load for what used to be "just look ahead", leading to the distracted driving. > examined that front visibility with a group of elementary school children, ages 6 to 10, and several adults of different heights in the driver’s seat of four tall, square-hooded vehicles: Ford F-150 and Toyota Tundra pickup trucks and Cadillac Escalade and Jeep Wagoneer SUVs. With the kids seated in a line stretching forward from the vehicle’s front bumper, it took nine to 11 of them before a 5-foot-2 driver could see a child’s head [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-are-getting-bigger-are-front-blind-zones-children-rcna52109 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar...

infecto 2y ago
Speaking from a US perspective. I don't believe its hard to prevent a human from being distracted. The problem is these days there is zero enforcement of traffic laws in most parts of the US. Making cars smaller would require new laws that are most certainly impossible to get made at this point. Definitely would be great if cars were smaller but people need to get off their darn phone.
potato3732842 2y ago
Citing blind spots fullsize SUVs seems misleading at best when their proliferation peaked in the mid 00s and have been waning since while small SUVs have become dominant. Straight ahead drive overs of unseen pedestrians are vanishingly rare compared to people cornering into pedestrians that are hidden behind pillars. From there the lethality of the vehicle takes over. The largest of SUVs that you complain about are not increasing in frequency. What is happening is that sedans re being traded in for taller SUVs of comparable footprint and that's where the changes in statistics are coming from.
- close04 2y ago
  > Citing blind spots fullsize SUVs seems misleading at best when they peaked in the 00s and have been waning I'm not sure what's misleading, it's based on data which contradicts your opinion. Every link I can find on this points in the same direction. As as summary: cars have increase continuously over the past decades and so have their blind spots, between 2012 and 2021 the total number of large cars has increased by 50% and each segment of large cars has seen 25-100% increase, the design can make even smaller cars more deadly, and the number of pedestrian deaths increased by 80% since 2009. [0][1] > America's cars and trucks are getting bigger, and so are their front blind zones [0] [look for "Getting Bigger"] > Over the past 30 years, the average U.S. passenger vehicle has gotten about 4 inches wider, 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller and 1,000 pounds heavier [1] > a blunt profile makes medium-height vehicles deadly too [1] > Pedestrian crash deaths have risen 80 percent since hitting their low in 2009 [1] > many safety advocates have also drawn a connection to the growing portion of the U.S. vehicle fleet made up of pickups and SUVs [1] You call it misleading, I call it supported by data. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-are-getting-bigger-are-front-blind-zones-children-rcna52109 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar... [1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-vertical-front-ends-pose-greater-risk-to-pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...
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    [deleted]
- hibikir 2y ago
