New Study Shows That Tall Vehicle Hoods Cause Hundreds More Deaths Per Year (caranddriver.com) 328
joshuark shares a report from Car and Driver: A new study conducted by the New York Times shows that the increase in vehicle hood height seen over the last two and a half decades, mainly due to the rise in popularity of large SUVs and trucks, has resulted in several thousand deaths that otherwise may not have happened. The study shows that while automakers and regulators have focused on occupant safety, they have turned a blind eye to pedestrian safety, which has fallen since around 2009. Researchers looked at four main datasets in their investigation: crash test data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) from 2016 to 2024; NHTSA's Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS); vehicle measurement data from Expert AutoStats; and vehicle registration data from S&P Global from 2002 to 2024. The researchers concluded that the increased danger to pedestrians is caused by two main culprits.
First, large SUVs and trucks have taller hoods, raising the point of impact above most people's center of gravity and pushing them to the ground, typically hard asphalt, rather than up and onto the hood, which is designed to absorb impacts. Second, with larger A-pillars designed to protect occupants in rollover crashes, modern cars tend to have larger blind spots than cars sold at the turn of the century (presuming the 21st century). The shift toward vehicles with taller hoods led to roughly 3000 deaths between 2016 and 2024. This number is conservative because it does not include crashes that take place in parking lots, driveways, or private roads, which aren't part of the federal database.
The data also showed an estimated 2.8 percent increase in the odds of a pedestrian fatality for every one-inch increase in vehicle hood height. Between two different scenarios, one decreasing the hood height of every vehicle in the dataset by 3 inches, and the second using a random sampling of hood heights from 2002 across 10,000 simulated crashes, between 2624 (for scenario two) and 3077 (for scenario one) lives could have been saved from 2016 to 2024.
First, large SUVs and trucks have taller hoods, raising the point of impact above most people's center of gravity and pushing them to the ground, typically hard asphalt, rather than up and onto the hood, which is designed to absorb impacts. Second, with larger A-pillars designed to protect occupants in rollover crashes, modern cars tend to have larger blind spots than cars sold at the turn of the century (presuming the 21st century). The shift toward vehicles with taller hoods led to roughly 3000 deaths between 2016 and 2024. This number is conservative because it does not include crashes that take place in parking lots, driveways, or private roads, which aren't part of the federal database.
The data also showed an estimated 2.8 percent increase in the odds of a pedestrian fatality for every one-inch increase in vehicle hood height. Between two different scenarios, one decreasing the hood height of every vehicle in the dataset by 3 inches, and the second using a random sampling of hood heights from 2002 across 10,000 simulated crashes, between 2624 (for scenario two) and 3077 (for scenario one) lives could have been saved from 2016 to 2024.
And water (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And water (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, this has been well known in Europe for many years, and rules put in place to mitigate the problem.
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Q. Why did Anonymous Coward cross the road?
A. He didn't due to the presence of cars
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Maybe you should prioritize human safety and not cars. Just an idea.
Re:And water (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe you should prioritize human safety and not cars. Just an idea.
Actually, the GP may have worded it in an appallingly insensitive way, but the answer is correct. There is no safe way for cars and pedestrians to be in the road at the same time. The way you fix pedestrian safety is by:
That's it. If you do this, every single pedestrian death that doesn't involve the car physically leaving the roadway and driving on a sidewalk becomes the pedestrian's fault, because pedestrians can never be in the road when cars are moving, and vice versa.
It is also more efficient for traffic overall on every street that doesn't have a dedicated right turn lane (or left in the U.K.). Instead of pedestrians forcing cars to wait to turn right, which forces the straight traffic to wait behind those cars, reducing the number of cars that get out from dozens to as few as one or two, the cars get their entire traffic cycle to themselves. And because pedestrians are crossing in every direction at once:
But it only works if you do it consistently at every intersection in a city and then enforce it consistently by ticketing every pedestrian who crosses against a don't walk sign. Otherwise, you get pedestrians who make a habit of crossing when they shouldn't, and sometimes they get hit by cars. But if you do these things, plus adding some parking garages and eliminating road-side parking, you should be able to cut out about 99% of pedestrian deaths.
