The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/06/21/us/trucks-suv-pedestrian-crashes.html

by xnx • 1 month ago

513 643 1 month ago

Unlocked: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/06/21/us/trucks-suv...

Related: ttps://www.thedrive.com/news/75-more-pedestrians-have-been-killed-since-2009-giant-trucks-and-suvs-are-why

kelseyfrog4• 1 month ago

These are gender-affirming vehicles for a large number of men. Taking them away is a direct attack on their masculinity. When we say, "Men are under attack," it refers to things like this.

Regardless of any safety claims, for that reason alone, I don't see it as a politically viable issue.

TacticalCoder• 1 month ago

These are gender-affirming vehicles for a large number of men.

I think people simply do find SUVs (which I don't like) convenient. Many women, including a huge number of moms, do happen to just love SUVs. Both in the US and in the EU.

In the EU SUVs are now approaching 60% of all cars sold (59.25% or so, latest numbers). You don't get such a market share by being mostly cars sold to men needing to "gender-affirm".

tapoxi• 1 month ago

I drive an SUV. It's convenient!

A Ford F150 is fucking ridiculous in comparison, and larger than any truck I remember seeing growing up, and there's people with F350s for personal use.

One of them ran over and killed a kid outside a nearby children's museum. Those things are not safe.

bjt• 1 month ago

"SUV" is too broad a category. A RAV4 is an SUV. It's similarly sized to most of the SUVs I've seen in Europe. And a pedestrian getting hit by one would have a similar experience to getting hit by a sedan. It's nothing like the big Rams, GMCs or F250s with the high front grilles that are becoming more popular while also being far deadlier to pedestrians.

lojban• 1 month ago

What are the benefits of an SUV over a minivan though? They seem objectively worse in practically all regards: worse fuel efficiency, worse doors, less cargo space, worse visibility.

kelseyfrog4• 1 month ago

Sure, people can love SUVs, and trucks can be gender-affirming vehicles for a large number of men. Both can be true.

Watch a US truck commercial. The market and the motivating themes are immediately obvious. Besides, drivers literally adorn trucks with prosthetic testicles. That's something that cannot be unseen.

bediger4000• 1 month ago

You're right, I don't know why you're getting down voted. You e got my admiration for being brave enough to write this on HN

sublinear2• 1 month ago

You might be the one saying this right now, but how old is this comment?

I don't think I've ever heard any man ever say that in real life, but even online it's probably been almost a decade since this was memed into the ground.

kelseyfrog4• 1 month ago

I don't think I've ever heard any man ever say that in real life

Um, because men get weird when you point out the gender-affirming actions they do? Try it irl and see what the reactions are. There's a reason the only place free of physical intimidation is where this can be safely said.

Besides, how old is the privacy comment or the "parents should parent" comment we see dragged out on every kid's social media ban? It's almost like the age of the sentiment doesn't have any bearing on its relevancy.

edbaskerville• 1 month ago

I can't tell if you think this is a good thing or a bad thing that men use big trucks to compensate for a masculine sense of inadequacy. But I think this is a good point, and I think we need to fight against it.

I don't think it's politically impossible. These things are killing children (among many other people). "Giant trucks and SUVs are killing children" seems like a pretty powerful line.

RIMR3• 30 days ago

I 100% agree with you, but I do sorta get the other point being made here.

Assault rifles have been used to slaughter classrooms full of children in some of the most bone-chilling acts of violence imaginable, and people have such a weird identity complex around guns that they go to outrageous lengths to avoid any meaningful action. We've even seen parents of murdered children accused by gun-rights activists of being paid actors and deliberately threatening 2nd amendment rights.

Car culture in America is similarly toxic, with people having strong automobile-centric identities. The culture surrounding giant trucks is the most extreme, and there's a mountain of dashcam video online suggesting that the kinds of people who buy these massive truck are also quite reckless behind the wheel and do intentionally aggressive things with them, including deliberately harassing behaviors like "rolling coal". These aesthetics and behaviors are enshrined by popular political establishments on the right, meaning that challenging any of it becomes a partisan fight.

The backlash of banning these kinds of vehicles would be straight out of the movie Idiocracy, but there are enough jerks in this country that it would completely block any progress from ever being made.

ortusdux• 1 month ago

Does the added risk translate proportionally to increased insurance costs? Or is there an imbalance? When I was a teen getting insurance for the first time, certain vehicle colors were significantly more expensive to insure, and that fact factored into my car buying decisions.

xnx3• 1 month ago

There are almost never consequences for hitting someone with your car.

protocolture7• 1 month ago

I have 360 degree cameras (at toddler height), auto braking, every conceivable safety mechanism. I really think that once these are implemented, any hatred of large vehicles is just jealousy.

downrightmike• 1 month ago

None of that fixes an inattentive driver flying down the road playing with tiktok on their phone

doubled112• 1 month ago

Agreed. It definitely fixes backing over a toddler in your driveway though.

I have a newer crossover. I put a hitch mount cargo box on and went to back out of the driveway. It slammed the brakes on harder than I ever have.

protocolture7• 1 month ago

None of that fixes an inattentive driver flying down the road playing with tiktok on their phone

Automatic braking does alleviate this, but also, inattentive driving is already illegal?

ungreased0675• 1 month ago

My normal sized car is at a significant disadvantage in a collision with a full-sized SUV. This creates higher injury risk for me and my family.

Larger vehicles also cause more road damage over time, which raises my taxes or reduces the quality of roads I drive on.

For those reasons, I think vehicles should be taxed by weight, to encourage more smaller, lighter vehicles.

protocolture7• 1 month ago

For those reasons, I think vehicles should be taxed by weight, to encourage more smaller, lighter vehicles.

I pay higher insurance and registration fees already, I think its covered where I am.

bobbytables1• 1 month ago

Jealous of what exactly? Sounds like you are trying to justify your needlessly large/heavy vehicle. Plenty of accidents still occur with vehicles that have all those features. And accidents involving large/heavy vehicles are deadlier. It’s not rocket science. On top of that they have other downsides, like increased pollution and road degradation.

protocolture7• 1 month ago

Jealous of what exactly?

Wish I knew.

Sounds like you are trying to justify your needlessly large/heavy vehicle.

I drove a Honda Jazz until I literally couldn't fit everything in anymore. I found I could carry 4 1.2 meter galvanised steel poles at an angle before I ran out of capacity. Which worked fine for me, I wouldn't be anxious unless they were literally scraping the windshield. I could carry half a rack of servers in the back with the seats folded down, before the back of the thing would start to scrape pavement. I needed something that could do better than that when I upgraded. Most hatches and sedans were a backwards step, and Honda stopped selling the Jazz in Aus. But for whatever reason, people feel the need to comment on the large vehicle.

Plenty of accidents still occur with vehicles that have all those features.

With reduced impact.

like increased pollution and road degradation.

I get better distance per litre out of the big one, and if its more polluting then I don't understand why I struggle so hard with the DPF which is literally designed to bring the thing down to our honestly egregious emissions standards, I literally dream about getting it illegally removed. "Road Degredation" seems marginal at best, wider tires spreading the load out further. Seems like another engineering problem if it is a problem. The poms figured out how to prevent their CVR light tanks from causing road damage, I am sure big utes aren't that much of an issue.

rjrjrjrj3• 1 month ago

Doesn't fix braking distance, doesn't fix the increased chance of serious injury if a collision with a pedestrian occurs.

protocolture7• 1 month ago

auto braking

The thing literally starts braking before my brain can process whats happening.

arbitrary_name• 1 month ago

no, it's the fact that in accidents (where you are not the cause), people die disproportionately under your giant vehicle. it's safer for you, but almost no one else.

and don't get me started on the environmental/political aspects.

why would someone questioning your selfish (I'm not targeting you personally, just voicing a general perspective) decision have anything to do with jealousy?

protocolture7• 1 month ago

Political?

it's safer for you, but almost no one else.

No its safe for everyone else too. It wont even let me run into a tree.

have anything to do with jealousy

Wish I knew, its just the only thing left when driving an efficient, safe vehicle that just happens to be large.

adamsb6• 1 month ago

No mention of CAFE standards? How can you write this article without mentioning the policy that incentivizes larger vehicles?

technonerd• 1 month ago

No mention of the 1964 chicken tax either.

dlcarrier2• 1 month ago

I'm excited that EVs get to avoid CAFE standards, so we get to have small vehicles again. Even though legacy domestic car manufacturers aren't going to be involved, as they practically wrote the CAFE standards that eliminated small vehicles, and there's bipartisan support to tariff EV imports out of existence, there's still enough market demand for multiple domestic startups.

toomuchtodo4• 1 month ago

Unfortunately, we still get abominations like the GMC Hummer EV (~9000 lbs, classified as a class 3 medium duty truck). Rumor has it the model has been cancelled after 2026 luckily.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/11/driving-the-biggest-lea...

https://www.torquenews.com/17998/i-leased-hummer-ev-because-...

adolph• 30 days ago

I'm excited that EVs get to avoid CAFE standards, so we get to have small vehicles again.

I don't see evidence for EVs stimulating small vehicle production (but it would be awesome if it were the case). The one smaller vehicle bright spot is perhaps Tesla's Cybercab, which is compared to the Honda Civic, which itself has grown very large over the years. In order to get to that size the passenger mass capacity of the Cybercab is roughly 2/3 of the Civic. [0]

0. https://insideevs.com/news/798790/tesla-cybercab-specs/

warmwaffles• 30 days ago

CAFE isn't all they have to deal with. NTSB has stricter safety requirements now and we will probably not have small vehicles again. I just want a damn Hilux.

avalys• 1 month ago

There are many factors driving this:

1. Fuel economy regulations that scale regressively with vehicle size, that incentivize automakers to build and market larger vehicles that are easier to hit regulatory targets.

2. Rollover and crash worthiness regulations that require thicker A-pillars and more robust roof structure.

3. Towing performance. The large pickup manufacturers are in an arms race to beat each other’s power and towing capacity numbers. This requires a large, upright grille to provide adequate cooling for a large engine.

4. Consumer demand. The idea that marketing is telling people what to buy is silly. People are spending $80k+ on massive vehicles because they like them. Simple as that. The industry puts lot of marketing effort behind vehicles that are flops. They can’t make people buy a product they don’t want.

Disclaimer: I own a huge diesel pickup, along with a Tesla Model Y and a Porsche 911. Why? They’re fun! I use the pickup to tow an RV, but it’s also just fun to drive.

