> I did read the entire article. One point you may have missed is the same increase in frontal height happened in other countries, but didn’t result in the same increases in pedestrian fatalities. It’s likely that other factors are in play in the USA.
I am not sure where you are getting this in the article, but yes, obviously other factors are in play. Transit engineering, driving culture, and other demographic factors affect the likelihood of a pedestrian collision happening in the first place, as well as vehicle design factors. But once the collision occurs, vehicle speed and vehicle design are the primary factors determining the outcome for the pedestrian. Competent regulators will attack the problem from all sides, and improving vehicle design standards (or at the very least not incentivizing larger vehicles) is low hanging fruit.
> Guns and large vehicles are similar in that both increase the safety of the owner. There’s no downside as long as the owner is responsible.
You could say this about literally anything. I would have no problem with personal nuclear weapons for self defense as long as the owner(s) were responsible.
In practice, we know that the owners of guns and large vehicles have (to a first approximation) the same capacity for irresponsibility as anyone else.
> One flaw in the NYT analysis was around the “A column” blind spot. No competent driver will look for pedestrians without moving his head enough to eliminate that blind spot.
Makes me think you've never tried to negotiate e.g. a busy unsignaled four way stop with protected cycle tracks on three of the four incoming roads, and no raised sidewalks, at night and/or in the rain.
When a driver's attention is split 5+ ways, there is only so much they can do. As above, intersection design takes a lot of the blame in these situations, but making blind spots smaller will always improve safety. As somebody who has been walking, riding, and driving in a mid sized American city for 20+ years, the most frequent type of near-death experience I've had has been crossing the street with the signal and almost getting hit by left-turning cars who didn't see me, in precisely the same kind of situation highlighted in the article.
> There is no denying that large vehicles are safer for their occupants, the statistics are clear.
Nobody is debating this, because it's totally irrelevant here except insofar as it's insane for us to encourage people to insulate themselves from the consequences of collisions while reciprocally increasing the risk for others involved.
I seriously don't understand the mindset that focuses on the safety of occupants of the largest vehicles involved in a collision, especially when the context is pedestrian safety. It's even more frustrating that our regulators seem to have adopted the same mindset.
edit: And the current mix of vehicles we have on the road distorts the safety statistics even more. Is it really surprising that when a Yukon XL collides with a Corolla, the people in the Yukon walk away while the Corolla's occupants get closed casket funerals? Since the protection larger vehicles afford their occupants is dependent on their size and weight, it's not independent of the outcomes for others involved in a collision.