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Everything you're saying is true, but sloping hoods can be done in parallel, resulting in both less pedestrian deaths AND less pollution-related deaths, because sloped hoods increase gas mileage and thus reduce pollution.
Re:And water (Score:4, Insightful)
Requiring all traffic light pedestrian cycles to give pedestrians complete control over the entire intersection (all directions), with no turns, for a period of time (a.k.a. pedestrian scramble intersctions).
Regularly ticketing pedestrians who cross when it isn't their turn.
The UK has a vastly better pedestrian safety than the US. Also we don't hate freedom here: you can cross the road where you damn well please.
eliminating road-side parking
Well I am definitely in favour of that.
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People were free to cross the road any time anywhere since the invention of roads.
Until, that is, America allowed car companies to buy laws to prevent it.
That, my man, is not freedom. Unless you'd like to explain how it somehow makes you more free?
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If you do this, every single pedestrian death that doesn't involve the car physically leaving the roadway and driving on a sidewalk becomes the pedestrian's fault, because pedestrians can never be in the road when cars are moving, and vice versa.
Except for those pesky times when motorists become distracted or impatient and ignore the traffic signals, but we know that never happens.
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Drivers must be aware of pedestrians when driving through cities/towns. It works well in Europe when pedestrians have priority no matter how many mistakes they may make crossing a road.
This "I've got a truck get out of my fucking way" moronic attitiude is brain dead, vehicles are killing machine int he hands of idiots.
Both (Score:3, Interesting)
These big hoods both kill people AND make the cars less efficient and harder to park. Sloped hoods makes both pedestrians and drivers happy.
The only people bothered by it are marketers who are selling a phallic enhancement concept.
Simply wrong (Score:3)
With respect to the tall hoods, this is simply wrong. You don't need height, you need predictable bending, crumpling, and movement of force outward. We do that very nicely on cars with small length fronts, and cars with sloped hoods. The Tesla crash results are very good, and the hoods are not long or tall.
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Obligatory xkcd:
https://xkcd.com/3167/ [xkcd.com]
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Back in the real word, one reason for the increasingly tall hoods and increasingly small windows is... to provide better crash protection for people in the car.
False. Some of the best crash protection can be found in modern smaller cars. In fact large SUVs are less safe for occupants as it makes rollover crashes significantly more likely and makes crashes in general more likely thanks to poor visibility and longer stopping distances. Even the sheer numbers game no longer favours large cars thanks to EVs bringing some extra mass to smaller cars.
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Re:And water (Score:4, Insightful)
I think a huge part of the problem is that people feel invulnerable in their gas-guzzling tanks, so they feel like they don't actually have to pay attention to where they are going. Which leads to incidents like the soccer mom who simply wasn't paying attention as her huge SUV wondered left, across the oncoming lane, and up onto the sidewalk to kill a pedestrian. She though interacting with her own kid was more important than watching the road.
Re:And water (Score:5, Informative)
Bet you feel much more safer in a thing with a battery that can't be extinguished (and the dashcams will catch your screaming as you burn up).
So...
1} Aside from some Teslas, there's nothing preventing an EV driver from getting out of a car that wouldn't also prevent an ICE driver.
2} Basically nobody extinguishes an ICE fire either.
3} ICE are more prone to burning than EVs are.
4} Just as EV SUVs exist, ICE sedans exist. The height of the hood isn't tied to powerplant.
5} Dashcams typically point out of the vehicle and rarely record audio (though many can).
Allow me to amplify one point (Score:4, Informative)
3. ICE are TWENTY TIMES (yes, really) more prone to burning than EVs are.
Every EV fire gets reported, whereas we think ICE fires are just normal and never report them, but if you count the fires and multiply out by car types on the road, EVs are massively less likely to burn. Add to that each model year, EVs get less likely to burn as battery design, manufacturing techniques, and chemistry improve.