I have definitely noticed the visibility problem though. Forget pedestrians, sometimes entire cars are hiding behind the A-pillar! You have to move your head to the side to clear the blind spot safely.

tinyplanets8• 30 days ago

Okay, then sell your huge diesel pickup. Or is it just too much fun!

tasty_freeze• 1 month ago

Recent Climate Town video on the move to trucks and SUVs: https://youtu.be/JPm4de6-eTg?si=Eu1y3uQIeCGnkR_2

If you don't know Rollie Williams, Climate Town videos are informative but suffused with a lot of humor to prevent it from being too preachy.

frimmy• 30 days ago

++ -- Rollie Williams == for edutainment. His channel is responsible for me becoming a patreon subscriber

recursivedoubts• 1 month ago

all we want are 70-series land cruisers, prados and suzuki jimnys

end the idiotic chicken tax and make small trucks and utes legal again

while we are on the topic, full size vans make a lot more sense than "suvs" for most families

aeortiz• 1 month ago

Yeah, but no one want's to buy a mom van </s>

tinyplanets8• 30 days ago

That's right, gotta buy that brodozer and show everyone what a real MAN you are!

xnx3• 1 month ago

Unfortunately, in the car size arms race, bigger and heavier cars are safer for their occupants.

"Everyone outside the car be damned" is the expressed preference of US buyers.

Eddy_Viscosity2• 1 month ago

I don't think the US consumers are buying the bigger SUV/trucks because they are safer. At best it might be a minor contributing factor. It's primarily a status/identity thing.

toomuchtodo4• 1 month ago

n=1, I dated a low empathy woman who specifically drove a Chevy Tahoe due to mass for safety reasons and transporting her only child in the vehicle frequently. “Good luck to the other driver.”

pseudohadamard• 1 month ago

Early SUVs were actually extremely unsafe, high wheel base made them more prone to tipping over (rollover), no crumple zones and similar safety measures because we'll just make it big instead, and so on. This is why newer SUVs have thicker A-pillars and other measures, because the earlier ones before safety regs were enforced were deathtraps.

chneu• 1 month ago

They're only "safer" to the driver. Large vehicles put everyone else at a higher risk.

This is "race to the bottom" logic. The only end to this logic is everyone driving giant vehicles in bubbles because "it's safer for meeeeeeeee" as they hit children in a school zone cuz the blind spot in their Ford fuck550 is a football field long.

Race to the bottom logic is rampant in this form of capitalism that we're experiencing. Everyone's excuse is valid and only shifts the baseline to more excess and extreme behavior.

seabird2• 30 days ago

Thumb through IIHS numbers and you'll see that "bigger is better" doesn't pass a sniff test.

https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...

xnx3• 30 days ago

Good data point. I'd assume that drivers of big cars are often worse/more dangerous drivers. Hard to control for in statistics, but a good driver in a big car is more protected against other bad drivers. For reference, I drive a compact car.

RickJWagner• 1 month ago

Yes, this is a problem. Look at a typical truck from the 90s or so, they are tiny compared to today’s trucks.

The same thing is true of cars. Today’s civic is as big as an accord used to be. There is no Del Sol.

We need to turn the incentive knobs that worked so successfully on consumption so we now work on vehicle size.

Also, about the center of gravity discussion: I used to have an old friend that spent decades in business running a body shop. I asked him once what was the worst animal for causing vehicle damage. ( This was in rural South Dakota. I was thinking cow, horse, maybe bison. ) Nope. He said most animals would go up and over the hood, just like the people in the article. He said pigs were the worst. They stay low, going right into the car and not bouncing over. Often resulting in a total loss for that car.

tinyplanets8• 30 days ago

Yeah, but who's going to get those incentives in place? In the US, it sure ain't gonna be the Republicans.

mcdow• 30 days ago

there’s another thing that started to get quite popular in the late 2000s… smartphones

soperj• 30 days ago

Almost like we need a study to figure out what the actual cause is. Oh, that's what the article is about, the study.

ericpauley• 30 days ago

Per tfa vehicle size “ represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths” so the title is really a distraction from the (likely) root cause that GP brings up.

buellerbueller• 30 days ago

that's called a hypothesis. now go author a study to test it, like the study being reported on. hypotheses without evidence don't stand up to hypotheses that have been tested.

kortilla2• 30 days ago

And how did this study rule out smartphones?

Sayrus• 30 days ago

Then surely Europe shares that trends and shows growth in pedestrian death.

But that isn't the case at all, maybe Europeans are immune to smartphones: https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/document/download...

redwall_hp• 30 days ago

Sedan hits you, you get hit in the knees and fall on the hood. Brodozer hits you, it strikes your chest/head, pushes you over and drives over you.

saool• 30 days ago

Anecdotally...

Having spent time driving in both Europe and Southern California, I'd say that European drivers are more attentive to their driving and way less likely to be looking at their phone while driving, since it's policed. You can often see drivers in SoCal holding their phone for a video call.

goda90• 30 days ago

It could be Europe has stricter driver's license requirements resulting in fewer people who might succumb to distractions getting behind the wheel. And more availability of walking and public transit options meaning more of those people don't need to drive in the first place. Giant vehicles certainly don't help regardless.

kortilla2• 30 days ago

maybe there are other confounding factors that make smartphone utilization much less likely in Europe. Specifically no daily long commute in a car where people get bored and are tempted to use them.

swarnie• 30 days ago

Our cars are getting pretty big too.

A BMW X5 is only slightly narrower than an F150, a range rover vogue only another inch off that.

All fun and games with road infrastructure built for 108s and clios.....

trollbridge12• 30 days ago

Aren’t the laws in Europe about phones actually enforced?

kev0092• 30 days ago

Possibly American drivers are more reckless? Compare intoxicated driving deaths in the US vs Britain for instance.

floralhangnail• 30 days ago

Anecdotally, it seems to me that most Europeans aren't as consumed by their dopamine delivery devices in day to day activities as most Americans are.

asdff6• 30 days ago

The roads in a lot of places in europe will punish you with death or destruction for being distracted. They might be single laned, windy, and narrow, maybe following a cliff of certain death below.

The US however builds a lot of roads that lure you into thinking its safe to take your eyes out. Even countryside rural roads are dead straight for dozens of miles. We take our narrow certain death cliffside roads and replace them with highways with embanked generous turns and other features like that.

TulliusCicero7• 30 days ago

Other countries have smartphones too.

cpursley2• 30 days ago

They generally don’t have brodozers

danielmarkbruce• 30 days ago

Other countries take it way more seriously. The US has way more deaths per capita than Australia (just one example) simply due to lack of enforcement of speeding, drunk driving, smart phone use.

mc324• 30 days ago

Surely someone somewhere will bring to bear a solution that will disable all but voice calls on smartphones while the smartphone is paired to the car and the car is moving but allow for the devices of minors in a moving vehicle to still function like smartphones. They might also use interior cameras to ascertain who is driving and which device should be neutered but for emergency communication.

Yes, people would be annoyed at first but they also will experience a sigh of relief that they don't have to reply to a boss's or co-worker's text in the middle of a commute or running deliveries, etc.

trollbridge12• 30 days ago

Won’t happen. Self driving AI is the only way out of this. Until then, we will have mass carnage on the roads because that’s what people choose.

bell-cot• 30 days ago

Yep. The linked NYT article has this weak-sounding line -

Most other wealthy countries haven’t seen similar increases, suggesting that possible culprits like smartphones don’t tell the whole story.

- but it is so focused on telling a long-winded story that I didn't bother checking whether they'd really tried to correct for that. (My cynical guess is "no" - since if they really cared and had ruled phones out, they'd clearly say so.)

mc324• 30 days ago

At the same time avoidance systems have become much better on those large new cars… so would it have even worse had collision avoidance not come into being?

Also interesting that often people tend to imagine F-150s, Silverados ,etc., but if you see what people drive they are large Bentzs, Toyotas and of course Suburbans and F-150s. But everyone is building them not just American manufacturers.

estebank6• 30 days ago

But everyone is building them not just American manufacturers

But for, and driven by, the American market.

I would hazard a guess that Silverados sold outside of US, Canada, Mexico and Australia can fit in a single parking lot.

mc324• 30 days ago

The homemarket websites for Mecedes (Geländewagen), BMW (X series), LandRover (defender), Toyota (LandCruiser, Lexus LX), etc. have the large SUVs for sale. They are not as popular as they are in the US but they are available.

threetonesun• 30 days ago

Avoidance systems aren't that much better, some just make an angry beep before plowing into something. Also you can't fix the fact that a heavier car is going to take longer to stop and will impart more force even at lower speeds.

sottol2• 30 days ago

Hard to find reliable data, but could only find (shared) data for 2022 for large SUVs - whatabout doesn't quite cut it imo, feel free to look into midsize SUVs but imo the really large ones are more problematic:

Ford Expedetion: 81,988 in 2021, 71,648 in 2022

Mercedes GLS: 24,482 in 2021, 12,395 in 2022

Chevy Tahoe: 106,030 2021, 109,032 2022

Chevy Suburban: 48,214 2021, 52,459 2022

Dodge Durango: 65,935 2021, 58,627 2022

GMC Yukon: 84,242 2021, 80,731 2022

Nissan Armada: 22,814 2021, 17,551 2022

Toyota Sequoia: 8,070 2021, 7,066 2022 (but about 25,000 after refresh in 2023)

* Ford F-150 [2] *: 726,004 2021, 683,633 in 2022.

The Large SUVs are all linked here: https://carfigures.com/us-market-segment/large-suvs

I'm sure the mix is different and skews a lot more Japanese for mid-size (which are probably also dangerous), but these large SUVs and trucks with huge hoods and no rear visibility are getting quite problematic [1]. The front blind zones are pretty ridiculous, to the point that people advocate for front cameras: https://youtu.be/NDH3FDfVQl0?si=o0uvSEmKZrn2gHSN&t=205 (with timestamp).

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/americas-cars-trucks-ar... [2] https://carfigures.com/us-market-brand/ford/f-series

tonmoy• 30 days ago

While their conclusion is probably correct, I would have liked to seen the number of fatalities normalized by population, miles driven, number of pedestrian increase, speed limit change etc

MoonWalk4• 30 days ago

I find any conclusion that doesn't focus on TEXTING to be suspect.

By focusing on the wrong things (especially the endless caterwauling about "speeding"), people are letting legislators off the hook for abetting murder. Texting while driving should be a DUI-level offense, with the same penalties. But year after year, they refuse to do anything about it.

estebank6• 30 days ago

What would make non-Americans text less?

trollbridge12• 30 days ago

This study didn’t nearly enough to disambiguate for widespread phone use while driving, which IMO is the biggest factor.

Self driving AI is the answer.

cucumber37328429• 30 days ago

Would've been trivial to just run the same calculations on 1990s numbers when SUVs first became popular but long before smartphones.

