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Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

arstechnica.com

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

#251

Post by alan-hn »

kube-system wrote: post #26
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

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...

Agricultural tractors aren't made with any consideration for pedestrian safety. The reason they have good visibility is because that makes them easier to use, and there is no other competing reason not to surround the driver with a lot of glass. Passenger vehicles have other requirements that complicate this: 1. They must be attractive enough to sell in volume to the end buyer 2. They require large A-pillars to absor…

I'm sure you could achieve safety targets with a vehicle that was safe for those outside of it as well, perhaps safety for your children crossing the road should be attractive to consumers?

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

#252

Post by crote »

saltcured wrote: post #126
wharvle wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows and front/back windshields are way smaller now, too. It's like we're all driving around looking out of tank-viewport-slits. (I'm sure there are exceptions in some models—I drove a buddy's Jeep-truck the other day and the unusually-good-by-modern-standards visibility nearly turned me into a Jeep guy on the spot—but that's the trend)

Cars in the 80s and 90s definitely had more of a "greenhouse" feel to them, with mostly transparent glass and small framing. Due to a mixture of standards, this has changed. The roof cap and pillars have thickened and curved for roll-over protection, and front pillars are also thicker to hold air bags that didn't exist in those older cars. The windows sills are higher up relative to the driver, to improve side-impact…

> Due to a mixture of standards, this has changed. The roof cap and pillars have thickened and curved for roll-over protection, and front pillars are also thicker to hold air bags that didn't exist in those older cars. The windows sills are higher up relative to the driver, to improve side-impact protection.

I've heard this argument before, but I'm simply not buying it. Cars like the Honda Civic or Volkswagen Golf have an excellent safety record, outclassing many giant SUVs while still having relatively small A-pillars and large windows on all sides. It is much more likely that it is simply a design choice, making them look "tough", "manly", and "aggressive" - just like that giant snowplow front which has become popular over the past few years.

If anything, giant SUVs are less safe, because they have to follow the less-strict safety standards for small trucks rather than passenger cars. They are especially prone to rollovers due to their high center of gravity. People feel safer in an SUV, because they are surrounded by similarly-sized vehicles rather than being surrounded by cars twice your size, but that doesn't actually make them safer.

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

#253

Post by mlinhares »

toast0 wrote: post #187
mlinhares wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an incentives game, Americans have much more land and money to pay for expensive development (like suburbs) that just do not make financial sense in the EU or Asia in general, as they either lack land or it would be too expensive to pay for the infrastructure needed to make it all work. I also haven't met an American that has been to a high quality of life and walkable city in the EU and didn't come b…

Suburbia is expensive in some ways, but suburbs are often built as a less expensive place to live or at least less expensive for a given size. Of course, it's often hard to find a studio apartment in the suburbs and it's hard to find a single story detached home in the city, so it's comparing different kinds of apples; they're comparable but not fungible. I had a very nice visit to Paris and London for business many…

They’re only less expensive on paper because the rest of the county, state and federal government are footing the bill for infrastructure, gas for all the driving and everything else. If we were paying the actual price of suburbia people would likely be moving closer to the cities.

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

#254

Post by crote »

stefan_ wrote: post #73
tasty_freeze wrote: post #55

There is another angle here besides the immediate impact (pun intended) of getting hit by a big truck. I'm nearly 60, but I can remember what it was like learning to drive back in 1980. Before SUVs and huge pickup trucks became common, and before tinting windows to near opacity became a thing, it was possible to see road conditions three cars ahead -- you simply looked through the windows of the car or cars in front…

Streets haven't gotten wider since then either. Maybe less of a problem in the US where everything is planned around humongous fire trucks, but in the EU if you had a street that could easily accommodate two moving lanes with parking on either side, that has basically narrowed down to one moving lane. Also reminds me of all the regulation around car lights - you literally specified the beam pattern light intensity co…

> Streets haven't gotten wider since then either.

In proper urban design that's actually a feature. People don't care about the posted speed limit - they probably won't even notice the sign. Instead they drive at the speed which they feel is appropriate for the road.

A lot of the suburban infrastructure in the US was developed around collision safety. This means wide roads and large setbacks, all in order to get rid of anything to collide with. However, this means that a regular residential street now feels extremely safe to drive: it's essentially a highway, so people will drive at highway speeds.

On the other hand, plenty of suburban road infrastructure in Europe has been explicitly designed to feel unsafe. The roads are intentionally made narrow, visibility is poor, and you'll run into plenty of obstacles like chicanes. Although plenty of that is a leftover from the pre-car era, it's nowadays an intentional design decision for new roads even when there is plenty of space. It's physically impossible to drive on those streets at highway speeds, so people are forced to slow down. Anyone with even the vaguest sense of self-preservation will drive a lot slower with a 6-inch clearance to oncoming traffic than with a 6-feet clearance. The lower speeds in turn actually make the roads safer, and make it possible to share them with cyclists and other low-speed traffic.

