Detroit Free Press |
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety calculated an 81 percent increase in single-vehicle pedestrian fatalities involving SUVs in 2009-16. The Free Press/USA TODAY analysis of the same federal data, counting vehicles that struck and killed pedestrians rather than the number of people killed, showed a 69 percent increase in SUV involvement. The assessment also showed increases each year in the proportion of fatal pedestrian crashes involving the popular vehicles.
The increased lethality of SUVs and the like has been a real sore point for me, for at least that long. Vehicle makers are obviously aware of the increased morbidity and mortality rates for pedestrians, when comparing cars with light trucks. They've been negligent for years, have rarely attempted to mitigate pedestrian impacts, and have not even warned SUV buyers that the vehicles they've chosen are far more likely to accidentally kill a pedestrian.
Meanwhile NHTSA has been certain that SUVs are significantly more deadly to pedestrians, and especially deadly to children, since at least 2015...
Text: NHTSA Graphic: Detroit Free Press |
In general, American auto makers like GM tend to treat this as a problem that can be solved with technology like Automatic Emergency Braking, and they resist considering pedestrian survival a part of overall crashworthiness.
While the Freep, and most safety researchers, have for now focused on SUV/pedestrian impacts, it's obvious that the same factors make SUVs deadlier for cyclists and motorcyclists, too.
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