I think it speaks volumes that they didn't.

hamdingers2• 30 days ago

They have phones in Europe and their numbers are going down.

tzs6• 30 days ago

It's not the biggest factor. Phone use tends to increase accidents but not to change the severity of the accidents much. Tall more vertical fronts change the severity of accidents, which changes the ratio between fatal and non-fatal accidents. The data shows that since ~2010 the ratio has changed significantly towards more fatal.

californical• 30 days ago

Normalizing by miles driven will take you to the wrong conclusions. It underestimates the extra deaths directly caused by the fact that we’ve built exurbs farther and farther away from where people work over the last 20-30 years.

So maybe deaths per mile would be similar, but we’ve pushed people further and further so they have to drive more miles, increasing the deaths due to poor design.

Building society in a way that we increase deaths due to poor planning, like making driving the only option for the majority of people, gets hidden by statistics like “per mile” or even speed limit changes, which are also more necessary as people need to go further to get to their daily activities, rather than everything being within a short walk or safe bike ride

hluska• 30 days ago

Not at all. Demonstrating that miles driven increases pedestrian deaths would be tremendously useful.

drnick1• 30 days ago

Building society in a way that we increase deaths due to poor planning, like making driving the only option for the majority of people

It's not poor planning, it's what Americans want. Americans, by and large, do not want to live in dense neighborhoods or tiny homes like in many parts of Europe. You get that in places like NYC and quality of life in those places is atrocious.

tzs6• 30 days ago

It is not clear to me that exurbs would increase deaths, at least if we are still talking about pedestrians, because isn't most driving between the city and homes in the exurbs on freeways which generally do not have pedestrians?

TulliusCicero7• 30 days ago

WA state recently passed a law about e-bikes/e-motorcycles to deal with the issue of younger teens on these kinda moped-style e-bikes going very fast around town (and often riding quite recklessly).

The law is reasonable, but it strikes me what a double standard there is for biking vs driving. For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those riders.

Meanwhile, everyone knows that these giant trucks and SUVs are killing people, but we do basically nothing. Even on the off chance that we passed a law about them, existing vehicles would certainly be grandfathered in, we would never outright ban current vehicles/motorists. If we banned existing SUVs and trucks, millions of people would be screaming bloody murder about their right to drive pedestrian-killing cars.

functionmouse• 30 days ago

that's because lobbyists own our souls :)

unixuser7104• 30 days ago

How would you react if told you could no longer drive your primary mode of transportation?

nimih• 30 days ago

I agree. We should legalize drunk driving so that no one can be denied their god-given right to drive a car.

epistasis4• 30 days ago

How would you react if told that your primary mode of transportation is causing a big increase in deaths? Isn't that a more relevant question?

Zigurd2• 30 days ago

I suppose you'd have to sell it, possibly at a loss, just like you'd have to sell a restaurant that failed a food safety inspection.

hashmap• 30 days ago

i would be upset that i had bought a murdertruck

gonzalohm• 30 days ago

Are you talking about the bike or the SUV?

slaughtr• 30 days ago

This question is the exact point they’re making about the biased response to/willingness to create bike vs car laws.

Ylpertnodi• 30 days ago

Utter disbelief. (will that do?)

mitthrowaway23• 30 days ago

My primary mode of transportation is an e-bike; how should I react?

ErroneousBosh7• 30 days ago

Why would that be happening? No-one is preventing people from driving.

epistasis4• 30 days ago

I don't know the particulars, but if what's going on in WA is like what's going on in my California town, I don't think it's reasonable.

I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell.

Same thing happens on NextDoor, a few kids hanging out and joking around makes people think there's a gang problem, I've seen it happen in my own neighborhood and it's ridiculous.

It is true that violent death and maiming from SUVs and large trucks is a crisis, that society generally ignores. When I once called these hoods "gender affirming" a reply chastised me for being inflammatory and claiming that stating the plain obvious would get in the way of convincing others, but I think it's exactly the opposite: unless we start talking about the truth of these things nothing will happen.

seanmcdirmid4• 30 days ago

When the kids decide to take their E-bikes on I-5, you know something is wrong with their decision making skills: https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1sjv7ua/teens_on_e...

Yes, people freak out when they see a kid on an e-bike on a crowded freeway.

wat100002• 30 days ago

People freak out about non-car transportation in general. Someone on my Nextdoor has been freaking out over temporary bus lanes, because nobody takes the bus but it's going to cause horrible traffic. They posted about rush hour gridlock on that street the other day caused by this grave injustice. The bus lanes haven't been put in yet....

There's constant vitriol about bike lanes, as if it's some huge sacrifice for drivers. And of course heaven forbid you roll a stop sign on a bike. Never mind that drivers do this constantly and are a far greater threat.

A lot of people fear anything that's not what they're used to, and they'll come up with any reason they can find to justify that fear.

infecto2• 30 days ago

My anecdote only but the contraptions being sold as “e-bikes” are actually motorcycles. Like all things a few bad apples ruin it for everyone but in what I have seen it’s more than just a few bad apples. From maintained mountain bike trails, to riding at speed on walking paths. They are far more than just some kids being kids. It is ultimately a lack of parenting these days but I don’t believe the new laws coming into place are out of line. A vehicle that can hit 30mph within a few seconds is a lot different than a kid peddling at 20mph sustained.

cucumber37328429• 30 days ago

I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell.

It's kind of a hilarious yardstick for societal decline if you think about it.

70yr ago the boomers were drunk crashing sports cars so frequently that laws got passed.

Now late teenagers can barely afford an e-bike and mostly aren't causing problem, but laws still get passed, by the literal same cohort who were drunk crashing muscle cars back in the day.

lowbloodsugar• 30 days ago

Stepped out of a coffee shop, got text from wife, grabbed my phone and got missed by inches by a kid on a scooter easily doing 25mph on the sidewalk. The text possibly saved my ability to walk in future by having me to pause just for a moment.

fullstop2• 30 days ago

There's kids who go around on ebikes in my neighborhood, and it's only a matter of time until one of them is hit. I don't mind kids on bikes, and encourage it. I do, however, encourage them to stop at stop signs and to actually look for traffic at intersections, and that's something that these kids are not doing.

To be fair, most cars go too fast in residential areas. I drive like a grandma in them and there's a good chance that someone is up my ass and annoyed that I'm not exceeding the speed limit.

simplyluke8• 30 days ago

There's some of that, a lot of it though is e-dirtbikes that can pretty easily do 35+mph stock and 50+ with light modifications. A friend of mine has one and I've ridden it. It's a motorcycle with mountain bike brakes. I don't think they're bad vehicles, but I do think they should be treated as motorcycles as opposed to bicycles, and 13 year olds shouldn't be riding them on public roads.

TulliusCicero7• 30 days ago

To be clear, the "e-bikes" in question aren't what you usually think of as e-bikes. Not only do they look different, they're faster and typically don't even require pedaling (and may not have pedals at all). Hence why I said they were kinda like mopeds.

Aurornis7• 30 days ago

I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell.

I thought it was all fun at first, but they've since invaded the bike paths and parks near my house. It seems like more common they become, the more emboldened the riders are to drive 40mph down the bike path and weave around people.

It's so bad now that I have to be on high alert on the mixed-use path to grab my kids and pull them in when I hear the unmistakable sound of a Sur-Ron coming at us from behind at high speed. Usually a group of several kids.

They've also taken to riding through the parks and fields we go to, treating the little hills as jumps. The grass is getting destroyed. Parks have to put up temporary fences and gates to keep the electric motorcycles from destroying the fields.

It's not just kids, either. I've had several close calls this year while I'm riding my (pedal) bike and middle-aged people riding modified e-bikes (not pedaling, just zooming along at high speed) have zoomed around corners and almost hit me. They jump from the road to the sidewalk to the bike path as convenient and everyone else has to avoid them.

It's bad. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not a problem. I spend a lot of time outside with my kids and the problem is getting worse by the year.

not_a_bot_4sho• 30 days ago

I don't know the particulars, but if what's going on in WA is like what's going on in my California town, I don't think it's reasonable

I was driving on a WA highway going ~47 mph (I made note of it for reasons soon to be clear!) when a group of 3 tweens on ebikes, none wearing helmets, passed me up in the bike lane going at least 10mph faster, and I watched them run through a red light up ahead. They got lucky.

I don't have a problem with kids being kids but this is over the top dangerous. To be clear, it's a few small groups of kids. There have been crashes, and they sent a Bellevue woman to the hospital in a hit and run, but as far as I know there's been no fatalities yet.

We don't need to drop the hammer on kids. We just need some common sense.

bloqs• 29 days ago

I had never heard of NextDoor until I read this post. UK based. I just spent 20 minutes reading Wikipedia and associated articles. They are really old too... Wow

pjc50• 29 days ago

Like a lot of these things, it's all fun and games until someone gets injured. This happened the other week in Edinburgh: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/woman-knock...

Previously, there had been a lot of complaints about intentional antisocial riding on pavements etc. Close passes as a form of harassment. If that's tolerated, it's a matter of time before someone gets hit.

As an extra punchline, while the injured woman was surrounded by police and medics, two other idiots on Voi rental bikes ran through the cordon and got arrested.

srustagi2• 29 days ago

I mean are you in the hood or not?

Easy for you to say this if you're from Happysville, CA, USA, but if you're near Oakland or SF you know these kids DO form "gang"-like groups and block traffic, the bridge, swerve through traffic.

It's chill if the kids near you are respectful but the reason Gen Z as a whole ride these bikes is because they actively want to ride fast like motorcycles without license or registration.

forshaper• 29 days ago

As a teenager in 00s suburban Texas, all you had to do is gather in a playground or stripmall parking lot for someone to call the cops.

kingkawn• 30 days ago

Cars are a major domestic industry for production, sales, and service. E-mopeds aren’t. That’s all.

seanmcdirmid4• 30 days ago

People under 16 probably shouldn't be driving vehicles very fast period. That doesn't feel like a double standard since we've already banned them from driving cars.

It seems orthogonal to SUVs.

dylan6042• 30 days ago

A 15 year old on a bicycle can easily do 15mph, and even 20mph is easy enough if they are willing to pedal for it. The real problem is that something capable of doing 15mph+ shouldn't be on the sidewalk in the first place.

There are multiple things going on in these situations, and rarely is it just one thing a quick simple ban on ___ will actually fix

echelon3• 30 days ago

Cars >>> Bikes + Rail + Pedestrian infrastructure

More money flows atop highway and road infrastructure than on biking, rail, and scooter infrastructure. By orders of magnitude.

Commuter rail has 1/200th the economic impact of interstate highways.

Biking infrastructure is actually deleterious as it doesn't serve the pregnant, elderly, sick, frail, doesn't work well for rain/snow/high heat/weather, doesn't transport high volumes of goods, etc. etc.

Lots of cities are tearing up road infra to cater to this, and in doing so, they're reducing the economic corridor capacity and throughput of roads. Roads are simply much more valuable and flexible for logistics, people, and business.