  The small SUVs tend to have smaller side blind spots, but for killing pedestrians, the important one is the front blind spot, and that is about hood height, which just keeps going up because it looks "manlier" Deaths are also about what happens when there is contact: High hoods lead to the unfortunate pedestrian hitting their head against the pavement, followed by the car trying to go over it with all its weight. Do the same with the very heavy, but low Tesla Model 3, and the pedestrian goes over the car, which happens to be much safer. The contact with the sedan is at around knee size, many a modern American truck will hit your ribcage, which is a bit more threatening. A car can be tall and designed to be relatively safe on impact, but it'd look like a minivan. We all know that those kept losing in the marketplace because they didn't look aggressive enough. So the switch from sedans to small SUVs was a disaster.
jcranmer 2y ago
> Distracted driving might be the biggest factor but it's hard to prevent a human from being distracted. To prevent it entirely, perhaps. But there's quite a few things we could do to reduce the incidence of distracted driving: * More thoroughly educate drivers on just how bad they are at distracted driving. I know that when I ran the red light while talking on the phone, I forswore any future use of the phone while driving, because I clearly couldn't be trusted to drive safely while doing so. * Rip out the touchscreens of modern cars, and stop providing stuff in ways that requires distracted driving to operate. * Laws against distracted driving can be more rigorously enforced by the police. * Penalties could also be harsher. Drunk driving? You can lose your license. Distracted driving? Here's a $500 fine. Very light penalty for the crime that kills more people.
nogridbag 2y ago
I'm sure front visibility plays some role, but just as a counter example, squirrels are much smaller and can dart in front of my vehicle faster than any child, yet I have no problem spotting them while driving a large SUV (Kia Telluride). Places like school parking lots are probably where front and rear visibility are of upmost importance, and that's where I think all of the sensors and cameras are critical and should be mandatory. For example, while backing up out of a parking space a rear sensor can detect cross traffic (people or cars) way before you can see it regardless of the vehicle size. My old Mazda Miata would probably fair far worse than my Telluride as rear visibility was poor and the car was so small and low to the ground it was hard to see over other cars.
- david-gpu 2y ago
  > I have no problem spotting them while driving a large SUV How do you know? You can't know what you didn't see, and when you run over a squirrel there's no mother squirrel screaming her lungs out to stop your car.
  - nogridbag 2y ago
    I've run over 1 squirrel in 26 years of driving and hundreds of thousands of miles driven and tens of thousands of squirrel encounters. And it was in a tiny 90's Mazda Miata with the ideal front visibility. That car was too small to even meet today's safety regulations ironically (newer Miatas are much larger vehicles). I'm not sure what we're trying to debate here. I agreed front visibility matters but sensors and cameras are also important (the post I was replying to seemed to indicate that we should go back to a time prior to relying on sensors and cameras).
- buran77 2y ago
  > I have no problem spotting them while driving a large SUV That's the bias. It could very well mean "no problem spotting the ones I had no problems spotting". By definition you can't know how many you never spotted and maybe even ended up under your wheels. Most drivers only kill a pedestrian once in their life, and relatively few actually are that unfortunate, so it's not something you can easily calibrate for from personal experience (with any luck you never will). They all saw and avoided all the pedestrians that jumped in front of them until they didn't. Many of these accidents happen at low speed when pedestrians thinking they have time meet a driver with a giant blindspot right in front of them and doesn't even try to brake. Search for "frontover" pictures and you'll realize how ridiculously large that blindspot is.