Fun fact: the narrowest residential street allowed in the US is wider than a highway lane in The Netherlands.

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

#255

Post by crote »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #84
jetrink wrote: post #54

My proposed regulation is to introduce a hazardous vehicle license for large trucks and SUVs. Everyone is automatically granted one alongside their normal drivers license, but if you're caught driving recklessly (weaving through traffic on the highway, aggressively tailgating, speeding through residential or urban areas), you lose it and you have to drive a normal-sized car. Perhaps there's a way to earn it back thro…

I like the spirit, but don't like the unintended consequence that it would create a stigma around sedans -- "oh, those are the cars for the bad drivers". We need to do something that makes SUV drivers feel ridiculous and humiliated. Or, failing that, just make it expensive: Weight and size dependent tolls, say (using the fourth power of weight, possibly, to match road wear equations?). Or just fewer lanes in which th…

Easy: mandate a maximum size for parking spaces, and use a physical barrier to prevent double-parking. Have fun driving your oversized SUV when have to do parkour every time you get into your vehicle.

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

#256

Post by crote »

danaris wrote: post #140
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the spirit, but don't like the unintended consequence that it would create a stigma around sedans -- "oh, those are the cars for the bad drivers". We need to do something that makes SUV drivers feel ridiculous and humiliated. Or, failing that, just make it expensive: Weight and size dependent tolls, say (using the fourth power of weight, possibly, to match road wear equations?). Or just fewer lanes in which th…

If we're going to try to "punish" SUV drivers for driving those vehicles, then I think we need to both recognize and do some things: 1) We need to recognize that there's a wide variety of vehicles in the SUV category. Many of them have replaced (not supplemented, replaced , because they sell better and car companies are hyperoptimizing their profits like everyone else) old standards like station wagons and minivans i…

> Like driving on snowy, icy winter roads in the northern US and all of Canada.

No. Plenty of people get by with normal-sized cars under similar conditions in countries like Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Not to mention that SUVs are actually worse in such environments due to their almost-universal terrible performance in the Moose Test.

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

#257

Post by crote »

rhuru wrote: post #159
Hamuko wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing that truck drivers are a diverse group of people when they're really only popular in a single region of the world.

In the top 10 most sold vehicles in USA 8-9 are trucks if I remember correctly. Ford F150 and Chevy Silvardo are typically number 1 and 2 consistently for decades. At that scale everything is likely to be diverse. For the soyboys drinking their vegan milk and driving their lime bike to pride parade, it might come as a surprise, but it in indeed is. (<= This is an attempt to show that how any group can be dangerously…

Exactly, "in USA". That's where the "only popular in a single region of the world" part comes in.

Trucks, especially the variety seen in the US, are practically unheard of anywhere else in the world. When a specific style of vehicle is that popular in a single country it probably has more to do with legislation than driver preference. There is almost certainly a decent portion of people driving trucks who would prefer an alternative form factor - if only it were available. It'd make sense to distinguish "truck drivers" from "people driving trucks".

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

#258

Post by crote »

rhuru wrote: post #157
baggachipz wrote: post #6

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!"

Common sense is the first casualty when any topic has political bias to it. This comment demonstrates that. Large vehicles are important part of American economy and mostly driven by blue collar workers doing their work. For example things like plumbing, construction site work etc. Now a days environment scientists and engineers too drive these large vehicles as they are very important for their day to day work. Not…

> Large vehicles are important part of American economy and mostly driven by blue collar workers doing their work. For example things like plumbing, construction site work etc.

The problem is that this argument is demonstrably not true. Trucks vastly outnumber blue collar workers, and most blue collar workers would be better served by a Volkswagen Transporter or a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. You're not seeing those in the US because they have an insane import tax.

The traditional target for pickup trucks, farmers, almost universally hate modern trucks because they are simply way too tall to be practical - they'd rather have a 1990 model than a 2024 one.

The vast majority of pickup trucks see zero offroad use, and practically never carry anything in their bed. They are essentially pavement princesses used to commute to an office job.

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

#259

Post by crote »

7e wrote: post #31
KennyBlanken wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you’re short, you prefer a vehicle which elevates your view.

If you're short, you can't see a damn thing over the hood of those vehicles. An entire class of schoolchildren could be standing right in front of your vehicle and you wouldn't even notice.

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

#260

Post by crote »

toast0 wrote: post #118
porphyra wrote: 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…

Vans tend to have pretty good visibility, but not compared to a single cab truck. Loading into a van can be easier or harder depending on the goods. Larger items are easier into a truck, IMHO, since you don't have to rearrange or remove the seating, and don't have to negotiate door openings, and sometimes it's useful to get help over the sides of the bed. Lower typical height of van floors can be helpful though. Pick…

> Larger items are easier into a truck, IMHO, since you don't have to rearrange or remove the seating

Think less minivan and more Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. You load them more like a moving truck: giant doors in the rear, big empty space to put stuff in.

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