The value of roads is going to become even more apparent when we have widespread autonomous vehicles.

Bikes are popular for 20-40-something men, mostly yuppie, mostly upper middle class. But they're not doing the economic heavy lifting.

__float3• 30 days ago

Commuter rail has 1/200th the economic impact of interstate highways.

Ok, and what fraction of investment has it gotten?

We've underfunded rail/bike infrastructure for decades, of course money is going to flow on the cheapest route. Roads are cheap because we've subsidized the shit out of them.

vbernat• 30 days ago

Biking is not meant to replace everything. More people biking means more room for people that cannot bike. Bike-heavy cities like Amsterdam show that most of your "facts" are incorrect (bikes can be used to transport goods, are usable when it rains, are used by a large part of the population). That's a trope common when bike displaces cars, but studies show the reverse (for example in Madrid: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02642...). Also, biking is good for health despite the risks (for example https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d4521).

wffurr• 30 days ago

Wow there is so much wrong with this post I don't even know where to start.

Widespread car usage has caused an enormous amount of harm. It has destroyed American cities, killed thousands of people directly, tens of thousands more with sedentary lifestyle diseases, and burned a truly enormous amount of fossil fuels into CO2, and locked in the infrastructure to continue to do so for decades. It's an absolutely enormous tragedy.

Cars are also useful and have helped a lot of things, but they should not be the default choice of transportation.

matheusmoreira4• 30 days ago

Thank you for posting this. Don't be discouraged by downvotes.

alexose• 30 days ago

I suspect the loudest voices would be from the automakers and dealerships, who make their biggest margin from SUVs and oversized trucks. They have powerful lobbyists and spend a lot on PR, so it often seems like their anti-transit, anti-pedestrian positions are more popular than they are.

I'd love to see a real grassroots effort to tax (toll?) based on GVWR or vehicle length. It would be met with tremendous opposition by special interests, but I could see it succeeding in the right environment. Maybe it could be framed as a rebate for small vehicles, rather than a tax on large ones.

dylan6042• 30 days ago

SUVs have the power of bigAuto behind them to ensure no "undue" legislation is made against them. There is no bigEbike, so legislation is free to be made so that those legislators can then pat themselves on their back and have action they can point to being pro-safety.

bluedino• 30 days ago

The e-bikes aren't that annoying, it's the kids (and adults) riding all over the city on 4 wheelers and UTVs. The cops chase them around but it doesn't do much good.

caconym_3• 30 days ago

Trucks and guns have a free pass to cause thousands of deaths yearly. It's that simple. Anybody else doing anything that might be viewed by certain hand wringing hysterical persons as dangerous will be smothered in onerous regulation, despite statistics showing relative (or absolute) harmlessness, but trucks and guns will keep on killing.

Recurecur2• 27 days ago

Neither trucks nor guns cause a single death. The people using them may cause deaths.

It also should be pointed out that in many cases, both large vehicles and guns save lives.

There is absolutely no denying that larger vehicles are safer in an accident. Anything to the contrary that you have read is propaganda.

In the case of guns, defensive gun uses have actually stopped a tremendous number of crimes. Those statistics were altered by the FBI to make gun ownership less appealing. Note that many of those uses did not involve firing the firearm.

Please educate yourself before you spread more propaganda.

This has been a public service announcement.

ggreer2• 30 days ago

The law doesn't ban them. It classifies fast e-bikes as motorcycles (which require registration, insurance, and a motorcycle endorsement).[1] This seems reasonable to me. The previous laws for e-bikes were based on outdated assumptions about battery & motor technology.

I do think it would make more sense to simplify (and future-proof) the law to just say, "If it can go >30mph on level ground and has a motor, it's a motorcycle." But similar to code, it's easier to add legislation than it is to modify existing rules.

1. https://apps.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=6110&Year=202... text: https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Se...

TulliusCicero7• 30 days ago

True, it's not exactly the same situation, but it does ban them for the riders (the teens) who were previously on them.

You could make it more analogous by saying that we could enforce stricter regulations on big SUVs and trucks in terms of, say, driver licensing, and you'd still have a huge outcry if we tried that.

cogman102• 30 days ago

Those sorts of codes do exist already. The problem is that bike manufacturers will put on a "go fast" switch with a "Don't flip this or you'll be breaking the law" note in the manual.

Of course, a lot of people flip that switch because 20mph can feel pretty slow.

baron816• 30 days ago

Well, probably the right thing to do for large trucks and suvs is to reclassify them so that you need a commercial license to drive them.

jorvi• 30 days ago

You do realize e-bikes only go 25 km/h? You're confusing them with speed pedelecs. Those go around 50 km/h, although that's still a far cry from scooter speeds, let alone motorbikes.

bootlooped• 30 days ago

I think it does ban them, effectively.

There is what some people say is a gray zone (I don't actually think it's that gray) where a device is too fast or powerful to be a legal e-bike, but also doesn't meet the requirements to be a road legal motorcycle. Will Progressive give me motorcycle insurance on my DIY e-bike without a VIN? Will the DVM register it? I don't think so. In most states there is no path to legality, at least as far as operating the thing on public streets goes.

I don't think that's necessarily a problem that needs solved. I'm fine telling the person that bought a Sur-Ron, "too bad, off road only".

throw0101d2• 30 days ago

The law doesn't ban them. It classifies […]

The Shifter cycling channel recently polled viewers and came out with a pretty good classification system:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z35F2R7FeE&t=17m20s

"E-bike" is pedal assist only/mostly with max speed of 30kph/20mph (only while pedalling) and throttle cuts out at low speeds (7kph: basically just there to get some inertial); treated as just another bicycle (perhaps limit age to ≥14 yo). Everything else is an "e-moto" with the same rules as mopeds and motorcycles.

Of course enforcement is key: importing, selling, on the road.

Also worth noting that in some places in the EU a automobile Category B also gives you Category AM allowances:

In some countries, holders of a B driver licence are also entitled (sometimes with special conditions) to ride motorcycles <= 125 cubic centimetres (7.6 cu in) and power <= 11 kilowatts (15 hp) and ratio power/weight <= 0.1 kilowatts per kilogram (0.061 hp/lb)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_driving_licence#Since...

ajuc• 30 days ago

Id we wanted to do sth similar for SUVs and Trucks it would be a special driving licence required, with additional requirements and more expansive insurance.

cucumber37328429• 30 days ago

Back in the 20th century, before electric bikes, when I was but a wee lad the neighborhood Karens screeched until the local PD dropped one of those mobile "your speed is" trailers onto my street for about a month.

It turns out 12yo me could go 29mph on a mountain bike.

30 is too low IMO. Make it 35 or something. 25 is a joke.

bastawhiz2• 30 days ago

Counterpoint: why am I able to buy a Ram 2500 and drive it without a CDL? I rented one recently to help a friend move some furniture and it's an unbelievably big vehicle.

The example of the standard you suggest could equally apply to large motor vehicles: you need special training above and beyond the status quo for vehicles that meet a certain standard. To your own point, motor vehicle laws were largely written based on outdated assumptions about the size of trucks and SUVs.

bs7280• 30 days ago

There are already mechanisms in place to hold SUV and Truck drivers accountable and track them down (via their license plate).

The problem with ebikes is any unlicensed driver can get one, and go 40mph on a sidewalk without any practical way to hold them accountable.

I live near one of the busiest biking + walking trails in the country, and the egregious disrespect and recklessness of ebike's and scooters is insane to me. Even on the parts of the trail that are split into two or three sections (walking, running, and biking sections) I see people going 20-30mph weaving in and out of walkers. What's crazy is it would be safer if they were operating gas motorcycles, because atleast you could hear them coming.

whatisthiseven• 29 days ago

Those mechanisms don't work. Unless the driver was a hit and run or DUI, even fatal crashes almost never result in any charges if the driver claimed they "never saw them", especially so against pedestrians.

Large vehicles are killing people, even with sober drivers and nobody is being held responsible. This is well investigated at this point. Only recently are we finally getting some traction on the awareness front of how bad it is getting.

simplyluke8• 30 days ago

As people are correctly pointing out, WA is reclassifying certain e-motos as motorcycles, which is to say they'll require a license and insurance to be used on public roads - two things that are already required for all SUVs and trucks on public roads.

Being local to WA and spending a lot of time on bikes, the easiest thing we could do to improve the situation would be for law enforcement to aggressively enforce existing distracted driving laws. The number of drivers with their face buried in a phone during any kind of slow traffic is terrifying if one looks around.

imglorp• 30 days ago

Maybe not so much "ban" giant vehicles as stop subsidizing, rewarding, and encouraging them.

There's safety and emissions loopholes that brought this on: https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wants-to-close-the-suv-lo...

We also subsidize fossil fuels to some $900B/yr, not counting foreign wars for oil, climate damage, health impacts etc. Fuel should be MUCH more expensive, around $15/gal. If priced right, the market would weed out these giant vehicles for personal/entertainment use. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/in-gasolinegate-the-true-...

japhyr• 30 days ago

When vehicles were starting to get noticeably bigger about 20 years ago, I asked some family members why they were buying vehicles they had to climb up into.

"On the highway, I'd rather kill someone than be killed in a wreck."

They would not recognize that while that might work for a while, it wasn't going to lead anywhere good for our society. A generation of people thinking like that has filled our roads with vehicles that protect their occupants while making it more dangerous for everyone else.

oaweoifjwpo• 30 days ago

I agree, but in order to effect change in an arms race, you need a higher power that deletes the arms. Otherwise you just lose the arms race and die.

mschuster912• 30 days ago

Meanwhile, everyone knows that these giant trucks and SUVs are killing people, but we do basically nothing.

Too much money is tied up to giant trucks and SUVs being the norm. These vehicles only came into widespread existence due to the infamous "SUV loophole" [1], accelerated by them being much more profitable for manufacturers as there was (and is) far less competition in the truck/SUV space from non-American manufacturers and, with that, less competitive pressure that tends to eat up margins.

[1] https://www.distilled.earth/p/the-loophole-that-made-cars-in...

solid_fuel• 30 days ago

I agree about large vehicles, but does an individual state even have the authority to ban a given kind of car from their roads? I suspect that is more under a federal authority than state-by-state.

alamortsubite16• 30 days ago

Not ban but states can implement stricter licensing requirements for larger vehicles, and raise registration fees, gasoline taxes, and penalties for their misuse. See how Paris is handling SUV in the city center. It's very effective and other cities are likely to follow.

Aurornis7• 30 days ago

For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those riders.

This is not true. The law didn't ban anything. It just clarified what's classified as a bike with requirements like "must have pedals" and "you have to pedal it".

