Pretty slanted. Could write a complementary article: large cars are safer for the passengers. Why don't we keep pedestrians separate from traffic more effectively?
Having an arms race where people buy bigger and bigger cars to be safer in collisions with other cars is really not ideal, because it doesn't improve overall automobile safety on a national level even just for drivers, and it hurts safety for pedestrians.
Cities including mine are drunk on putting speed humps everywhere.
But obviously they’re not “tuned” for each vehicle size.
A coupe/sedan needs to slow down to half the speed limit to go over, while a larger vehicle with a suspension and tire sizes to match can take them at speed.
Same story for potholes, which of course are worsened by heavier vehicles while small vehicles pay the price.
Literally encouraging an arms race when it comes to vehicle size.
And they are, but only for larger vehicles on my ass for slowing down to go over them in my sedan.
If you look at the stats, virtually the entire increase in pedestrian deaths over the last 10 years has occurred at night.
At any rate, it's largely left-turning, night driving vehicles that are causing the increase in deaths in North America. These pedestrians are being struck at an angle rather than head on.
I've driven vehicles that don't have to survive a rollover (a few models of New Flyer diesel bus). The A pillar being slanted or straight makes no difference. It's the thickness that'll block a pedestrian.
I'm having a bit of trouble understanding this. I've done some visibility tests in my car, a 2006 Honda CR-V, and I don't think the A columns would cause me to miss a pedestrian. I'm not sure how that compares to newer cars, but just looking from the outside at newer cars in parking lots and on the street the size and slant of the A columns seems similar to mine.
What I found in my tests is that the slant of the columns helps with me seeing pedestrians. Yes, along any given horizontal line the column could completely span the visual width of a pedestrian who is not very close to the car, but since pedestrians stand vertically it is only covering part of them vertically. E.g., if the column is blocking me seeing waist it won't be blocking the chest or head. If it is blocking their chest I'll see their waist and head.
A column with little or no slant would be able to block from head to waist.
From my perspective in the driver's seat, the driver side column is less slanted than the passenger side column, so it does block more of a pedestrian. Still, I think if a walking pedestrian was close enough that I might hit them when turning in that direction they would be close enough that enough of them would be unblocked for me to see them.
Also, since I'm much closer to the driver side column, when I turn my head from looking straight ahead to looking to the left that moves my eyes enough that there is enough perspective shift that the places that someone who is at a distance where they could be completely blocked cannot remain blocked throughout the head turn. I'll either catch them with my right eye at early in the head turn or my left late in the head turn.
This might vary between people. When I turn my head to check the driver's side I also move my head back a little. Someone who moves their head forward as they turn it could end up with the perspective shift from the turn being offset by the perspective shift from moving the head forward.
PS: while writing this I had an idea for a simple add on that could make it a lot easier to see pedestrians near the car. Why not add a pair of mirrors near the bottom of the windshield directly in front of the driver. One mirror would be angled to let the driver see what is on the left, and one to see what is on the right.
But while minivans won't roll over, they also will almost certainly have longer stopping distances than a sedan.