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Most people do not take care of their cars. Also I remember the last time an ICE car was on fire, 2 weeks ago when the fucking highway was closed while the fire department put out a burning Skoda. Do I sound bitter? Yep that one small fire closed the entire highway and it took me 2 hours to get home instead of the normal 35minutes.
There are on average 10 ICE vehicles on fire EVERY DAY in the USA.
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Or really, maybe sometimes roads are used by a variety of users including people riding bikes, crossing the street, getting into and out of cars, working on broken cars, doing road construction and maintenance, making deliveries, going from cars to school, or any number of thousands of reasons a cars might (and do) collide with people in the actual real world...and cars have no choice but to leave their highways and drive directly to people
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Build stupid cars (Score:2)
Win stupid prizes
Re:Build stupid cars (Score:5, Insightful)
Why (Score:2)
Why do cars have tall hoods, long hoods and off-centre driving positions? I dont think every car should be a go kart but I never understood why a centred view with more near visibility would not be desirable.
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People have passengers sometimes, and driving from the middle of a three-person bench seat is much more dangerous than from the side.
Re:Why (Score:5, Interesting)
Cars don't have tall hoods, trucks and SUVs do to ridiculous proportions now. Your average truck sitting at a red light can't see pedestrians at a crosswalk, especially children. https://lloydalter.substack.co... [substack.com]
I'd like a new rule. If you drive truck and the hood is taller than your shoulders you should require a CDL.
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It's fun to call them wankpanzers or urban tanks but an actual MBT has better forward visibility:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TankP... [reddit.com]
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It's really hard to find a modern "car" as you're describing now. Almost all EVs are "crossovers". The dang VW ID 4 has a huge hood. They have the ID 3 with a lot less hood, but decided not to sell it in the US. It takes real work to find something with a sensible hood position.
"I'd like a new rule. If you drive truck and the hood is taller than your shoulders you should require a CDL." -- I LOVE this. Absolutely LOVE IT. ...but would instead say if you drive anything with a hood which blocks more than
Re:Why (Score:4, Interesting)
Normal countries have tried to decrease pedestrian deaths by making things safer. The Land Of the Free decided to decrease deaths by making it so incredibly hostile and dangerous to pedestrians (the method of transport that requires no government intervention unlike driving) than you decrease the number of pedestrians. Didn't work though. Despite slashing the number of pedestrians the number of deaths is on the increase.
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How can you tell someone hasn't taken useful and serious drivers education? They don't understand why the driver is positioned as they are in a car/truck/etc.
A driving trick: Most passenger cars have a hood. If you find the center point of the front of the hood, and sight down that, you find the point on the road where your outer wheels will track. So set the edge of the road along that sight line, and you're safely driving at the edge of the road. Few exceptions. It is true despite the apparent design diff
Re: Why (Score:2)
What an utter and complete load of shit.
For that to work the hood would have to be visible, which it isn't on some cars
Re: Why (Score:2)
Yes you can always see the hood. That's stupid, thinking you can't see the hood. And the rule isn't to see the front of the hood, but the center. Of what you can see. But if you've never tried it, you'll day it's stupid.
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Because you're not driving straight but also taking turns. Think about why countries where you drive to the left have the driver seat on the right. It's about what you can see before taking a left turn.
Re:Why (Score:4, Informative)
off-center driving position is nice so that the driver is placed in the most risk of a head on collision. They need that sense of fear and consequences in order to stay in their damn lane.
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do cars have tall hoods, long hoods and off-centre driving positions? I dont think every car should be a go kart but I never understood why a centred view with more near visibility would not be desirable.
