Start by putting a heavy-duty "Roadkill Tax" on those vehicles where the driver couldn't possibly see a pedestrian 'till his body showed up in the rear view mirror. It shouldn't be too hard to pack a few congressional committee meetings with families of their victims, to help get that passed.
I will say that having worked in Congress (albeit briefly and mostly on tech issues) I have seen the victim family card played and it definitely does have a good amount of weight. Hasn't worked for gun control (yet, although you can see it sometimes partially working after mass shootings like Uvalde which led to Texas Senator Cornyn working on gun control), but there may be less of a constituency on the other side of the debate here (or maybe not, car makes do reap tremendous profits from trucks and SUVs so the pushback on anything that could harm those sales might be tremendous)
Now lawmakers in Congress are expected to introduce a bill on Friday that would require federal standards for hood height and visibility to protect pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.
I don't think that hood height and visibility are worse with EVs. EVs are heavier than comparable ICE vehicles because they contain dense batteries but they're not larger.
Ah sorry, in OPs comment he says "heavy-duty" which I took to mean as part of the descriptor for what would trigger a fine (as in weight) but on second reading I think he means that the fine itself should be large and is not discussing anything related to the weight of the vehicle.
While weight is bad, as far as pedestrian killing goes, height is even worse. A car hitting you in the knees is very different than one hitting you in the liver, in the spine, or straight on the ribcage. The pedestrian can also end up going under, instead of flipped over, and there's a big difference in damage.
The issue is that even EVs are being built taller, as we have a race to see over traffic.
That makes sense, and I do often wonder at the wisdom of the EV Hummer for road safety (and at who exactly is the person who both wants a hummer and an electric vehicle)
The logical thing to do is require drivers of large/high vehicles to have more stringent commercial driver’s licenses as well as liability coverage, just like a dump truck driver or whatever is expected to have.
The next thing would be to increase fossil fuel taxes so that fewer people can afford to waste money on vanity and prioritizing their own safety over others’. Side benefit is it helps the environment. Keep increasing the tax until you see non commercial use of large/high vehicles drop to acceptable levels.
Back in the real world - having more money lets you put more innocents at risk in pretty much every area of human life. Doesn't matter whether that's more firefighters at risk in fighting a fire in your big house - vs. a burning tent in a homeless encampment is pretty safe for them - or more passengers at risk when your 184' yacht capsizes and sinks in a storm.
One thing I'm a little surprised not to see in the article is any discussion of distracted driving. While I think in the EU cars are slightly smaller on average, there are still plenty of larger vehicles on the road but relatively fewer deaths. The only thesis I have as to the potential disconnect is that in the EU there are far more stick shift operated vehicles which demand more attention and limbs to operate as compared to American vehicles which skew heavily automatic, making it much easier to doomscroll twitter or try to respond to a text.
Try getting a conviction for drunk driving or vehicular manslaughter in US. The case will go to a jury, and the jury members will consider that none of them can drive either. So the perp will be let off. In EU you are looking at 5 - 8 years prison for first-time offenders, that encourages caution.
> The maximum speed limit on Interstate Highways is 75 mph (121 km/h). This limit may be applied outside of "urbanized areas", where speeds of over 85 mph (137 km/h) on any highway (regardless of the posted speed limit) is considered a criminal (rather than civil) offense.
> But at least in France I get the sense that the speed limit isn’t followed closely
This is correct. The speed limit is 130kph. You don't risk very much by driving (reasonably) above the speed limit. 140-150kph on a highway is quite common. If no traffic by night, I consider myself pretty safe at 160kph. There is some automated speed control, but it's indicated by signs. That being said, I think people drive more slowly than what they use too
On the other hand, my experience in the US is that people are much more abiding of the speed limits, and I often see cops on the side of the road, and they do chase and catch people! (amusing to see as a foreigner).
People in the US are also more civil and patient and don't honk nearly is much, which is great.
Yes, but in Wyoming you’re more likely to have a single-vehicle crash, hit another vehicle maybe or hit an animal. In American cities there is greater danger to pedestrians and cyclists.
It boggles my mind that driver attentiveness nags are being required when driver assist features are _enabled_ instead of _disabled_. When you are most likely to commit manslaughter, the car (and the regulatory bodies making the policies) don't care if you're paying attention or not.
Yes all the lane keeping, auto braking, collision warning stuff could well be making some drivers feel safer trying to "send a quick text" or "just check my notifications" or (as we've seen in some "autopilot" accidents) reading a book.
Yes it is much harder to drive a stick and fiddle with your phone at the same time, at least in town. On the open road once you're up to speed there's not much difference.
