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 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.
When discussing safety on a population-wide scale, it’s helpful to think of things in terms of systems the way a workplace safety team or airline pilot training might. A “safe systems” approach acknowledges that people will make mistakes, and so the design of the system should include safety buffers and extra chances to catch mistakes before they turn to injuries or deaths. A classic illustration is the Swiss cheese model in which multiple slices representing safety elements, each with their own holes, are lined up so that even if an event bypasses one layer, it will be stopped by the next one. The only way for an event to cause harm is if the holes all line up so it can pass straight through.
Impeding driver visibility is a move in the wrong direction, widening those Swiss cheese holes so that there are more clear lines to tragedy. When the safety margin is reduced, the size of mistake needed to lead to death or injury is smaller. Factors like distracted or intoxicated driving are compounded because the margin for error was so low to begin with.
Though the article stays focused on pedestrian deaths, many of the same visibility issues also affect people on bikes. Hell, even Lambos are not immune.
There are many factors that contribute to increases in traffic deaths in the U.S., especially deaths of people outside vehicles. The number of people killed annually while walking was nearly halved from around 8,000 in 1980 to around 4,000 in 2009, but while safety trends continued downward in many countries, it reversed sharply in the US and climbed back to 1980s levels by the 2020s. Many people will point to the rise in distracted driving due to the proliferation of smart phones, but other countries got smart phones and didn’t see the same trend. Where the U.S. stands apart is vehicle size.
We desperately need an overhaul of vehicle safety standards in the U.S., and I hope this NYT investigation helps light that fire. The CAFE loophole that incentivizes automakers to sell more large vehicles needs to be fixed. Vehicle safety standards need to properly include people outside of cars, both in terms of driver visibility and in the case of a collision. While the corrupt reality TV personality currently cosplaying as Transportation Secretary has shown no interest in any of this, states could take action on their own or as a block. Washington State has limited ability to force auto industry changes on its own, but with California, Illinois, New York or any collection of states representing a large enough consumer base they could force some changes by making it illegal to sell or operate vehicles in the state that fail to meet certain guidelines around hood height and driver visibility. The states can put a delay on the changes to give automakers a reasonable timeline to meet the new requirements with their next models, thus improving safety outcomes in all states.
But even if we had a functional federal government that cared about the lives of our nation’s people, it takes a long time for new vehicle standards to affect our streets because the vehicles out there today will be there for many years before they are replaced. We cannot wait that long. That’s where Vision Zero traffic safety comes in. State and local governments can redesign roadways to reduce speeding, eliminate dangerous conflict points and include more safety buffers. Traffic engineers today understand so much more about street safety than they did in the past when so many of our roads were designed. Modern safe streets designs add additional slices of Swiss cheese to the traffic system while also reducing the size of the holes in each of them. Creating extra space between turning vehicles and bike lanes or crosswalks gives everyone involved more time to react and more chances to avoid a collision, for example. Higher vehicle hood heights require more space between the stop line and the crosswalk while also making it less safe to allow right turns on red because of the increasing likelihood that a driver cannot see a person — especially a child, a shorter person or a person in a chair — directly in front of them. Perhaps most importantly of all, eliminating extra lanes traveling in the same direction dramatically reduces deadly conflict points for all road users while also creating space for other roadway safety elements like safer bike lanes and crosswalks.
Safe streets are better for everyone, including people inside cars. They also create healthier and more connected communities. Redesigning streets to be safer for all users is worthwhile work on its own, but it’s also the only tool available to local governments to counteract the rise of increasingly dangerous vehicles. Seattle cannot force GMC to improve vehicle sightlines, but the city can design streets to reduce speeding, eliminate conflict points, and add buffer space between those vehicles and the bodies of other Seattle residents and visitors. The good news is that when the city conducts a significant Vision Zero redesign, even a relatively low-budget version, it works. The city simply is not conducting enough of them quickly enough. It’s time for a Vision Zero surge to catch up and maybe even get ahead of the problem.