There wasn't a ban. Previously there was a gray area where people were taking full on e-motorcycles, which should have been on roads, and trying to ride them in spaces meant for pedal bicycles.

bryanlarsen3• 30 days ago

They weren't full on e-motorcycles, they don't meet the legal requirements for motorcycles. As one example among many, some jurisdictions require a motorcycle have turn signals.

So if they can't be operated as an e-bike and they can't be registered as an e-motorcycle, they've been banned.

smusamashah• 30 days ago

I recall that an SUV killed a 7 year old and his parents were charged with manslaughter and jailed, not the driver. https://globalnews.ca/news/11214748/parents-charged-death-so...

As an outsider (from a fairly corrupt country), this reeks of corruption and that law favours rich.

allthetime• 30 days ago

I think at the very least owners of these vehicles should be made to undergo more rigorous licensing education and testing.

simpaticoder• 30 days ago

everyone knows that these giant trucks and SUVs are killing people

The number of things I believe "everyone knows" has tended to zero over time.

dzonga• 30 days ago

banning big SUVs & Trucks is insurmountable not impossible - since you're trying to have people/organizations act against their own interests.

it's one of those cases of stated preference vs observed preference:

for individuals big SUVs/Trucks feel good to drive, are fast enough & come with street cred. Notice I put the word "feel".

for cities/state governments - big SUVs/Trucks mean increased taxes since they consume more gas - thus increased revenues from gas taxes

for the automakers as the article stated - 90% of their profits come from big SUVs/Trucks that American automakers have stopped making sedans. Profits from big co's is a bragging point for the federal government too.

Now legislation would've to try for all those people to act against their own interests ? Unless some geopolitical event happens - that's unlikely.

stouset• 30 days ago

Yep. And the refrain is always about “dangerous” behavior by cyclists, despite the fact that deaths and injuries to others from those on bikes are essentially a rounding error. The vast majority of what danger there is is borne by the riders themselves and not by bystanders.

Meanwhile, nobody bats an eye over the fact that motor vehicles are a leading cause of death in this country and the brunt is often borne by others.

progmetaldev• 30 days ago

I'm definitely not arguing that SUVs and trucks are killing people, and as someone that drives a Ford F-150, I wouldn't mind having to be licensed for a commercial drivers license (although would like that to be based on skill, rather than charging more for that license).

I am constantly having to dodge these e-bikes in the streets, mostly driven by children/teenagers, who do not follow traffic laws (I'm in upstate NY). They don't even follow standard bicycle traffic laws. Driving in the city, I regularly have e-bikes coming at me against traffic in my lane. I would be absolutely devastated if I hit someone with my truck, and I honestly usually drive lower than the speed limit in these areas. It's even worse in the suburbs, because these people don't have the same survival instincts when riding these e-bikes as those in higher traffic areas. It's constantly on my mind that if I hit one of these children, not only will my conscious be filled with guilt, but I will probably be charged with manslaughter charges.

Upstate NY is starting to create laws and restrictions around e-bikes, but that is not stopping parents from being uninvolved. In the cities, there are rentable e-bikes being used everywhere, and it only requires the ability to pay to use it. I'm all for making transportation easier for those of lower income, or that prefer to use something that doesn't spew emissions like a gas-powered vehicle, but beyond being able to pay for the e-bike there is little being done to regulate or enforce how they are used.

matheusmoreira4• 30 days ago

For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those riders.

From my perspective it's the other way around. Bikers don't pay taxes, don't follow traffic laws, they generally do whatever they want with total impunity while the law actively protects them. Meanwhile drivers pay taxes, get ticketed for violations and have to bend over backwards in order to avoid killing the bikers.

platinumrad2• 30 days ago

Pretty much none of your entire comment is true.

mips_avatar3• 30 days ago

Everyone I know who bike commutes also owns a car and pays taxes on it.

isthatafact• 28 days ago

"Bikers don't pay taxes"

That is obviously false -- just ask any biker who is not a little kid or a billionaire.

flakiness• 30 days ago

I hope that law comes to CA soon. The trail walk has become a deadly adventure in the past few years because of these reckless ebikes.

Manuel_D• 30 days ago

The new WA basically did nothing except re-state existing laws. Ebikes cannot be more powerful than 1 horsepower (750 watt) and cannot go faster than 20 mph on throttle or 28ph on throttle + pedal assist.

"Moped-style ebikes" like Surrons were already illegal on public roads.

iugtmkbdfil834• 29 days ago

Meh, standard attempt at mollifying the biggest opponents by offering them exemptions and exceptions does not move me at all. Boring.

Lets make it better.

After all, after the nanny state representatives succeed with this, they will move onto some other cause to ban another thing they deem unnecessary and an affront to their sensibilities. They will not be content until everyone does exactly as they say ( but not do ). And that is fine for them. Where I stand, I will keep on trucking and my child, god willing, will own a veritable tank that will crush anti truck infidels under its mighty heels. The gods of molten metal have spoken. Your sacrifice is deemed acceptable -- bike enjoyer.

chazzalpha• 29 days ago

I would 100% be in favor of banning these oversized vehicles. European countries are doing the same precisely because these trucks and SUVs are ridiculously effective at mowing down pedestrians. They are a public health issue like cigarettes, drunk driving, and guns. And most of these large trucks on the road are driven by insecure suburban men who work office jobs and haul maybe a couch once a year. The US needs to have a reckoning on its deadly addiction to automobiles.

hackingonempty5• 30 days ago

In the USA, an order of magnitude more people on foot are killed each year by people driving cars and trucks than are killed in mass shootings. [0][1]

It is a massive problem that receives a disproportionate amount of attention.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

0xbadcafebee• 30 days ago

We never invest effort in things that provide the most value; we invest in what we're the most emotional about. The number of people killed in 9/11 and every plane hijacking is dwarfed by any single year of deaths due to either vehicle accidents or gun shootings. But we do nothing about either of those things, and instead spend $180B on TSA, to save zero lives. We then roll back things like vaccine mandates, to kill more people (mostly kids).

coffeemug• 30 days ago

That’s a very uncharitable way to interpret public opinion. A more charitable way is that people have different ethical intuitions. Some of us lean more utilitarian than others, and almost no one is a pure utilitarian. It isn’t merely a matter of being more emotional; people very reasonably have different views on this stuff.

EA-31672• 30 days ago

This is often brought out as though it should engender gasps, but a moment of thought punctures the whole prospect. We need cars and trucks for a variety of purposes, and while I agree that most people don't need a pickup or a Unimog, there are many people and businesses who do. The ability to rapidly travel is a centerpiece of modern life, and has been for quite some time.

Mass shootings by contrast are not economic or personal drivers of freedom, they're not an intended output of the system that creates them, they're a relatively modern perversity of it. Of course people are more concerned with seemingly random violence that many other countries seem to live without, or with much less of, compared to inevitable accidents.

People also love to present "Vehicle vs Ped" as a de facto accident on the part of the vehicle or the driver, and that can certainly be the case! It's also true that about 30% of pedestrians involved in these accidents have a BAC over the legal limit. There are also issues with poorly designed and maintained lights, safety systems on roads, and so on that play a role. None of this is as simple as, "Just bike to work, dummy."

I'd also add that recent stats show a REDUCTION in pedestrian fatalities, it's just that it's been on a rise since 2009, but it's going back down again. Possibly that comes down to addressing some concerns I've mentioned above, some comes down to fewer megamonsterSUV's, and some comes down to smartphone and in-car tech no longer promoting using said phones on the road.

https://www.ghsa.org/resource-hub/pedestrian-traffic-fatalit...

UtopiaPunk4• 30 days ago

Nothing in the article is suggesting that we do not need cars and trucks.

It does make a compelling case that specifically large trucks and SUVs are causing preventable deaths. And I certainly find no reason that we need very large trucks or SUVs.

drtz2• 30 days ago

I think you're take is a bit off for multiple reasons.

First, people need transportation, not cars. For the vast majority of people, if you truly need a car, it's because your infrastructure was built in a way that doesn't provide any other modes of transportation.

Second, mass shootings aren't the intended effect of guns in the same way pedestrian fatalities aren't the intended effect of cars. Both cars and guns are providing some perceived value (personal transportation freedom and self-defense/safeguard against tyranny/national defense) with a significant number of deaths as a tradeoff.

Third, implying someone with a BAC over the legal limit for DRIVING is somehow responsible for getting killed while WALKING instead of driving is comical and darkly ironic considering drunk driving accounts for almost a third of traffic deaths in the US [1].

1. https://www.cdc.gov/impaired-driving/facts/index.html#:~:tex...

throwaway2194502• 30 days ago

The standard of driving in most places I've lived in the US is very low for a developed country. People blow through pedestrian crossings, get-there-itis, crawling through stops, don't use their turn signals, make illegal U-Turns, ignore overtaking conventions. Compare to most countries in Europe where a driving test is a rigorous 45 minutes and you can fail for all sorts of minor stuff. I live in a place with decent pedestrian infrastructure fortunately. I'm more worried about being involved in a random fatal crash when I'm driving than on foot.

Making right-on-red illegal wouldn't be bad either. The number of times I've almost been run over when a car is stopped in the middle/straight lane and blocks line of sight to a right-turning car that doesn't look.

DUIs are at least treated seriously. It's one of the few offenses that will get a visa instantly revoked. Same in Canada I think.

mcntsh2• 30 days ago

45 minutes? In Germany getting your license takes most people around a year and costs thousands of euros.

NoImmatureAdHom• 30 days ago

Mass shootings kill almost no one. They're a red herring. Even with a really stupid, inclusive "3 or more people injured" criterion. If you use that criterion for defining what a mass shooting is, the modal number of people killed is...one.

tzs6• 30 days ago

Wait...is the massive problem that it should be more than an order of magnitude more people killed than those killed in mass shootings, or is it that it should be less than an order of magnitude more?

They are such completely different categories of ways to die I'm having trouble understand how to compare them in any sensible way.

uberex2• 30 days ago

That I guess is the problem they are highlighting. It is more complicated still when comparing to ill health, war, poverty, terrorism. But OTOH we should strive to make transport safer like we do with commercial flight.

decimalenough2• 30 days ago

Neither. The OP's point is that shootings consistently make headlines and occasion a lot of passionate debate, while grandma or toddler getting mowed over by a SUV or monster truck doesn't and as a consequence nobody really cares.

IshKebab3• 30 days ago

8000 pedestrians killed by cars and 762 in mass shootings. Obviously in raw numbers 8000 is bigger than 762, but think how many people drive in America, and how useful it is! 762 is an absolutely astoundingly crazy number and it definitely deserves the most attention.

avianlyric2• 30 days ago

but think how many people drive in America, and how useful it is

You should tell that to the families of the 8000 that are killed each year. I’m sure it’ll help them accept the accept the loss of their loved ones.