Probably because their well-being is already being oh-so seriously considered in areas of online safety and communication/surveillance - you _have_ to choose your battles, you know. There's only so much lawmakers can do to "think of the children".
> Over the past three decades, the average U.S. passenger vehicle has gotten about 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller and 1,000 pounds heavier, according to IIHS.
As a New Yorker I'm not often in a car, but whenever I'm stuck in traffic I think about this. If all the cars are 10 inches longer, that adds up over the course of all the cars I'm stuck behind and has a real impact on the carrying capacity of the road.
To another point of the article, I walked by an SUV the other day where the front hood was up to my shoulders. I'm pretty regular height at 6' and just thought how getting hit by that thing would probably kill me. It's like all the cars on the road are in an arms race with each other.
I think about it a lot as a motorcyclist. If you get hit by a big truck or SUV like that, not only are you taking the full force at center mass, you're also getting thrown underneath and possibly injured more.
With shorter vehicles, your legs will take the hit instead and you'll get thrown on top of the hood, and slide off depending on momentum. Which is much better than going underneath.
Nevermind the antisocial types with their tinted windows - it used to be that as a motorcyclist you could look over passenger cars and see what it happening ahead. Nowadays every other vehicle is a truck or SUV, and the behemoth has windows tinted too dark to see through. It does not increase road safety.
> It's like all the cars on the road are in an arms race with each other.
My wife is trying to participate in the arms race unfortunately. She was rear ended while waiting to make a left turn and pushed into oncoming traffic. Her solution is to get a much bigger vehicle so people behind her will see the vehicle sitting at a stop with its turn signals on. At some level I can’t fault her. Though I know she’s likely to have the same or a very close likelihood to be rear ended or in other sorts of accidents as in a smaller car. I can’t blame her for feeling like she’d be safer in a massive SUV and then we’re just contributing to the problem.
They're officially classified as "light trucks." Decades ago, the federal government put in tighter fuel efficiency standards for passenger cars, but made an exception for "light trucks," which kicked off the SUV boom.
I'm full grown at 5'4" and there are so many cars now where the front hood is above my head. I can't be seen, and it is a worry especially in parking lots where I'm more likely to be walking around cars.
This is an indirect result of two factors: increased fuel efficiency and improved safety testing. Both were good things, but the implementation needs to be improved.
Late 90s / early 2000s fuel efficiency standards (probably following lobbying from GMC) set much more lax fuel standards for trucks than for sedans. The auto companies responded to regulation by heavily marketing their less fuel efficient trucks and SUVs.
The size of trucks themselves increasing, however, is a result of safety testing, where obviously larger vehicles are safer for their passengers, albeit more dangerous for everyone outside the vehicle.
Fuel efficiency standards should have been set as a function of average vehicle occupancy, rather than vehicle weight and type, which incentivises larger vehicles. Safety standards should require survival of pedestrians and passengers in other vehicles, at least for common scenarios where the driver of the vehicle under test is usually at fault.
>To another point of the article, I walked by an SUV the other day where the front hood was up to my shoulders. I'm pretty regular height at 6' and just thought how getting hit by that thing would probably kill me. It's like all the cars on the road are in an arms race with each other.
I hate to break it to you but even a little car can kill you. Cars and even motorcycles are heavy enough already that an impact at a high speed will be super bad. At low speed they aren't all that different either, provided the driver applies the brakes at roughly the time they hit you.
"roadway fatalities have also climbed sharply over the past decade"
If that's true, it doesn't say much good about the effectiveness of all the safety regulations over the years that have added thousands of dollars to the price of a car.
It doesn't say anything about the effectiveness of safety regulations. I hope you're not suggesting that improved safety features are the cause of increased fatalities.
Cell phone use while driving is also sharply up in the past decade. Two decades ago almost nobody had a smartphone. Now I can't drive 5 minutes to the store without seeing someone texting or using their phone.
Good question. DUI used to be thought of as sort of a funny thing. People would laugh about the drunk weaving around on the road. And the penalties (if nobody was hurt) weren't very severe. The limits were pretty high (as high as 0.15 BAC). Then we changed the messaging and the consequences and lowered the limits and most people today think it's a very uncool and stupid thing to do.
I'm not at all suggesting it's an easy problem to solve, but if that is the cause of the increase in fatalities, that is the problem we should be attacking.
Increased deaths of people walking getting hit by cars says everything about the effectiveness of recent safety regulations. They clearly are not working and we need to take a new approach beyond more surveillance and beeping.
This isn't rocket science. We could just, you know, do what the Netherlands does.
It’s a proposed possibility that doesn’t defy logic. I am not saying it is reality.
