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Comment by lispisok | Hacker News Reader

A Rivian R1S is 8,500 lbs. These electric SUV's are insanely heavy. Like heavy enough a standard passenger vehicle driver's license shouldnt apply. A 8,500lbs suv with sports car acceleration. We're gonna see the pedestrian vehicle death record go up every year.

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I thought the biggest driver in The USA for truck v pedestrian deaths is the hood height issue and not really weight. There just isn't enough difference there to matter while hood heights approaching 6 feet are becoming standard in new trucks.

Height wouldn’t be bad if they gave it more angles than a gas stove. Consider a prius, the car is literally just a bulbous doorstop. That is so much better for pedestrian safety because they just roll up and off. NHTSA is clearly corrupt for allowing those beastly trucks and suvs on our roads. No engineer would have signed off on those.

For (~100kg) pedestrian, I am sure the difference in lethality from being hit by a 1000kg vehicle vs a 3000kg vehicle is insubstantial. Where the weight would matter is for vehicle-vehicle collisions.

I think they were probably referring to the handling of such a ridiculously heavy car.

The vast majority of pedestrians survive getting hit by a car, not all incidents happen at highway speeds. A difference between a mass of 1 and 3 tons would absolutely make a difference in lethality.

I think its more that you are liable to roll off a car vs get exploded from an suv.

Dubious claim. A vehicle might as well be a wall with infinite mass vs a pedestrian. Deformation, breaking and being passed out of the way are what counts.

8000 pedestrians killed vs 104,000 emergency visits for non fatal crash related injuries:

https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/pedestrian_safety/i...

Weight is directly called out as a factor:

> SUVs can cause more harm to a person on foot when a crash occurs because of their greater body weight and larger profile

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