The US is the only developed country that has seen a steady increase in the number of pedestrian deaths per 1000km driven over the past 10-15 years. And 10-15 years ago it was one of the worst performing developed countries for pedestrian deaths. Every other developed country has seen decreases in pedestrian deaths over the same time period, which means the US is an extreme outlier when it comes to pedestrian safety, or lack there of.

hackingonempty5• 28 days ago

All of the time and money put into trying to reduce mass shooting deaths would save more people if it went into trying to reduce vehicular pedestrian deaths. No enumerated rights are involved in driving, making it vastly easier to implement legal solutions.

allarm• 29 days ago

This comparison seems bizarre to me, but what do I know about the US?

like_any_other• 29 days ago

Not that I object to the findings, but the Center for Disease Control getting involved in traffic safety is massive scope creep. Especially since we already have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

srustagi2• 29 days ago

more europeans are killed from not having AC/heat-related deaths than both of those.

I don't think any of these are apples to apples comparisons tbh your point still stands without the extreme analogy.

carlosjobim2• 30 days ago

Took less than 5 seconds of reading the article to find out the title is a total lie:

“That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”

Edit: The title of the OP has been changed after I made this reply.

tantalor• 30 days ago

Okay. What's the correlation coefficient?

srdjanr• 30 days ago

So this is only one of the reasons, and a relatively small one:

“Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century,” the report continued. “That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”

giantg217• 30 days ago

Sadly, most will ignore your common sense just as they are ignoring the data.

sandeepkd• 30 days ago

Came here to highlight the same. The fact that only 10% are being attributed to bigger cars, but the exact reason isnt being discussed. More than likely its the addiction to technology, the smart phones, and somehow its not part of discussion in the article.

Fricken• 30 days ago

If ignored, it would imply that the sense you're referring to is not a common one.

advisedwang• 30 days ago

Sometimes safety comes from lots of little adjustments. So perhaps we should see 10% as large, not small.

b112• 30 days ago

It could be why.

It could also be from people staring at their cell phone and walking down the road. I see it all the time. I've seen people walk right into intersections against the light.

Maybe, it's even both, because while I can believe large cars aren't helping... I surely know staring on your phone, walking, and not paying attention is just plain dumb.

ack210• 30 days ago

The NYC DOT did a study on this a few years back and found it not to be the case:

Reports of device distraction are scarce in the New York City and national fatality data, and estimates of annual mobile device-related injuries are dwarfed nationally by pedestrian injury estimates where pedestrian distraction was not cited. In short, despite growing concerns, DOT found little concrete evidence that device-induced distracted walking contributes significantly to pedestrian fatalities and injuries. https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/distraction-shoul...

bluecalm• 30 days ago

You know what's way worse: drivers using their phones when driving. If you drive in a way that you kill a careless pedestrian it's a problem. It's cars and drivers almost exclusively.

izend• 30 days ago

Vehicles accelerate a LOT faster on average than years ago, EVs and Turbo Engines...

everdrive2• 30 days ago

People spend a lot of time on Trucks, but I don't see why SUVs get a pass. Every single car is an SUV now. They're higher up, heavier, and have a higher beltline all so that drivers can "feel safer."

joe_the_user• 30 days ago

It's an arms race. My older SUV (Lexus 3XX) is worrisome in it's size and blindspots but it's still dwarfed by current trucks. Moreover, once most SUVs were basically built over a pickup chassis but it seems like pickups have gotten so large that it's unusual to see an equivalent SUV.

Marsymars7• 30 days ago

The equivalent SUVs still exist, e.g. Toyota Tundra -> Sequoia, Ford F-150 -> Expedition, Nissan Titan -> Armada, etc.

Zigurd2• 30 days ago

Anything with a hood that's so high primarily because it's gender affirming care is paid for with the deaths and injuries of innocents. Regulate the shape of the front end of any vehicle, as I'm sure any honest regulator would.

everdrive2• 30 days ago

It's quite sad, the old 1997 F-150 (the first year of the quite-ugly-but-practical "bubble" aesthetic) specifically advertised its low front hood as an intentional measure to improve visibility. And that thing had better visibility than nearly any modern car. It was incredibly despite still being a relatively large truck.

bijowo16764• 30 days ago

this is part of the subsidy to American car companies.

American Big Three cannot compete with Asian/European cars, so they gave up and erected a regulatory barriers to protect their market:

1. chicken tax 2. Section 179 Deduction - allows writeoff of Vehicles Over 6000 lbs for people non-W2 people (self-employed and small business owners) 3. CAFE footpring and "light truck" loophole and CAFE exemtpions for US trucks

everything designed to protect Big Three's highest margin products at cost of human lives

Tangurena22• 30 days ago

The fuel economy figure that a vehicle needs to achieve used to be a set figure. Lobbyists got that changed so that now vehicle fuel economy is a function based on the width and length of the vehicle. And that's why the roads are full of fatmobiles.

ayhanfuat• 30 days ago

It is worth reading the interactive Times article. Amazing piece of work https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/06/21/us/trucks-suv...

jabroni_salad• 30 days ago

Glad they spent half the article on the a-pillar issue. As a recent recipient of a bit of back pain I'd be real happy if my next car didn't require me to try and peer around those things at every intersection.

jakub_g• 30 days ago

The animations and comparisons of current vehicles with two-three decades ago are extremely informative indeed.

bluescrn• 30 days ago

What also happened around 2009?... Smartphones taking off in a big way.

Distracted pedestrians must be a significant factor too. Especially if they've got noise-cancelling Airpods or similar in their ears while looking at their phone.

knuppar• 30 days ago

if that was true, we'd see the same pedestrian mortality rise everywhere, which we don't.

trollbridge12• 30 days ago

Other countries enforced not using phones when driving.

NopIdoN• 30 days ago

Yeah fuck those inattentive pedestrians not leaping out of my way

abathologist• 30 days ago

The inevitable march of progress.

jmward013• 30 days ago

I have long held that larger vehicles should have higher licensing requirements purely based on stats. We see it in the stats that large vehicles are disproportionately dangerous to other vehicles and people so licensing should catch up. We have motorcycle licenses, why don't we have SUV licenses? Similarly, the penalties and limits should be higher. BAC should be lower. Fines higher. Etc etc. You want to drive a big vehicle, fine, pay for it and do what is needed to protect other people from your choices. I shouldn't have to pay for your decisions. This is a fundamental principle that big vehicle drivers conveniently ignore when they believe 'their freedom' trumps my right to life.

dnemmers• 30 days ago

Larger vehicles do have different licensing standards:

https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/cdl

"Driving a Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) requires a higher level of knowledge, experience, skills, and physical abilities than that required to drive a non-commercial vehicle. In order to obtain a Commercial Driver's License (CDL), an applicant must pass both skills and knowledge testing geared to these higher standards. Additionally CDL holders are held to a higher standard when operating any type of motor vehicle on public roads. Serious traffic violations committed by a CDL holder can affect their ability to maintain their CDL certification."

- I wonder how things compare for a pedestrian embracing a large SUV vs. a Semi.

retired2• 30 days ago

In most of Europe you can drive a 4250kg EV with a simple drivers license you got after taking six lessons in 1972. Madness.

Anything over 2000kg should require a truck license including retesting every five years imho.

baq4• 30 days ago

A reasonable range small EV weighs more than that. 3500kg is reasonable. Regenerative braking and brakes in general are much better than when those weight limits were imposed.

giantg217• 30 days ago

Licensing is mostly based vehicle operating characteristics. We already have large vehicle licenses like class B and A for heavy vehicles. Motorcycles have a separate license due to different operating concerns.

If you're actually following the stats you will see that vehicle size only accounted for 10% of the increase. You would want to focus on the other 90% to make the biggest difference. And using that logic, you should increase the education and testing requirements for all drivers because that will provide gains over the whole driving population instead of a single segment.

Penalties should remain the same for whatever the outcome is - doesn't matter if a bicyclist kills me or a semi truck.

Lower BAC limits are opposed even by groups like MADD. The data shows the current level is good and lowering it further will result in more people ignoring it.

Nobody is asking you to pay for others' decisions (unless we want to go down the rabbit hole of insurance, for which sports cars and high priced electrics are costing all drivers more). Nor is a large vehicle an infringement on anyone's right to life (someone's recklessness could be).

jmward013• 30 days ago

- Nobody is asking you to pay for others' decisions (unless we want to go down the rabbit hole of insurance, for which sports cars and high priced electrics are costing all drivers more). Nor is a large vehicle an infringement on anyone's right to life (someone's recklessness could be).

Large vehicles increase the risk of death for other people. The article was about pedestrians but the stats are clear about collisions with these vehicles, same size = same death rate. Small vs large = major increased risk. The argument that ownership of these vehicles doesn't infringe on my right to life or have costs to the public as a whole is ridiculous when the stats show clearly the impact. I'll even branch out to true monetary and other costs, if we extend further these vehicles have secondary impacts due to the resources they consume. Parking lots and roads are bigger making cities worse. Pollution in cities is worse impacting my health and my enjoyment of the city I live in. And, yes, they kill more people. The decision to own a big vehicle like this and drive it around everywhere has direct and major negative impacts on me at multiple levels. So, yes, I am tired of paying for other peoples decisions and just accepting it.

I will agree that in general professionalism on the road should be higher. In general we need to take driving more seriously. It kills tens of thousands each year and has a tragic impact on younger driver stats. These large vehicles though clearly represent a significant fraction and just because there are other areas that could help it doesn't mean we should ignore this one.

When you look around at people in the US there is a strong chance that most of them know personally someone that has died in a car accident or has a friend that knew someone that died. Almost universally everyone knows multiple others that have been in significant accidents or themselves been in major accidents. Just last week my cousin was struck when crossing a street (luckily just a bit banged up but mostly fine). If we can reduce deaths on the road or pedestrian deaths significantly by licensing, even if it just did it by minimizing the number of these vehicles since the bar was higher, I'd take the win.

lonelyasacloud3• 30 days ago

If you're actually following the stats you will see that vehicle size only accounted for 10% of the increase.

It's a paper that will make money automobile advertising.

Implicitly if there were any other single larger cause for the deaths then the article would be about that.

The sensible thing to do would be to carry on investigating the 90%, but in the meantime get on with saving the 200 to 400 people by removing largest factor - the _unnecessarily_ large vehicles - that are _known_ to be killing them.

Tangurena22• 30 days ago

New CDL licensees have to take a rather expensive training course before they can get their class A/B CDL (things with a GVWR of >= 26,000# or school bus). There are some online theory only sites that charge up to $300, but in many (maybe all?) states (mine for sure) you still have to take an accredited behind-the-wheel (plus theory) class that runs $4k-5k. Everyone getting their CDL after Feb 2022 has to take this course.

https://tpr.fmcsa.dot.gov/

https://tpr.fmcsa.dot.gov/content/Resources/ELDT-Applicabili...