The off-center driver position is not the bad design choice here. That part is mostly boring old human-factors engineering. You are on the right track when you talk about a centered view with more near visibility. You just need a slightly bigger picture. In right-side traffic countries, the driver sits on the left because that puts the driver’s eyes closer to the centerline of the road, which improves sight lines for oncoming traffic, passing, lane placement, and not shaving the paint off opposing vehicles. The view you are optimizing is not the center line of the vehicle, but the center line of the road it is travelling down. In left-side traffic countries, you just mirror this. The “best” side is whichever side puts the driver closest to the middle of the road.
With that said, to bring this back to your question about tall and long hoods—the defenders of the modern brodozer will inevitably point to two things: physics and the EPA. They aren't entirely wrong. Pushing modern trucks to absurd 15,000-lb towing capacities requires massive radiators, which dictate taller front ends. Furthermore, the EPA's CAFE footprint rules actively incentivized automakers to bloat vehicle dimensions to qualify for laxer fuel economy targets. But while engineering requirements and federal loopholes provided the massive canvas, they don't explain the aggressively hostile design language painted onto it.
The aesthetic decisions behind these front ends flow from a fairly straight-forward psychological model of the truck-buying American public. They are based on a phenomenon that social psychologists call "status signalling compensatory consumption." Study [oup.com] after study [wiley.com] show that an economically significant chunk of the male demographic buys status-signaling products to patch perceived deficits in their social power, status, identity, or masculinity. Marketing departments didn't accidentally discover that pickups sell better when wrapped in dominance cosplay, cliff-face grillework, and ad copy that smells faintly of elk musk. These front ends aren't optimized for pedestrian safety, or even aerodynamic efficiency; they are optimized to extract $80,000 from buyers desperate to project the authority they feel they lack.
Hoods? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they're talking about the bonnet, Bruce.
Re: Hoods? (Score:4, Funny)
You don't wear your car on your head, silly!
Re: Hoods? (Score:2)
Re: Hoods? (Score:4, Informative)
Until you recognize those tall hoods have a huge blind spot in the front and many people do not realize how big it is. On a pickup, it's about 21 feet. Yes, feet. And yes, Europeans know they can park 3 normal cars in that blind spot.
You also see it with cars that stop a huge distance away from the stop line at a traffic light they stop line disappears and they stop, not knowing there's a rather large blind spot in front of them.
Pedestrians and other traffic make use of those spaces and now are inadvertently in a place where the driver really cannot see them, but they don't know that because it's something that doesn't apply to normal vehicles.
It's why semis may have long tall hoods but they are extremely narrow to minimize the blind spot
And yes, the blind spot is so big other cars can zip in especially sportier lower slung cars.
All it would take to fix it would be a requirement for the blind spot to be reduced to say, 3 feet - if you want the tall hood, you must have a camera or radar system in the front that be unobscured in all weather conditions.
It's why Europe likes cabover trucks - when you're navigating around tight roads, not having a blind spot really helps. But even the long nose preferred in North America really tries to minimize the blind spot.
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I think they're talking about the bonnet, Bruce.
Better get a rubber out for this one.
Observational study can't claim causality... (Score:2, Offtopic)
For starters, that's an observational study, not a double blind one. You can't claim causality. It's important data, but it's not causality.
Second, you can't look at only one side of the equation - you can't pick and choose which variables you are going to use and which ones you are going to ignore! Are those bars saving more lives? How many people were dying inside vehicles vs outside of the vehicles back in 2009? Maybe the regulators and the industry optimized for the right thing and saves tens of thousa
Re: Observational study can't claim causality... (Score:2, Troll)
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So does the flu but that doesn't mean we need the hood of a truck to be 5 feet off the ground. Drivers can't even see a shorter person at a crosswalk at this point. It's insanity. There is a reason many other countries in the world ban such monsters on their roadways.
A commenter above had the best comment. You want to drive one of these stupid huge drugs, you should have a CDL.
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In all but five US states you don't even need a CDL to drive a heavy diesel RV. We have a bus registered as an RV, it weighs 10 tons and has air brakes, I can legally drive it on my basic license.
