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Comment by newaccount74 | Hacker News Reader

I think the biggest factor is high fronts on trucks and SUVs that seem to be designed to crush pedestrians, together with increasingly poor visibility.

We have the same problem in the EU. Pickups are not as popular here, but even small cars are getting SUV styling with pedestrian-killing hoods.

I had high hopes that Tesla would make sleek and pedestrian-safer cars popular again: the Model X has a pretty low front for an SUV. Unfortunately Tesla threw all that out the window and designed the most effective pedestrian-crushing-device I've ever seen -- I hope the Cybertruck is delayed for a few more years....

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I don't know how much can be attributed to this but always seemed weird to me that the safety tests (which both are mandated legally and also used in marketing) are solely about how safe the passengers of the car will be in the event of a crash.

It seems like a classic collective action problem. If an automaker has a new car design which will make its passengers 5% safer in a crash but passengers in the other car 10% more likely to die then they have incentive to do the design change anyways. I wouldnt know the exact numbers but would think with a lot of the changes (such as cars getting 1000s of lbs heavier) the impacts are real - especially when you factor in pedestrians.

I don't know about other markets, but Euro NCAP (https://www.euroncap.com/) includes pedestrian and cyclist safety in their assessments and Land Rover claimed that they had to stop the production of the original Defender because it did not comply with the mandated minimum safety standards for pedestrians and occupants.

I spent a lot of time in a 2012 Defender without any airbags and seats which were essentially just screwed to a wooden/sheet metal frame - but the high and upright seating position made me feel safer than do in an (objectively safer) sedan or hatchback.

There are a lot of automotive standards that address pedestrian safety, other crash testing besides the ones for passengers. This is why pop up headlights and hood ornaments are rarely used now for example.

Add absolute piss poor control/regulations on what's on the road. I've seen more crashes in a week around LA than in my entire life. Half the cars had bald tires, at the first sign of rain you saw a crash every 10-15min

At least 25% of the vehicles on the roads there wouldn't be considered legally road worthy in western Europe

California appears to have an annual safety inspection, which many US states do not. According to the NHTSA, 6.8% of crashes involved a vehicle with a significant safety fault, which was not necessarily a causal factor in the crash. 4.9% of crash vehicles had a tire or wheel defect.

This suggests to me that there probably isn't a desperate need for stricter vehicle inspections in the US.

https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... (PDF)

> there probably isn't a desperate need for stricter vehicle inspections in the US.

American drivers take awful care of their cars. bald tyres, ripped off bumpers, worn brakes, ... It's shocking coming back from (western) europe from vacation this summer, how trash the cars are on the road here. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

I've seen it. I may have even participated in it. The difference you've observed definitely exists, but there's a big difference between:

* That car looks crappy

* That car looks unsafe

* The kind of maintenance shortcomings present on that car are correlated with a large increase in crash rate

> California appears to have an annual safety inspection

I'm pretty sure you're mistaken. In many urban counties, there's an every other year emissions inspection (Smog Check), but that's not looking for safety issues. And for most post-2000 cars, it's a quick visual inspection under the hood, read the ODB-II emissions readiness status, and pump the throttle and look for smoke (might be diesel only), older cars that are 1975 or newer get a probe in the tailpipe at idle and 15?mph on a dyno, even older cars don't get checked.

CA does not have any sort of safety inspection, not sure where you’re getting that from.

Reading summaries in the results of a very quick web search. I stand corrected.

My main point, however is that the NHTSA report found poorly maintained vehicles are a factor in fairly few crashes. The vast majority of the crash vehicles that did have a maintenance issue had a tire/wheel problem.

Making a guess based on my experience with cars, the problem is probably almost always worn or underinflated tires. That's something a person with 5 minutes of training can check in 5 minutes with tools that cost $10. Perhaps there's better data available, but the report I linked seems to suggest comprehensive vehicle inspections wouldn't have much more impact on crashes than quick tire checks.

> We have the same problem in the EU.

Then how does that explain why increased road deaths are exceptional to the USA?

Because, while the same problem exists, it doesn't exist to the same extent. The average size of the vehicles is smaller, even bigger European SUVs are far smaller than what americans call trucks. And there are less of the really big and deadly ones, almost none with a neck-breaking-bar, etc.

