Blindspots on SUVs, Vans, and Pickups Are Bad for Pedestrian Health
Freeman writes:
It's a dangerous time to be on American roads, and that's especially true if you're on foot.
Pedestrian deaths on our roads went up by more than 50 percent in a decade, and it looks like last year may have been even worse than 2020. The problem is complex, as road design, poor standards of driving training, and inadequate enforcement of existing traffic laws all contribute to the death toll.
But a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has figured out why drivers of some types of vehicles are disproportionately more likely to hit pedestrians. Previous research has shown that cars are much safer for pedestrians than light truck vehicles, a catch-all category that includes SUVs, pickups, and vans (mini- or otherwise). And there has been speculation that the high fronts of these vehicles are more likely to mangle a pedestrian.
The IIHS study identifies another factor. IIHS Senior Transportation Engineer Wen Hu and IIHS Vice President of Research Jessica Cicchino looked at crash data from North Carolina (from 2010 to 2018) and data from the national Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, (from 2014 to 2018) to try to understand the problem.
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Ironically, the problem may be partly of IIHS' making. When Ars visited IIHS's crash-testing center in 2019, the organization was proud of the fact that the auto industry had responded to its tougher rollover test. In order to protect occupants during a rollover, OEMs had to strengthen their A-pillars in order to pass. That resulted in safer cars for their occupants, but at the cost of worse visibility-and perhaps more dead pedestrians.
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