Ironically, it has much better forward visibility than a modern American pickup truck, including the Japanese pickups made here for sale in the US, as it's transit style (flat front.) I can literally see people crossing in front of me that the driver of an F250 can't. And these days, the most popular school bus app
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You also should not kill people who stand where they shouldn't stand. "They were not allowed by traffic rules to be there" will not help you in court.
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It'll be the same for studies on "speed kills" too. It's still the correct conclusion even if it's not a perfect proof.
I hate the way modern small car bumper zones just fall to pieces with the slightest bump. Yet somehow these massive SUVs managed to get built like tanks after all those standards were imposed on small cars to add cushioning and the likes. How that happened I wouldn't know.
Sometimes the reason is obvious long before the evidence is glaring. Only the severity needs studied.
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There are ethical questions here thought.
Some might argue that as the purchaser the vehicle owes its safety optimizations toward those owners/operators. You bought the machine the best product should do what you ostensibly would want it to, and that is safely transport you and yours wherever you are going.
Others might say we operate cars/trucks in public space some of which belonged to pedestrians first and buying a car does not confer upon you some right to impose safety risks on them.
I would argue that we
Car Safety (Score:3)
Crumple zones make cars a lot safer without adding significant weight and reducing fuel economy. It means, though, that even minor collisions can total a vehicle, or cost multiple thousands of dollars to fix.
The most dangerous accident for a car is a rollover. One of the reasons is the roof can cave in and hit your head, injuring or killing you. One way to fix this is to reinforce the roof, w
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Well, we're exceptional here in America. That means we need to be number one is auto deaths as well. Exceptional!
Obviously (Score:4, Insightful)
In less sane countries, like the US, pedestrian safety is an afterthought. Which may be why the US has more pedestrian deaths than other high income countries, typically 2-4x more than most European ones and why the number of deaths has risen in the last decade while it is falling elsewhere.
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Indeed, and America is a country with (comparatively) few pedestrians. Imagine how much worse these numbers would be if we drove those awful cars in more normal countries.
When Trump says no countries buy American cars - it's for these reasons (amongst many others). American 'cars' are terrible in just about every way you can imagine.
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What about the phone zombies driving these tanks, hmm? They are likely the bigger problem here.
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Studies? (Score:2)
Needed to show being hit by a truck is bad?
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The problem is being seen by the driver.
Not surprising (Score:3)
Almost got plowed into by one of these oversized trucks a few days ago. I was walking in the driving lane between rows and a guy in one of these oversized pickups drove through the parking spots into the lane. He stopped only a few feet from me, then admitted he didn't see me.
Aside from the oversized truck, this is why you don't drive through parking spots.
The Land Yacht Era and Bullshit Excuses. (Score:2)
Tall cars, huh.
Has anyone actually taken a look at the reason we called it the land yacht era? Perhaps we stop pretending like the 1970s were known for being petite and conservative with chrome and steel and we've never built fucking huge cars before. That didn't even have blind spot mirrors. Let alone blind spot sensors warning you with spidey-sense radar and lane assist.
Large cars, have been around for a long damn time. What hasn't been around as long, is the distracted junkie doomscrolling their apat
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Most of those cars were not so tall though, and you could see out of them. If there is a 7 year old standing in front of your 70's GM A-body you can see them.
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Has anyone actually taken a look at the reason we called it the land yacht era? Perhaps we stop pretending like the 1970s
Found the guy who hasn't actually compared 1970s vehicles to 2020s vehicles. They had lower hoods in both trucks and most cars (as most cars are now crossovers) and also had superior visibility in every other direction as well.
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While overall traffic fatalities in the US dropped from roughly 52,600 in 1970 to about 38,800 in 2020, the national death rate per 100 million Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) plummeted by about 75%. In 1970, that rate was roughly 4.7, whereas in 2020 it was around 1.3.
Apparently lower hoods meant more collisions and deaths.