BAC should be lower. Fines higher.

This is already the case.

For sure big trucks don't pay the costs of the damage that they do to road surfaces. Road damage is proportional to the cube of speed and 4th power of axle weight. So an 80,000# semi does 4096 the damage of an 4,000# SUV, both driving the same speed.

Math:

80,000 / 5 = 16,000# per axle 4,000 /2 = 2,000# per axle

(16/2)^4 = 4,096.

Disclaimer: I used to work for my state's version of DMV & Highway Department.

rpcope12• 30 days ago

You could start by pushing for RVs (both bus and gooseneck) to have to conform to the same standards as a commercial driver would. That seems like one of the most immediate and obvious places where it seems crazy (IMO) that we allow people to get behind of the wheel of stuff they have no business driving.

WorldMaker• 29 days ago

We could in theory replace gas taxes with per-axle weight taxes (again; most US interstates were originally built on per-axle weight taxes prior to the switch to gas taxes for maintenance funding). Per-axle weight is a much more direct number to road wear and tear than gas taxes have ever been (especially because it's exponential, road wear and tear is related to per axle weight to the fourth power).

ixtli• 30 days ago

Ban private vehicles tbh

ApolloFortyNine• 30 days ago

“Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century,” the report continued. “That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”

Am I crazy? The article itself points out that only 10% of the increase would have been 'saved' if cars had remained the same size. This goes directly against the title no?

There's certainly more than one reason, my gut would point to more smart phone use both by drivers and even by pedestrians themselves.

I wonder if one day using a smart phone while driving will have the same stigma as a DUI (and similar punishment). I struggle to argue it shouldn't, its sometimes a little crazy to think about that if the person in the other lane gets distracted on their phone, I might be involved in a head on collision at 60+mph.

joeyhage• 30 days ago

“While vehicle safety is critical, blaming larger vehicles for pedestrian deaths overlooks systemic issues” including the design of roads, said Mike Levine, a spokesman for Ford.

This is from the NYT article

jmaw• 30 days ago

I do think the article title is a bit misleading.

"75% More Pedestrians Have Been Killed Since 2009. Giant Trucks and SUVs Are *One Reason*" would be a more accurate title based on my reading.

petcat5• 30 days ago

And it doesn't quantify how many other lives have been saved specifically because the accidents involved bigger, sturdier, safer cars/trucks/SUVs. That has to be a significant statistic.

timw4mail2• 30 days ago

For the bigger vehicle, perhaps, but a smaller vehicle, even if up to modern standards, is less safe due to the larger one.

gf0002• 30 days ago

E=1/2mv^2

The energy of a crash at the same speed is linearly scaled with mass though. Especially when you have two such monsters collide, it's significant.

carlosjobim2• 30 days ago

This is how modern online influencing works.

10 000 people will see the headline here on HN or somewhere else and form their opinion based on it only.

1000 people will open the article

Out of those, 200 people will understand that the title is completely false relevant to the data.

Out of those 200 people, 150 people will still deny that the title is a lie, down vote, or try to sidetrack, because even a lie has to be supported if it supports their own political agenda.

cucumber37328429• 30 days ago

Whatever society figures out how to solve this behavior will mop the floor with us.

NamTaf• 30 days ago

I wonder if one day using a smart phone while driving will have the same stigma as a DUI (and similar punishment).

Thankfully, it is beginning to, in some places outside the US.

You can be fined $1,251 and have 4 demerit points recorded against your traffic history for using a mobile phone illegally while driving. [1]
0.05 and over, but under 0.10

Disqualification: 1 to 9 months

Fine: $2,336 [2]

[1] https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/mobile-p...

[2] https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/drink-dr...

throwworhtthrow• 30 days ago

The quote you've selected is an unfortunate example of the NYT poorly summarizing the findings of their own study (not your fault, they're the ones who wrote it). You can find a more precise explanation at the end of the article in the Methodology section.

"200 to 400" is from their model of decreasing hood height for existing collisions. But from the article:

There are two reasons bigger vehicles are deadlier: They have taller hoods. And they tend to have larger blind zones.

It doesn't appear that NYT included in their model the larger blind zones and how that causes more collisions. So they shouldn't have said their 200-400 estimate covers the increase in vehicle "size" when it only models one dimension of size growth.

giantg217• 30 days ago

The headline is wildly incorrect. Large vehicles are only responsible for about a 7.5% increase. Odd they aren't talking about the bigger issues at play and chose to mislead us.

"According to the report, pedestrian deaths have not only increased by 75% since 2009, but the fatalities have been correlated with the hazards presented by the physical heft, height, and blind spots inherent to today’s big trucks and SUVs."

Rover2225• 30 days ago

NYT editors are so subtly deceptive. It's disappointing.

tumdum_2• 30 days ago

I think that in Europe the trend is in the other direction: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... - e.g. -15% since 2019.

thrownaway561• 30 days ago

"Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century"

They're making loud noise about nothing. 200-400 people in a country of 200+ million is nothing.

Yes... big trucks and SUVs might have something to do with it. Could also be that people are not paying attention more because of their phones. Could also be that the people in these vehicles suck at driving them.

The data doesn't account for particular instances, it's just a guess at what is the cause.

ChrisArchitect• 30 days ago

non-paywall link: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/06/21/us/trucks-suv...

rayiner3• 30 days ago

Data shows that introduction of iPhones in 2007 is a better explanation for the increase in pedestrian deaths than heavier trucks and SUVs: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1ubbfrv/oc... (All the credit for this analysis goes to the reddit user, I’m just summarizing.)

Trucks and SUVs have been getting heavier consistently since 1980 while pedestrian deaths consistently decreased from 1980 to 2009. Truck sizes went up much more from 1980 to 2009 than from 2009 to present. But pedestrian deaths dropped almost in half from 1980 to 2009.

The NYT study on which this article is based acknowledges that pedestrian deaths dropped in half from 1980 to 2009, but then does nothing with this information.

pm90• 30 days ago

If the issue is distracted drivers, I don’t see how heavier trucks is still not the issue. With lighter vehicles you would likely have a higher chance of surviving.

giantg217• 30 days ago

They can both be factors, just one is much more influential than the other. Alcohol is involved in about half of all pedestrian deaths. So it seems that's the issue, but people would rather talk about vehicle size.

rayiner3• 30 days ago

Yes, but on the whole we got much heavier trucks from 1980 to 2009 while pedestrian deaths went down.

There’s also the issue that heavier vehicles are inevitable due to EVs. Our bz4x won’t get tagged as a “big evil truck,” but it’s about the same weight as a base model Ford F150. And heavier than a Toyota Tacoma double cab.

xp84• 30 days ago

Minor quibble: I don't know if 'heavier' is as important as 'taller,' though. I have seen someone hit by an actual sedan, be thrown onto the hood, fall on the ground after the car stops, and survive. Being hit is not the same as being run over, which is much harder to have happen with a car-shaped car.

dualvariable4• 30 days ago

Weight of SUVs/Trucks isn't really the right metric to use though.

The proportion of them which have a grill height which impairs visibility of the average height pedestrian would be a "better" metric, except it isn't as easy to cleanly define that.

With me driving in my 2000s Ranger, I can at least see adults walking in front of it just fine, even though it is bigger than a 1980 Toyota pickup.

cogman102• 30 days ago

It's any easy to measure metric, the article even shows it.

What we need is a "distance from the front of the car a 4' person is visible." metric. Car manufactures should be penalized for poor visibility.

simplyluke8• 30 days ago

The times article hand-waves away distracted driving by saying that other countries haven't seen a similarly large increase. The problem with that is that vehicle sizes in all other countries have also been increasing, and other countries like Canada and Australia have seen almost identical market shares of those large vehicles without the surge in pedestrian fatalities.

The large factors are phone use (more prevalent among american drivers and there's data to show this), and homelessness - the homeless are dramatically overrepresented in US pedestrian deaths and the population has increased dramatically in the US over the past decade. Even more so though it appears to be attitudes, Americans are twice as likely as Europeans or Canadians to say using a phone while driving is acceptable. Though no single factor is a smoking gun, vehicle size is one of the least convincing. Getting hit by a 4000lb car or an 8000lb truck matters much less than how fast the vehicle's going (let's all remember our high school physics class).

This blog post is the best deep dive I've seen on the data: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/more-on-us-pedestrian...

rayiner3• 30 days ago

Thank you, I hadn't even considered that smartphone use may differ between drivers in developed countries.

johnofthesea• 30 days ago

vehicle sizes in all other countries have also been increasing

Yes SUVs are more common in Europe now but still size is much smaller than in US.

kalleboo2• 29 days ago

Getting hit by a 4000lb car or an 8000lb truck matters much less

It's not the weight of the vehicle but that the front of a US truck is a big flat brick wall, whereas vehicles more common in Europe have a lower-shaped hood you fall on which is engineered to dent (some even having an actuator to pop up and increase the distance to the engine) and save the life of the pedestrian (as tested by Euro NCAP)

tzs6• 30 days ago

From the late '70s through 2009 there was a huge drop in the number of people who walked or bicycled, and there was also a significant drop in drunk driving over that time. Those explain most of the pedestrian fatality drop.

As far as truck sizes go, yes they have steadily increased, but the bigger trucks did not have as much effect on pedestrian fatality rates in the '80s or '90s because they were a much smaller percentage of vehicles on the road. In 1980 trucks were only about 1/5 of new vehicle sales. It was up to about 1/3 in 1990. By 2000 it was a little under 50%. By 2010 it was a little over 50%. Sometime around 2017 it was 2/3 trucks, and about 4/5 by 2023. (SUVs are counted as trucks in these numbers).

Remember those are figures for new sales, so changes in the percent of trucks on the road will lag changes in the percent of trucks in new sales.

You can get an idea of whether phones or size was the more responsible factor by comparing injuries to deaths. Phones would increase deaths mostly by increasing the number of accidents. Big trucks/SUVs would increase deaths by making accidents more fatal. In the phone case injuries and fatalities should rise at about the same mount. In the big vehicle case fatalities should rise more than injuries.

Fatalities have in fact risen more than injuries (80% vs 15%), suggesting that size is the much more significant factor.

genxy2• 30 days ago

Why do you focus on the old data and not the new data? It is 2026 and hood height for trucks and crossovers (which didn't exist in 2009) has be getting higher and this is what the research talks about.

It isn't weight, it is hood height and blunt fronts. But the Great Bluntening didn't happen until recently.

