Tom FucoloroNYT investigation: Thousands of U.S. pedestrians are dead due to SUV/truck hood and pillar designs
From the New York Times (gift link). A bombshell investigation in the New York Times goes deep into the ways that taller hoods and wider A-pillars in American SUV and pickup trucks both block drivers' ability to see people walking and inflict more deadly injuries when collisions occur. After significant statistical analysis, the authors conclude that at least 3,000 people killed between 2016 and 2024 would still be alive if only cars and trucks had remained the same size they were in the early 2000s. The story has many excellent visualizations of how driver visibility is blocked. The article is not the first to point to high hoods and wide pillars as factors in the nation's dramatic increase in pedestrian deaths since the aughts, but it is the most comprehensive. They studied how hood heights lead to more deaths, added hood height information to the national traffic fatality database (since US agencies do not adequately track this factor), then determined, "The shift toward vehicles with higher hoods caused about 3,000 deaths from 2016 to 2024." The count is very likely a low estimate because the federal database does not include deaths on private property, such as the hundreds of people killed in parking lots or driveways every year. It's also very difficult to measure how many of these fatal collisions would not have been collisions at all had the involved drivers been more easily able to see other people. So many of these tragedies should instead have been mundane interactions where a person simply taps the brakes and waits a second or two, then everyone goes on their way. The person in the crosswalk goes home to their loved ones completely unaware that they were ever in danger. Beyond the statistics, the article also includes excellent graphics and visuals showing how the designs of these large vehicles affects driver visibility. In one chilling simulation using a real truck and captured with overhead and driver's view cameras, they demonstrate how a person turning left can do so without seeing a dummy in a crosswalk until the very last moment when it is too late. If the pedestrian were a child, the driver may never see them at all. […]
Ulrich Auer 
Berlin Cycling Diary
Harald Kliems
Vision Zero Kjipuktuk-Halifax
fahrradtermine-berlin.de (FTB)