Something the EU has noted for years (Score:3)
Another issue is the terrible lighting decisions in the US. See: Technology Connections
https://youtu.be/O1lZ9n2bxWA?s... [youtu.be]
See also: Cybertruck
European law mandates that vehicles include impact protection zones, avoid dangerous sharp edges, and incorporate speed limiters if they exceed 3.5 tons. The Cybertruck, as the release points out, “clearly violated” these rules.
Americans build flat out dangerous vehicles... stuff that makes TVR look like the pinnacle of safety.
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This is why some US vehicles are near impossible to import to the EU for sale.
Yeah. [daimlertruck.com]
The real solution is pedestrian/obstruction front end sensors and automated braking. But my state makes me put a front license plate in front of the sensor. So fat coops don't have to walk around to the back to get my plate number.
A-pillars are way too thick (Score:3, Interesting)
So many times cross traffic has been lost behind my A pillar. Lucky I havent hit anyone
Obligatory Parking Lot Dents (Score:2)
[picture of lifted truck parked on top of Laborghini [autoevolution.com]]
Songs in the key of DUH (Score:2)
THERE WAS A ROW OF EIGHT OF THEM BEFORE THE LAST ONE WAS VISIBLE TO THE DRIVER.
When I was in Phoenix earlier this year, I noticed a truck next to me where the tire was taller than my hood! I don't have a tiny car, it's a 2015 Subaru Crosstrek. It's just utter insanity how big these trucks have gotten. The Big Three don't care because the profits on those things ar
You need a study for that? (Score:2)
You can hide half a school class in front of a large SUV.
higher weight is another problem... (Score:2)
SUVs are more and more massive every year...
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Especially the electric ones. They outweigh my 4X4 Colorado.
Another factor (Score:2)
Blame the Government (Score:4, Insightful)
The fuel efficiency standards basically demanded large vehicles. You couldn't make something the size of a small Ranger unless it got 70mpg.
The law basically forced them to make larger vehicles.
Re:Blame the Government (Score:4, Insightful)
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The fuel efficiency standards basically demanded large vehicles.
You've got that backwards. The exemptions from fuel efficiency standards demanded larger vehicles. That's why the auto makers lobbied so hard for the current system.
It's all psychological. Big vehicles are worth more money. They make the doors and wheels huge, raise the hoods, and make the windows tiny, to make the vehicles look bigger than they really are. Then they tack on an extra $20K for no reason.
Same reason we put fins and chrome on cars in the 50's, and made land yachts in the 70's. American c
Design by regulation (Score:2)
First, large SUVs and trucks
have taller hoods, raising the point of impact above most people's center of gravity and pushing them to the ground, typically hard asphalt, rather than up and onto the hood
We used to have sleek, sloped hood cars. Which (back in the old round headlight days) required pop-up lights. But those were regulated out of existence. And no longer necessary once those pin-prick LED headlights were invented. My H4 headlights put out more luminous flux than the tiny lights but they don't dazzle oncoming drivers due to their large diameter.
It's not just pedestrians (Score:4, Informative)
"Second, with larger A-pillars designed to protect occupants in rollover crashes, modern cars tend to have larger blind spots than cars sold at the turn of the century (presuming the 21st century)."
You can hide an entire pickup behind that super fat A-pillar. I've had a couple close calls myself because of that. Sure you can drop the car upside down from high orbit and the cab will still be intact, but that pillar makes a huge blind spot. It's quite the neck workout to peer around it too. There would be a good spot for a camera and a small screen.
Phones (Score:2)
I'm going to blame it on pedestrians zoned out on their phones walking into traffic. Can't remember the last time I saw someone under 30 look both ways before entering the street... they exist in phone-engagement-bubbles.