infecto 2y ago

Speaking from a US perspective. I don't believe its hard to prevent a human from being distracted. The problem is these days there is zero enforcement of traffic laws in most parts of the US. Making cars smaller would require new laws that are most certainly impossible to get made at this point. Definitely would be great if cars were smaller but people need to get off their darn phone.

potato3732842 2y ago

Citing blind spots fullsize SUVs seems misleading at best when their proliferation peaked in the mid 00s and have been waning since while small SUVs have become dominant. Straight ahead drive overs of unseen pedestrians are vanishingly rare compared to people cornering into pedestrians that are hidden behind pillars. From there the lethality of the vehicle takes over. The largest of SUVs that you complain about are not increasing in frequency. What is happening is that sedans re being traded in for taller SUVs of comparable footprint and that's where the changes in statistics are coming from.

close04 2y ago
> Citing blind spots fullsize SUVs seems misleading at best when they peaked in the 00s and have been waning I'm not sure what's misleading, it's based on data which contradicts your opinion. Every link I can find on this points in the same direction. As as summary: cars have increase continuously over the past decades and so have their blind spots, between 2012 and 2021 the total number of large cars has increased by 50% and each segment of large cars has seen 25-100% increase, the design can make even smaller cars more deadly, and the number of pedestrian deaths increased by 80% since 2009. [0][1] > America's cars and trucks are getting bigger, and so are their front blind zones [0] [look for "Getting Bigger"] > Over the past 30 years, the average U.S. passenger vehicle has gotten about 4 inches wider, 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller and 1,000 pounds heavier [1] > a blunt profile makes medium-height vehicles deadly too [1] > Pedestrian crash deaths have risen 80 percent since hitting their low in 2009 [1] > many safety advocates have also drawn a connection to the growing portion of the U.S. vehicle fleet made up of pickups and SUVs [1] You call it misleading, I call it supported by data. [0] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-are-getting-bigger-are-front-blind-zones-children-rcna52109 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar... [1] https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-vertical-front-ends-pose-greater-risk-to-pedestrians https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
hibikir 2y ago
The small SUVs tend to have smaller side blind spots, but for killing pedestrians, the important one is the front blind spot, and that is about hood height, which just keeps going up because it looks "manlier" Deaths are also about what happens when there is contact: High hoods lead to the unfortunate pedestrian hitting their head against the pavement, followed by the car trying to go over it with all its weight. Do the same with the very heavy, but low Tesla Model 3, and the pedestrian goes over the car, which happens to be much safer. The contact with the sedan is at around knee size, many a modern American truck will hit your ribcage, which is a bit more threatening. A car can be tall and designed to be relatively safe on impact, but it'd look like a minivan. We all know that those kept losing in the marketplace because they didn't look aggressive enough. So the switch from sedans to small SUVs was a disaster.

jcranmer 2y ago

> Distracted driving might be the biggest factor but it's hard to prevent a human from being distracted. To prevent it entirely, perhaps. But there's quite a few things we could do to reduce the incidence of distracted driving: * More thoroughly educate drivers on just how bad they are at distracted driving. I know that when I ran the red light while talking on the phone, I forswore any future use of the phone while driving, because I clearly couldn't be trusted to drive safely while doing so. * Rip out the touchscreens of modern cars, and stop providing stuff in ways that requires distracted driving to operate. * Laws against distracted driving can be more rigorously enforced by the police. * Penalties could also be harsher. Drunk driving? You can lose your license. Distracted driving? Here's a $500 fine. Very light penalty for the crime that kills more people.

nogridbag 2y ago

I'm sure front visibility plays some role, but just as a counter example, squirrels are much smaller and can dart in front of my vehicle faster than any child, yet I have no problem spotting them while driving a large SUV (Kia Telluride). Places like school parking lots are probably where front and rear visibility are of upmost importance, and that's where I think all of the sensors and cameras are critical and should be mandatory. For example, while backing up out of a parking space a rear sensor can detect cross traffic (people or cars) way before you can see it regardless of the vehicle size. My old Mazda Miata would probably fair far worse than my Telluride as rear visibility was poor and the car was so small and low to the ground it was hard to see over other cars.

david-gpu 2y ago
> I have no problem spotting them while driving a large SUV How do you know? You can't know what you didn't see, and when you run over a squirrel there's no mother squirrel screaming her lungs out to stop your car.
- nogridbag 2y ago
  I've run over 1 squirrel in 26 years of driving and hundreds of thousands of miles driven and tens of thousands of squirrel encounters. And it was in a tiny 90's Mazda Miata with the ideal front visibility. That car was too small to even meet today's safety regulations ironically (newer Miatas are much larger vehicles). I'm not sure what we're trying to debate here. I agreed front visibility matters but sensors and cameras are also important (the post I was replying to seemed to indicate that we should go back to a time prior to relying on sensors and cameras).
buran77 2y ago
> I have no problem spotting them while driving a large SUV That's the bias. It could very well mean "no problem spotting the ones I had no problems spotting". By definition you can't know how many you never spotted and maybe even ended up under your wheels. Most drivers only kill a pedestrian once in their life, and relatively few actually are that unfortunate, so it's not something you can easily calibrate for from personal experience (with any luck you never will). They all saw and avoided all the pedestrians that jumped in front of them until they didn't. Many of these accidents happen at low speed when pedestrians thinking they have time meet a driver with a giant blindspot right in front of them and doesn't even try to brake. Search for "frontover" pictures and you'll realize how ridiculously large that blindspot is.