Also, it carries about as much weight as their arguments that safety features aren’t helping reduce fatalities/are driving up car costs. Neither of us is presenting any evidence.
This was all caused by the CAFE emissions standards that allow cars with bigger footprints to emit more. Nobody wants bigger fucking trucks and in the Tacoma community it's a standard refrain to bemoan just how fucking big they've gotten. They aren't compact trucks anymore. They're midsize today. Compact trucks do not exist.
What I have heard from some youtubers is that those smaller trucks were lot less available. As Ford pushed bigger ones due to higher margins. So supply was limited moving people to bigger vehicles.
When I was kid my dad had a Dodge Ram 50 which was about the size of a car and it had a four-cylinder engine with a manual transmission and no 4WD. Never had any issues hauling anything. We put a pallet of bricks in the bed and it wasn't a problem. Modern trucks are too expensive and big for no real reason other than ego and insecurity. It's blue-collar cosplay. Maybe a few people need a huge truck, but for most people a smaller truck or a van would work better.
To be honest, while I’m not a Tesla fanboy, I don’t think the Cybertruck deserves this hate- as a cyclist I feel worlds safer near a Cybertruck than eg an F150 (though it of course weighs a lot) because of the sloped hood design.
Do I prefer to cycle next to Honda Fits? Of course, but the cybertruck is better than a lot of other truck alternatives
Separating fully would be nice and the most safe. Intersections are probably a good balance of safe vs associated capital & maintenance costs. American "stroad" design definitely results in a lot of well-documented unsafety. This is because speed differences are a huge contributor of accidents and humans are basically stationary. That's why a separate bike lane is needed when bikes are going full speed and why many civilized countries have separate passing and flow of traffic lanes and why "driving too slow" is as much of a ticket as "driving too fast".
> After several stroads were replaced by more efficient roadways in Boston, vehicular fatalities fell from 21 in 2016 to 10 in 2018; simultaneously, pedestrian fatalities halved from 14 to 7.[41] This partial success motivated Bostonian locals to demand the complete elimination of the remaining stroads by implementing better road design.[41]
It's not just pedestrians, driving a small, low car like a Miata is becoming nearly as dangerous as riding a motorcycle. Bigger vehicles simply don't see you. The only thing saving the little cars is that they're also more nimble, so when a giant truck starts moving into your lane - despite the fact that you're currently occupying it - you can maneuver quickly and stay alive. You'd be amazed at how common this experience is.
I think it is important to also note the increase in pedestrians in general. Assuming bicycalists and scooterists (?) are considered pedestrians, there has been a big increase in there usage primarily due to lithium batteries becoming more efficient. It is understandable that there will be an increase in events involving pedestrians. Have not saying I know the answer to reducing pedestrian fatalities but the article I think failed to place the fatalities in context of the increase in scooters and bikes by people.
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[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadGet lots of victims? That hasn’t worked for gun control.
I don't think that hood height and visibility are worse with EVs. EVs are heavier than comparable ICE vehicles because they contain dense batteries but they're not larger.
The issue is that even EVs are being built taller, as we have a race to see over traffic.
The next thing would be to increase fossil fuel taxes so that fewer people can afford to waste money on vanity and prioritizing their own safety over others’. Side benefit is it helps the environment. Keep increasing the tax until you see non commercial use of large/high vehicles drop to acceptable levels.
Back in the real world - having more money lets you put more innocents at risk in pretty much every area of human life. Doesn't matter whether that's more firefighters at risk in fighting a fire in your big house - vs. a burning tent in a homeless encampment is pretty safe for them - or more passengers at risk when your 184' yacht capsizes and sinks in a storm.
I think the less car friendly streets is a bigger contributor, drivers have to pay attention more vs blind driving based solely on a traffic light.
I never saw a cop over that week. And cars had great manners with everyone in the right lane except when passing.
But at least in France I get the sense that the speed limit isn’t followed closely.
> The maximum speed limit on Interstate Highways is 75 mph (121 km/h). This limit may be applied outside of "urbanized areas", where speeds of over 85 mph (137 km/h) on any highway (regardless of the posted speed limit) is considered a criminal (rather than civil) offense.
This is correct. The speed limit is 130kph. You don't risk very much by driving (reasonably) above the speed limit. 140-150kph on a highway is quite common. If no traffic by night, I consider myself pretty safe at 160kph. There is some automated speed control, but it's indicated by signs. That being said, I think people drive more slowly than what they use too
On the other hand, my experience in the US is that people are much more abiding of the speed limits, and I often see cops on the side of the road, and they do chase and catch people! (amusing to see as a foreigner).
People in the US are also more civil and patient and don't honk nearly is much, which is great.