Why do people want bigger vehicles? (Score:4, Informative)
I drive a Prius Prime, it's 8 years old, over ~330 000km, it's averages 3.0L / 100km. My brother drives a large F-150 (or something similar, might be 250), he gets ~14L / 100km. I'm ~11 L / 100km more efficient in fuel usage, which directly correlates to a massive savings on fuel per year. I think we fill up once a week, so assume 3 to 4 times a month. Our tank is 35L, and gas is ~$1.80 / L which comes out to $63 / fill, or ~$189 / month, since every fill is not the full tank. I think a realistic value is closer to $150 / month.
According to DuckDuckGo, the 2026 F-150 averages 11.2L
Large vehicles just don't make sense for the vast majority of people, I know there are people who need a large vehicle, but during hockey season, if you pass the YMCA, or just go to Walmart, the parking lot is FULL of F-150's and other trucks, full! Using rough numbers, that is ~3500 to ~4500 / year on extra fuel charges for what benefit?
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* Getting soil for the garden
* Getting plants for the garden
* Camping
Without an issue, you can fit bikes in the back, I've moved three of them. Furniture you can move, providing it's a not massive, I've moved furniture in my car, but a couch wouldn't fit. If I really need a large vehicle, it makes more sense to go to U-Haul, and just rent it, which I do occasionally, a couple of times a year.
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* Going to the grandparents' house with the kids and their bikes
* Helping a neighbor donate furniture
* Getting soil for the garden
* Getting plants for the garden
* Camping
* Moving equipment for work
You are describing things I do constantly and trivially without owning a truck. I think you hit on another problem: perception. You think you need a truck, and even if you legitimately do need a truck there's no reason you need the size trucks being discussed here. Trucks back in 30 years ago also moved furniture, gardening stuff, towed boats, and hauled camping gear without issue what so ever and weren't the size of a small school.
Weekly, Pedestrian or Bicyclist Killed By Motorist (Score:3)
Re:Taller hoods? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Taller hoods? (Score:5, Informative)
You could do a study in other countries and compare the results. They have the same gadgets, but not the increased hoods on their cars. Once you corrected for the gadget distraction, you will still find higher casualty rates.
If you are American then no need. The U.S. postal service needed a replacement for one of the larger van styles and went electric. They listened to what the workers said and one was designed. Workers complained it was ugly and had limited range. Part of the ugly was a short, sharply down sloping "hood". They were made to use it and found that ugly or not it was better. Designed for function over form. Ugly or not the workers loved it and both the workers and pedestrians ended with fewer injuries occurring.
Re:Taller hoods? (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, my own current work car is a 2025 Chevy Equinox. I previously had a 2021 Equinox. The 2025 pushed the top of the hood up a good 3-4 inches compared to the previous, and changed a few other functional angles as well. The goal was evidently the "truckification" of a small crossover SUV. The result was terrible. Sight lines are dramatically worse out of the front of the vehicle. Short people can disappear in front of the hood now that it is that much taller. This is even worse on actual trucks; Chevy Silverado full-sized pickups are leaving dealer lots with hoods that are 5 feet off the ground for no functional reason.
It is fair to point out that such collisions shouldn't happen often at normal driving speed. However you're overlooking other places where collisions do happen often between vehicles and pedestrians; namely parking lots and driveways. While the new cars have far more mandatory cameras to help drivers spot obstacles, they don't prevent every situation. Car manufacturers should be taken to the woodshed over this awful decision, and it's not just the American auto makers.
Ever wonder why so many new pickups pull backwards into parking spots? I had a new Silverado recently as a rental and I believe I discovered why. Those new trucks don't have forward facing cameras, but they do have backup cameras. They sit so high the driver can't easily see the lines or obstacles in front while attempting to park but when backing up the camera shows what's coming up behind. Terrible, terrible decisions.
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I agree with the camera helping when pulling in backwards into parking slots. The style of mirrors helps too. Trucks are equipped to make it easy to position them accurately when backing up. You need accurate positioning to hook up a trailer.