I was totally shocked by the shape of truck grills last time I visited Canada. The standard F150-esque chassis used for all sorts of commercial vehicles is fronted by a huge slab of steel. And those things are everywhere - it's not just the obvious "manly truck lovers", but all sorts of commercial vehicles where it's totally unnecessary. In Toronto the parks service are all driving around in those trucks. As the parent of a 2 year old, they are SCARY - the blind spot in front must be massive.

In Europe we mostly use van derived chassis for commercial vehicles. Ford Transits or Fiat Ducato (Dodge Ram Promaster in NA). They seem to be able to serve the same purpose without having terrifying blind spots.

I've been in front collisions with European cars a couple of times, they are designed to fold in and down, first protecting the pedestrian and then the legs of the driver/passenger.

It's amazing how they fold at the slightest hit.

> I've been in front collisions with European cars a couple of times

I hope you doing some sort of crash rally?

The U.S. heavily subsidizes those vehicles and the wide roads & parking they require so we have tons of them. Europeans also buy them for the same reasons but you have to be especially committed to intimidating your neighbors to pay that much more for fuel, parking, etc. and deal with narrower streets.

The US doesn't subsidize those vehicles. In 2008, the Obama government passed the CAFE emissions standards which carved out an exception for vehicles used for commercial purposes. Most pickups and large vehicles fall under this exception and can be profitable due to lower emissions standards.

The rest is true but a bit complicated. The US Federal government subsidizes arterials which gives local governments an incentive to build more arterials so they can receive more federal funding.

parent's point was that the infrastructure we build acts as subsidy. A pickup truck is a lot more desirable if your country increases pays a bunch of money to increase road widths. European roads are typically 8 or 9 feet per lane while US roads are often 10-12 ft per lane.

Right, I was adding more detail as to why US roads are wider, they're arterials. That and signal spacing and lane width is based solely around throughput in most of the US.

Too much online literature throws around "subsidizes" blindly without going deeper.

These vehicles are not directly subsidized in the form of a cash rebate or tax refund, but they are heavily subsidized by the general public through regulations for minimum parking mandates, free highways everywhere, excess road capacity, wide lanes, perverse incentives to build further apart, and a whole host of other measures that prop up car dependency in the US.

The subsidy is in the infrastructure but the car lets you increase your exposure to the subsidy.

The lower emissions standards are a form of subsidy, as are not requiring them to be as safe is required by many of our peer countries, but my larger point was that the U.S. has had a century of car-centric, bordering on car-only, infrastructure. That has shaped every part of our country from pushing highways through cities to having the design code used by most cities and states hyper-focused on wide roads optimized for vehicle speeds over safety. There are some cases where following that is linked to federal funding but most DOTs follow the federal guidelines closely even on projects they’re funding entirely locally.

The other big one is gas: we put huge political efforts into keeping prices low, which disproportionately benefits people buying new vehicles which get 1970s-era mileage.

Right I'm just trying to add more detail here so that folks in the US who want to deconstruct this car dependency can work with the system. That these subsidies and carve outs are so varied is what makes it so hard to pushback against American car dependency.

They’re also largely invisible - things like parking minimums or lower density requirements to reduce traffic don’t show up as a line on a bill or budget anywhere, they just make everything we do more expensive.

There's been a 25% tariff on imported light trucks circa 60s, which one could view as subsidizing domestic production https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2009/05/05/americans...

Maybe in a secondary sense the type of automobile is part of it but also I don't know why you are saying there is "increasingly poor visibility". There have been trucks and SUVs for decades now as well.

My belief is that very bad habits were created by the empty roads in 2020 that made people start speeding. A plausible case can be constructed around this theory based on evidence. A lot of people are anecdotally familiar with this as well.

    Traffic data indicates the higher death toll was related to higher average      
    speeds in conjunction with more of those on the roads driving under the
    influence of drugs and alcohol and a slight decline in seatbelt use.[1]

Speeding increased after the pandemic lockdown.[2] There also appears to be an increase in road rage incidents.[3] So far in 2022 NHTSA says that there is an increase in road deaths for early 2022.[4] One theory that could explain the sustained increase is lower levels of traffic enforcement.

[1]: https://apnews.com/article/covid-19-speeding-highway-deaths-...

[2]: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/pandemic-lockdowns-made-rus...

[3]: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/road-rage-has-risen-d...

[4]: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/early-estimates-first-q...