EDIT: https://www.groupama.fr/assurance-auto/conseils/amende-exces...
29km/h above the speed limit is only a 65 euros fine.
If I recall correctly, the average American drives around 2X more miles per year than people in the EU. The country is big. Things are far away.
If you look at a state like Wyoming where everything is very far away the average person might drive 4X more miles.
More miles means more accidents.
Speeds are also higher in many places in the US, which is related to the fact that everything is farther apart.
This is such a plausible explanation I'm going to steal it. I do wonder if this is exactly the difference.
On the other hand there are still people texting while driving here (usually in traffic jam).
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In highways, at least in my country, buses and cargo trucks have a different speed limit compared to other vehicles.
It wouldn't be fundamentally different for SUVs to have a lower speed limit compared to sedans when driving in urban areas.
Still a career-death sentence for the politician who wants to push it, unfortunately.
As a New Yorker I'm not often in a car, but whenever I'm stuck in traffic I think about this. If all the cars are 10 inches longer, that adds up over the course of all the cars I'm stuck behind and has a real impact on the carrying capacity of the road.
To another point of the article, I walked by an SUV the other day where the front hood was up to my shoulders. I'm pretty regular height at 6' and just thought how getting hit by that thing would probably kill me. It's like all the cars on the road are in an arms race with each other.
With shorter vehicles, your legs will take the hit instead and you'll get thrown on top of the hood, and slide off depending on momentum. Which is much better than going underneath.
My wife is trying to participate in the arms race unfortunately. She was rear ended while waiting to make a left turn and pushed into oncoming traffic. Her solution is to get a much bigger vehicle so people behind her will see the vehicle sitting at a stop with its turn signals on. At some level I can’t fault her. Though I know she’s likely to have the same or a very close likelihood to be rear ended or in other sorts of accidents as in a smaller car. I can’t blame her for feeling like she’d be safer in a massive SUV and then we’re just contributing to the problem.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popu...
People like sitting up higher, people like being the “bigger” entity, and of course, protecting one’s self by being bigger.
The US has large roads, parking lots, a driveways, advances in fuel efficiency, and low fuel taxes to enable this indulgence.
Late 90s / early 2000s fuel efficiency standards (probably following lobbying from GMC) set much more lax fuel standards for trucks than for sedans. The auto companies responded to regulation by heavily marketing their less fuel efficient trucks and SUVs.
The size of trucks themselves increasing, however, is a result of safety testing, where obviously larger vehicles are safer for their passengers, albeit more dangerous for everyone outside the vehicle.
Fuel efficiency standards should have been set as a function of average vehicle occupancy, rather than vehicle weight and type, which incentivises larger vehicles. Safety standards should require survival of pedestrians and passengers in other vehicles, at least for common scenarios where the driver of the vehicle under test is usually at fault.
I hate to break it to you but even a little car can kill you. Cars and even motorcycles are heavy enough already that an impact at a high speed will be super bad. At low speed they aren't all that different either, provided the driver applies the brakes at roughly the time they hit you.
If that's true, it doesn't say much good about the effectiveness of all the safety regulations over the years that have added thousands of dollars to the price of a car.
Cell phone use while driving is also sharply up in the past decade. Two decades ago almost nobody had a smartphone. Now I can't drive 5 minutes to the store without seeing someone texting or using their phone.
I'm not at all suggesting it's an easy problem to solve, but if that is the cause of the increase in fatalities, that is the problem we should be attacking.
This isn't rocket science. We could just, you know, do what the Netherlands does.
It’s a proposed possibility that doesn’t defy logic. I am not saying it is reality.
Also, it carries about as much weight as their arguments that safety features aren’t helping reduce fatalities/are driving up car costs. Neither of us is presenting any evidence.
It seems like the problem is vehicle size and distractions: why would more surveillance help?
The F-150 is the best selling truck in America, even though Ford produces a smaller pickup truck that is cheaper.
We can blame CAFE standards and automakers all day long, but at the end of the day many people do appear to want the bigger trucks.
Do I prefer to cycle next to Honda Fits? Of course, but the cybertruck is better than a lot of other truck alternatives
Separate streets and roads so that roads don’t have people and people and bicycles cross across roads through skywalks or tunnels.
Wait for the cars to get bigger and taller enough that they become planes and the humans cross under that way.
This is sounds like urban design from 60s.
> After several stroads were replaced by more efficient roadways in Boston, vehicular fatalities fell from 21 in 2016 to 10 in 2018; simultaneously, pedestrian fatalities halved from 14 to 7.[41] This partial success motivated Bostonian locals to demand the complete elimination of the remaining stroads by implementing better road design.[41]