Another part of the problem with parking is the longer wheelbase and larger turning radius. If you are facing forward in a parking slot then when you leave you cannot start turning significantly until you've backed about half way out of the parking slot. When bac
Re:Taller hoods? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's no forward visibility standards at all. Right now, you could build a car literally with an opaque windshield and it would be OK to sell. Why shouldn't there be a minimum standard for forward visibility blind spots, maximum distance you should be able to see a traffic cone or 5-yo, etc?
Re: Taller hoods? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Dude, not that many years from now the touchscreens will be even bigger, and you'll rarely if ever touch the steering wheel.
Yes, the tech is taking longer than expected, but it's already much safer than humans (not based on the Tesla hype, but on a study in "Nature Communications") and will continue to improve. At SOME POINT (5 years? 10 years) when someone hits someone driving his/herself and is sued, the defendant will call it negligence, because he/she didn't use the autonomous driving. That will resu
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If short hooded cars did not have gadgets then indeed it would be difficult to separate the two.
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Wait.. you think vehicles with taller hood heights have more gadgets than ones that don't? What an interesting reality you live in!
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Or educate them. After all, in a large chunk of the country, we have wide open spaces where wildlife cause accidents more often than hitting pedestrians. People who hit deer or larger animals in small cars never fare as well as those who have the big oversized pickup truck or SUV. We can't educate the deer, so I suppose teaching kids to watch where they're walking and how to be safe is the best we can do. It was a skill people needed even in the horse and buggy days.
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We can't educate the deer, so I suppose teaching kids to watch where they're walking and how to be safe is the best we can do.
We taught kids to use crosswalks, now drivers are mowing them down there because the hoods of their pickups are so high that they cannot see them crossing. This is all stuff you would know if you were paying attention.
Thanks for proving you're not paying attention.
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C'mon, people. Cars have seat adjusters. If you're short, in a big car, and can't see past the hood - raise your seat.
Most seats do not have a height adjustment.
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Most of these huge trucks have all the bells and whistles. Let's them maximize the price on their tanks. I'd be more surprised if they didn't have that seat feature.
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I've never had a car that didn't.
Around 6% of the cars I've owned have had seat height adjustment.
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That's a feature that depends on if you get the premium trim, and it isn't common in sedans. If you're like me and buy the work truck trim (WT), there's no seat height adjustment.
You don't have to go back to the 1980's, try anything before 2020 and you'll see that option is pretty rare.
Re:So do people who don't raise their seats (Score:5, Informative)
Belt-lines in cars got really high because that is how you achieve that roll over safety rating.
As a driver I hate that every sedan and SUV has these super high belt lines and wide as my head A-pillars now. Every time I get in my 80s classic on the weekend it reminds me how much my visibility is in fact impaired in my daily.
Do and realistically am I much safer in my 2020's car - yes, do I also belive I am more likely to be involved in some for of accident because I can't see as much also yes.
Most common case country T intersection with yield on one road and no stops. (Probably the most dangerous type of intersection) There will be a 30 yard long space along the perpendicular road, that is a blind spot because of that thick pillar. Obviously that leads to the only safe driving practice being, be slow enough to come to a complete stop at the intersection until you are near enough to see completely down the road looking over your shoulder. Which by extension forces you to approach quite slowly or subject you and your passengers to uncomfortably short stops, should there be another vehicle approaching.
Meanwhile in the vintage car with A-pilars just bulky enough to hold up the roof, there basically isn't a blind spot large enough to conceal a vehicle or cyclist for any period of time, so they will be detected on the second look if not the first, and you able to see for miles down the perpendicular road over top of the soy beans..
Modern cars kind of suck for driving..
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Raise your seat? are you an alien, have you never been in a car on this planet?
How would someone short reach the pedals if they had their seat height jacked up, it's not going to help. And it's an incredibly rare feature.
Even if your eyeballs are at the top of the windshield, the angle you can see is not going to let you see beyond your vehicle's hood. Especially if it's an SUV with a long hood and square front. Sloping downwards like typical (and safer) compact car gives you far better visibility for what