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Comment by neogodless | Hacker News Reader

When I was a kid I was taught not to walk in the street.

When you walk, you go in the opposite direction of cars and can see them coming and, if necessary, move off to the side more.

I know it's survivorship bias, but it worked for me.

Now I get that population density is increasing, and probably so is traffic. Though so are automatic safety features that cause cars to brake rather than hit things.

Are there statistics on vehicular fatalities in suburbs?

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Pedestrian traffic deaths are going down again after peaking in 2022. Accidents are less survivable in the US due to bigger cars and higher hoods.

Quote from CDC

During 2013–2022, U.S. traffic-related death rates increased a relative 50.0% for pedestrians and 22.5% overall, compared with those in 27 other high-income countries, where they declined a median of 24.7% and 19.4%, respectively. Across countries, U.S. pedestrian death rates were highest overall and among persons aged 15–24 and 25–64 years.

The cars are getting bigger. That means that the impact is more deadly, and the line of sight is higher - making it easy to overlook a child. The sensors often won't react at low speeds which are common for residential neighborhoods, and at high speeds they are late anyway.

>The cars are getting bigger

Wasn't there a trend in the US away from pompous SUVs and towards smaller cars, people even starting to re-evaluate some European-favored "city" cars more?

Also aren't cars also getting ligther, with less heavy / metallic exterior over time?

There is some bimodal distribution. I routinely encounter trucks where I cannot see over the hood. I suspect most of these vehicles have never carried so much as a 2x4 in the bed.

We have a regulatory regime that requires that SUVs be bigger each year. It saves the environment that way.

This is not true at all. People who buy cars were willing to pay higher prices for cars where they sit higher up and take up more space, even specifically as a defensive maneuver to be safer in the event of a collision.

Obviously, as a business, you have to give customers what they want or else you will go out of business.

The government is, however, very lax on prioritizing the safety of people outside of vehicles (which would mean limiting vehicle size and speed and enforcing harsh penalties for unsafe driving).

It's not even "in the street" I'm worried about -- it's the lunatics who drive like they are the main character in a single-player RPG. Not looking for bikes or pedestrians, crashing into parked cars and houses.

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