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Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

arstechnica.com

11–20 of 358 posts

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#11

Did we really need a study for this? What's next? A study to find out whether a hammer to the head or torso is more lethal than a hammer to the legs? What a total racket to spend money on something like this.

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Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#13
Article is current but the data is from 2021. I can easily find a deep journal-esque writeup dating to aug 1 2022. (JPHSC). https://doi.org/10.15586/jphsc. v1i1.47

> Currently, it seems unlikely that NHTSA will move to regulate hood heights on new vehicles.

That's quite interesting statement. Hood (or is it bumper? -- which implies hood) heights are already regulated. Too low of a height has been determined to result in more injuries (not fatalities I guess), so the height has been forced to increase over the last decade or decades. Because of that you will never see (eg) a Lambo Diablo design again. Very very hard to find information about this imposed minimum height requirement because search results are flooded with this new finding since approx Nov 2023.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#14

Yeah but the drivers get to cosplay as Rugged Men™. The only thing that'll reverse the trend and stop this from getting worse will be government regulation. Then come the cries of "Now they're taking our trucks!"

Every time I see someone behind the wheel of the absolute largest SUV a company offers, it's a small woman. Even as far back when SUVs first became a thing, I noticed that the smallest moms at school at the biggest SUVs.

They love the "might" that a huge vehicle gives them.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#15

Interestingly, agricultural tractors have evolved to have better sightlines. Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family? https://www.profi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/06/2... vs https://bigiron.blob.core.windows.net/public/items/72b53c753...

One of the reason I'm holding on to an old car, apart from out of spite, is the big windows and fantastic visibility. It's like stepping into a sunroom compared to new cars.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#16
I honestly do not understand, why regulators have not mandated limits on front dead angles (space occluded from view by the hood) and max vehicle hood hight by now. Well, I understand why it hasn't happened in the U.S. (how could any regulator curtail the manhood of the truck aficionados?), but in the E.U. regulators usually are more on top of these things.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#17
post #9

Interestingly, agricultural tractors have evolved to have better sightlines. Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family? https://www.profi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/06/2... vs https://bigiron.blob.core.windows.net/public/items/72b53c753...

> Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family I have a different guess after seeing tractors in use as a kid: Driving tractors is a high precision affair. You're moving around expensive equipment that you don't want to bump. You're plowing next to all sorts of hazards you don't want to fall into. You have to park within an inch of attachments befo…

Also, tractors are built to do work, not keep their occupants safe in a crash.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#18
post #3

Interestingly, agricultural tractors have evolved to have better sightlines. Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family? https://www.profi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/06/2... vs https://bigiron.blob.core.windows.net/public/items/72b53c753...

Children keep getting killed by their own parents' SUVs though...

Some SUVs even have front cameras now to help see children

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#19
post #9

Interestingly, agricultural tractors have evolved to have better sightlines. Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family? https://www.profi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/06/2... vs https://bigiron.blob.core.windows.net/public/items/72b53c753...

> Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family I have a different guess after seeing tractors in use as a kid: Driving tractors is a high precision affair. You're moving around expensive equipment that you don't want to bump. You're plowing next to all sorts of hazards you don't want to fall into. You have to park within an inch of attachments befo…

One could say that navigating a large vehicle through streets populated by humans should be considered a high precision affair, or is the difference expensive equipment vs human lives?

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#20
post #5

Vans are a lot better for both transporting people (more spacious compared to SUVs) and goods (easier loading and protected from the weather compared to pickups), plus of course having vastly better visibility. It always seems odd how trucks and SUVs are seen as status symbols in the US whereas in, say, Hong Kong, it is the MPV that is the status symbol. I suppose certain tax and emissions regulations in favor of tru…

AFAIK, exactly this - something about how trucks and SUVs are classified differently and so have different emission standards, which results in other effects that are then appealing to consumers.

Plus, of course, marketing.

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