![]() program was once the worldwide leader in evaluating vehicle safety and equipping consumers to make informed decisions, but it’s been lapped by the rest of the world and is woefully out of date. Read that again: we do not test for, or even consider, the impact of a new car’s design on potential collisions with human beings not in a vehicle-an action that results in a death more than 6,200 times per year and increasing almost every year. That report was in hand when NHTSA issued recommendations in 2018 to revise motor vehicle safety standards to better protect pedestrians, but federal policymakers have so far failed to make any significant changes to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) to include testing, ratings, or safety standards for people outside a vehicle, whether on foot, bike, or using assistive devices. That report, citing 12 independent studies of injury data, said pedestrians are two to three times ‘more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an SUV or pickup than when struck by a passenger car.’ That report also noted that SUVs and trucks were involved in a third of pedestrian injuries but 40 percent of deaths, indicating that injuries “may be more severe when sustained in collisions with these vehicles.” The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made the connection in 2015 that SUVs were deadlier for pedestrians than cars, referenced on page 90 of a 195-page report. Safety regulators at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) were aware of this problem as early as 2015. The federal government has failed to act when it comes to the deadly impacts of ever-larger vehicles This means that, today, it could be that the likelihood of surviving crashes with an “average” vehicle in the US-at all speed levels-could be even worse than the graphic shows, because the “average” vehicle is so much larger today-and getting bigger. One important bit of fine print is that the data behind this graphic (and almost all the other versions you see all over the internet) are sourced from a 1995 European study that predates the significant shift of the vehicle fleet (and increase in size) of the last two decades. Photo by IFCAR Photo by Kevauto – CC BY-SA 4.0Ĭirca 2000 Ford F-150 long bed vs. The size of larger vehicles has increased dramatically over the past several decades: pickup trucks in particular are nearly 1,256 pounds (32 percent) heavier than they were in 1990. The second part of this complex problem is that the trucks and SUVs which are growing in number/share are also growing in actual size. Today’s trucks and SUVs are also getting larger each year In fact, two engineers at Rowan University chillingly predicted our current decades-long increase in deaths of people walking in a 2002 academic study about the impact of trucks and SUVs, one of the first peer-reviewed studies examining the increased danger to people walking posed by larger vehicles. Our investigation found: Federal safety regulators have known for years that SUVs, with their higher front-end profile, are at least twice as likely as cars to kill the walkers, joggers and children they hit, yet have done little to reduce deaths or publicize the danger. As the graphic below shows, since 2009 the share of all new vehicles bought and sold that were sedans plunged from nearly 40 to below 30 percent and, if current trends hold, could be below 15 percent before the 2020s are over.Ī landmark investigative report from the Detroit Free Press in 2018 explored the data in depth, one of the first major media outlets to take a close look at the dangers posed by larger vehicles:ĭata analyses by the Free Press/USA TODAY and others show that SUVs are the constant in the increase and account for a steadily growing proportion of deaths. Sedans-with their low front bumpers and high all-around visibility-were once the most popular type of car in the country, but those days are done. The US vehicle fleet is in the midst of a major transformation This post is adapted and expanded from the 2021 Dangerous by Design report from Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition. The data bears these trends out, and federal regulators are both aware and failing to act. You don’t need to read a research paper to know that more people are driving trucks and SUVs (sport utility vehicles) compared to 20 years ago, that today’s trucks and SUVs are significantly bigger than they were 10-20 years ago, or that they’re more dangerous for people walking, biking, or getting around with an assistive device.
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