Fun result from an old Fifth Gear episode back when SUVs were called “four by fours”.

https://youtu.be/4aCumC7sJIg

The taller nose of an SUV better distributes forces across more of a pedestrian’s body, which reduces injury. And you get pushed ahead of the car instead of being scooped up to hit the windshield with your head. This is again better for the pedestrian as long as the car stops in time not to run over the person lying on the ground.

You’ll notice that non-SUV noses have been getting taller and flatter for the past ~15 years. This is a direct result of Euro NCAP rules for pedestrian safety.

edit: if you’re downvoting, I really suggest you watch the linked video. It’s great food for thought.

Has British-English moved on from calling them "4x4"?

We'd still call a genuine off road vehicle a four by four.

Americans have gone a bit nuts with the SUV label - we don't call things like a Model Y an SUV, it's just a hatchback. Some other models Americans call SUVs are Estates or People Carriers. We probably wouldn't call things like a Porsche Cayenne a 4x4 because it's never going off road. That will happily be called an SUV with all the selfish egotism implied. Other names for it would be more deliberately insulting e.g. Chelsea Tractor etc.

It's not so much that we've stopped calling them 4x4 - it's more than the 4WD market has diverged. A 4x4 is designed to get muddy. An SUV is designed to traverse speed bumps & children's bodies with dignity.

To my mind 4x4 still very much calls to mind vehicles that are 4WD for a functional reason.

Is that true? My understanding is lower hoods roll pedestrians over, whereas tall, solid hoods basically bring them to full speed immediately, doing a bunch of damage in the process.

You can see in the video that it’s true. In their experiment, the lower hood, at same speed, makes the pedestrian hit the car 3 or 4 times instead of twice with the taller vehicle.

Mind you the taller car was only about elbow height, not like some lifted trucks you see these days where the bumper roughly aligns with a person’s hips.

I can believe it, but it sure kills visibility. Children don’t even come up to the middle of the radiator.

Got a link for those new rules? Or for studies about how higher hoods are safer for pedestrians?

Yep.

Euro NCAP rules for pedestrian safety: https://www.euroncap.com/en/vehicle-safety/the-ratings-expla...

Notice even in the thumbnails on that page, the car has a much taller flatter nose than a comparable car would’ve in the early 2000’s.

It does look like modern SUVs are less safe than the SUVs of old, however. I guess they’re getting too big. If you look at the SUV that Fifth Gear was testing with in the early 2000’s, it basically counts as a “small compact” in modern USA. https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-s...

As someone else mentioned, the biggest problem may be turning visibility. This combined with right-turn-on-red creates a uniquely American safety issue.

This is wrong. SUVs kill pedestrians by crushing their bones and organs and popping their skulls like watermelons when they end up under the wheels. With lower hoods pedestrians instead go over the hood, suffering relatively minor broken bones and concussions.

You can see in the video that the SUV dummy fell onto the ground in front of the car where it could be easily driven over if the driver doesn't brake.

Which isn't backed up by actual studies of pedestrian-vehicle fatalities.

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/new-study-suggests-todays-s...

> In the Michigan crashes, SUVs caused more serious injuries than cars when impacts occurred at greater than 19 miles per hour. At speeds of 20-39 mph, 3 out of 10 crashes with SUVs (30 percent) resulted in a pedestrian fatality, compared with 5 out of 22 for cars (23 percent). At 40 mph and higher, all three crashes with SUVs killed the pedestrian (100 percent), compared with 7 out of 13 crashes involving cars (54 percent). Below 20 miles per hour there was little difference between the outcomes, with pedestrians struck by either vehicle type tending to sustain minor injuries.

While I agree that styling elements that are outright pedestrian harmful(a row of spear heads across the grill, etc) should be banned, I also HATE the way that these same regulations are making all cars look the same. Maybe folks who don't like cars don't care. I DO care what a car looks like.

As someone who also would not like to meet his demise by an errant vehicle, I think I would rather see a bunch of safety tech designed to not hit pedestrians in the first place would be ideal. Auto stop seems to be getting pretty good and while you could never eliminate vehicle to pedestrian crashes(suicide by car is likely impossible to protect against in many scenarios) But I hope we can stop making all the cars look like a shin destroying tear drop. :)

The same argument could be used against airbags and seatbelts, or against crumple zones.

Crashes are unavoidable, and any feature that can reduce the lethality of crashes should be considered.

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