You're right. But our cars didn't suddenly get worse during the last 3 years. The behavioral changes we're seeing in drivers since the pandemic are very, very concerning to me. We need more understanding of this phenomenon.
It's worth noting that the trend has accelerated in the last three years but we are actually up over a much longer period of time. From 2009-2019 we erased the entire decline in pedestrian deaths from 1990: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/17194.jpeg
That is an obvious difference with Europe. Both have much worse pedestrian safety, especially the truck.
The default vehicle for someone who needs to move tools, materials etc in Europe is not a truck but a van like a Ford Transit or Mercedes Sprinter.
The other obvious difference is the huge, multi-lane roads in America, sometimes with no sidewalk.
Changing either of these will take years.
I wouldn't be surprised if increasing numbers of SUVs and pickup trucks in the US is at least partly to blame for this. If you're hit by a sedan, you're likely to get thrown onto the hood, windshield, or roof of the car. If you're hit by an SUV or truck, you're much more likely to get dragged underneath, where you can get run over by the wheels. While neither situation is particularly fun, the latter is much more likely to result in death.
> The other obvious difference is the huge, multi-lane roads in America, sometimes with no sidewalk.
It would also be interesting to be able to classify what was happening when the pedestrian died in data like this. Were they crossing the street and a car going perpendicular ran into them? Were they crossing the street, and a car turning from the parallel street ran into them? Or were they walking along a road without a sidewalk, and a passing car hit them?
Agreed that the US has a lot of wide, multi-lane roads, and poor sidewalk coverage on many roads, but I don't expect that situation has changed (for worse or better) all that much in the past few years, in a way that would explain the surge of fatalities.
But anyway, to explain the increase in fatalities, my money would be on smartphones: more people driving distracted, and more pedestrians walking around buried in their phones, having no idea what's going on around them. Another posters somewhere here pointed out that pedestrian fatalities have been rising steadily since their all-time low back in 2009, which roughly coincides with the rise of smartphone adoption.
When you park an Escalade at a street corner, everyone who's trying to cross that intersection is screwed.
I really hope parking too close to an intersection was made illegal everywhere in the US like it is in some European countries.
Interestingly, New York state does actually have a "no parking 30 feet (9m) from a crosswalk" but New York City has overridden that to make it legal
https://news.yahoo.com/americas-cars-trucks-getting-bigger-1...
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-danger...
I cannot remember the last time I saw a police officer pulling someone over, either around town or on the highway.
I was rear-ended by a guy who was clearly looking at his phone and the cop refused to write a ticket despite him rear-ending me at a stoplight that I had been waiting at for over half a minute.
Cops are a legal gang and we cannot have police reform fast enough, starting with federal minimum standards for fitness, education, training, and on-the-job apprenticing/mentoring. In huge swaths of the US, all you need to be a cop is to pass a background check, have a pulse, and be young enough.
I do feel the same way as you though. Running red lights, for example, has, at least in my experience, increased massively the past few years (UK)
I suspect there isn't just one cause, but I did see that several states have stopped requiring new drivers to take a road test. Teens who wouldn't have passed a drivers test, cell phones, higher than normal stress/anxiety/frustration, grief, and an increase in walkers may also have played a role .
Anyway, driving feels more dangerous the last couple years. Also, I wonder if cars haven't changed but the number of beast-mobiles gone up? I drive a car and most trucks these days look like they'd kill me instantly and they drive like they wouldn't mind.
see what running the equivalent of a red light does to you as a train operator or airplane pilot. in a car? who gives a crap lol! and let's not even touch upon maintenance...