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...

kev0092• 30 days ago

To make a stronger case of their graphic "you go under vs over" you'd only need to sample coroner reports and find evidence of crushing, which shouldn't be that hard given the sample size. This seems a bit correlation != causation pushing hard into p-hacking given the bounds from the 1980 data long before the hood-height hypothesis could carry and other obvious hypothesis like smart phone adoption curve.

thegrim33• 30 days ago

"200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died"

Or, put another way, 0.000058% to 0.0001159% of the population.

estebank6• 30 days ago

Or, put another way, 1% of every traffic fatality, or 8% of every pedestrian killed by cars. Those are not a small number being affected by a single variable.

jandrewrogers4• 30 days ago

2009 coincides with the invention of the smartphone. I've lost count of how many times I've nearly been run over because people are staring at their phones while driving.

The attribution to larger vehicles while ignoring smartphones seems misplaced.

sparrish• 30 days ago

And I'm sure some of these stats are caused by pedestrians staring at their phones as well.

cryptoegorophy• 30 days ago

Self driving cars can’t come soon enough. Can’t believe there is debate between Waymo tesla and others while completely missing a goal.

dudeinhawaii• 30 days ago

Weird question that popped into my mind (not a judgement on this), but is there a similar jump in prosecutions for vehicular manslaughter or are these "whoopsie'd" away?

Seeing today's distracted drivers, driving their mini armored troop carriers around in parking lots, makes me wonder what happens when someone "didn't see the person" and runs them over.

Edit (after some research): "Philadelphia review found only about 16% of drivers who killed vulnerable road users were charged; 30% were closed with no charges, and 46% had no data provided."

So that's a bit concerning but I'm not sure what I'd want if I or a loved one were personally on the end of "making the mistake" vs being a victim of a mistake.

petcat5• 30 days ago

Pop quiz: You’re going to get hit by something coming at you at 50 miles per hour; given equal mass, would you rather that be a small object, or a large object?
Whap! Time’s up. What did you get hit by? If you picked small, you might be dead. If you said “large,” your odds are lower. Why? Two reasons. First, F=ma and second, P = F/A. OK, I suppose that’s really just one reason, and it’s called “physics.”

I drive a big SUV because I have a better chance of surviving if something hits me. That has to be a significant statistic somewhere too, right? How many lives were saved because of big cars?

matchbok32• 30 days ago

Are you joking? Your huge SUV class kills more people than saves by easily 10x. What happens when you hit a car?

Selfish behavior is ruining our streets.

topaz03• 30 days ago

You decrease the risk to you but you dramatically increase the risk to other people, especially pedestrians. The total deaths go up.

petcat5• 30 days ago

You decrease the risk to you

Yes, that's the point. No offense to other people, but I'm trying to not die when I drive to the store. Driving a tank with a sun roof is a good way to do that.

flerchin• 30 days ago

I don't know the answer to this, and I don't know how to find it. The stats seem to mirror Bird and cohort uptake. Are these datapoints muddied with escooter death and injury?

PaulHoule2• 30 days ago

  “Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not 
   have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over 
   the past quarter-century,” the report continued. “That represents
   about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”

What's responsible for the other 90%?

genxy2• 30 days ago

The Grille Trend that Kills 509 People per Year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpuX-5E7xoU video discussed previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39584166

These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

The original designer wanted the truck to feel like you were driving a fist, punching through the air. So we are killing people so that the driver can have an aggressive aesthetic. And the design has spread like a contagious meme, even BMWs have it now.

bob1029• 30 days ago

A major aspect of this are side effects of "safety-first" obsession over the occupants of the vehicles themselves.

Mandatory airbags in the A-pillars is probably the single biggest killer out of everything. The blind spots are massive compared to cars before these regulations. I've seen some models where it seems bad on purpose. Why don't federal regulators want the drivers of these gigantic vehicles to be able to see where the hell they are going?

simplyluke8• 29 days ago

US standards are bad at considering everyone outside the vehicle in general. Headlights are another great example. I've seen videos of headlight designers bragging about how they can put a dim spot in the exact place the regulators measure glare to cheat the test. Most pedestrian deaths are at night.

With many new vehicles on the road with their low beams on coming at me head-on I have no chance of seeing a pedestrian for hundreds of yards because I'm so blinded.

earleybird• 30 days ago

I can't take the argument seriously when they ask "Pop quiz: You’re going to get hit by something coming at you at 50 miles per hour; given equal mass, would you rather that be a small object, or a large object?"

Either way you're dead.

expedition322• 30 days ago

I take my 7 year old daughter to learn how to ride a bicycle You take your 7 year old daughter to the gun range

We are not the same.

verytrivial2• 30 days ago

The article keeps mentioning "unintended consequences" but I'm not convinced these are. Trying to come across as scary (perhaps because you are yourself scared) seems to be the whole point. "Get out of my way, look at how little I care about your safety, look at the size of this thing." The article mentions machismo but I don't think that quite covers the (profitable) pathology here.

alamortsubite16• 30 days ago

Yep. Automotive grille design became sharply more aggressive over the last 20 years (not just in terms of hood height). It says a lot about the psychology of consumers.

ElijahLynn2• 30 days ago

I recently visited Portugal and it was so refreshing not to see huge near monster trucks on the road. Which have a very intimidating vibe to them.

I was like oh look at people can actually function without big trucks, wow! What a surprise!

9cb14c1ec0• 30 days ago

Very urban perspective. If you are a contractor or farmer in rural America, there is no way to survive without a good sized truck.

trinix9122• 30 days ago

There’s plenty of rural Europe too, but Europeans mostly use vans (tradesmen) or tractors (farmers) instead. Both have much better visibility than those tall trucks with a long hood, at least from my experience.

tumdum_2• 30 days ago

Did you know that only 1,6% of US population works in agriculture compared to 5% in Portugal? See https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/employmen...

tinyplanets8• 30 days ago

Plenty of oversized trucks and SUVs in urban areas. The majority of the population in the U.S. is considered urban, so why exactly is the "urban perspective" not legitimate?

ElijahLynn2• 30 days ago

Well from my experience visiting Portugal, there's tons of farming there and they didn't have all these oversized trucks. I wonder how they do it...

It seems uniquely American to have these huge trucks and most of the people here don't even farm. They just use them to flex.

Marsymars7• 30 days ago

I dunno, my dad was a farmer when I was a kid, and he did fine with a series of compact pickups. (Some 80's Toyota thing, then a Nissan hardbody, then a Chevy S10.)

ErroneousBosh7• 30 days ago

So why do they they have these useless American pickups like Ford F150s?

You can't put anything in them. They've got a load bed that I could *just* about fit a couple of sandwiches in.

Everyone here in the UK uses Ford Transits. How do you use something like an F150 to move plasterboard sheets?

simplyluke8• 30 days ago

The problem is that other countries have seen nearly identical trends in vehicle market share trending towards larger vehicles and have seen sustained declines in pedestrian fatalities. John Burn-Murdoch went deep on this in the FT a couple of years ago (archive link at bottom).

Most of the explanations commonly put forward for why US roads remain so deadly focus on broad structural factors such as vehicle size or time spent on the road, but a review of the evidence suggests this may be mistaken. Last year’s improvement is a case in point. Two reasons often cited as key causes of poor US performance both worsened: the total number of miles driven by Americans increased, and US cars continued to grow larger. Yet fatal collisions still declined.
Adding to the evidence that this is not a dominant factor, car sizes in Canada, Australia and New Zealand have traced similar paths to the US without resulting in a spike in fatalities.
Another theory is that the rise of homelessness in the US may be pushing pedestrian deaths higher. A recent study found that there had indeed been a marked rise in traffic-related deaths among the homeless, but this, too, can only explain a small portion of the overall rise.
Instead, an underrated factor seems to be not American cars but American drivers [...] The determining factor seems to be different attitudes to safety, with Americans twice as likely as Canadians or Europeans to say they find it acceptable to use a phone while driving.

https://archive.is/Lggyg#30%

1970-01-014• 30 days ago

I too am unconvinced bigger truck/vehicle means things are getting of control. It's terrible how the NYT article has no facts on overall road deaths, so here I state one for everyone: Occupant deaths have a clear falling trend. So while pedestrian deaths are climbing, the overall deaths are still trending downward, and I shouldn't have to defend that the overall count is more important than the pedestrian subset.

PoignardAzur• 30 days ago

That can be very easily explained as "bigger cars are safer for their occupant and deadlier to the person getting hit by them".

I do think you need to defend your assertion, because the difference between a driver and a pedestrian is that the driver "knew the risks" while the risks were imposed on the pedestrian.

michael19992• 30 days ago

You do need to justify it. There is a great moral hazard prioritizing the driver's safety over pedestrians, since the driver is most in control of the danger. There is very little a pedestrian can do to protect themselves from a driver on their phone who mounts the sidewalk.

avianlyric2• 30 days ago

So while pedestrian deaths are climbing, the overall deaths are still trending downward, and I shouldn't have to defend that the overall count is more important than the pedestrian subset.

A better question is why is the US the only developed country that’s seen pedestrian deaths increase over the past 10-15 years. Every other developed country has seen both occupant and pedestrian deaths decrease over the same time period, and has seen a larger combined drop in deaths than the US. And to be clear, I’m talking about deaths per mile driven, not absolute counts, so the size of the US is already factored into the numbers.

uberex2• 30 days ago

Where I live you don't touch a phone while driving. Heavy fines and both human and camera based survellience. I think it is excellent and has surely saved lives. Driving is the thing you don't need to multitask.

decimalenough2• 30 days ago

While vehicle sizes are indeed trending upward in Australia and Europe, giant SUV and especially giant truck penetration in both countries is still far behind US levels, and particularly in Europe are unlikely to ever reach the same figures (good luck parking your Ford F-9000 Testosteroneo in Rome or Paris).

marcyb5st• 30 days ago

It is not just the big cities. You go downtown even in small towns and the roads tend to be so narrow that a big SUV becomes a liability more than a vehicle. Without mentioning that I'm not even sure parking stalls fit big US cars lengthwise and they barely do widthwise

Swizec• 30 days ago

While vehicle sizes are indeed trending upward in Australia and Europe, giant SUV and especially giant truck penetration in both countries is still far behind US levels

Many big SUVs are flat out illegal in Europe, you’d need a small truck license. It’s hard to comprehend how large American cars are unless you’ve lived in both places.

For example:

we took an Uber to the airport for our annual pilgrimage back home. We had 4 suitcases this time because new babies need gifts. In USA we got picked up by a sedan and everything fit in the trunk. In Europe we rented an SUV and had to break down the rear seats to fit everything.

simplyluke8• 29 days ago

I can't speak to Australia, and yeah, western Europe has a lot less big trucks, but Canada has as many large 4x4 trucks as anywhere in the US in my experience and has seen decreasing deaths. The times article touches on this but the most they can explain of the increase in deaths from vehicle size is 10%. It's a problem, but it's far from being able to explain the full issue.

asdff6• 30 days ago

Smartphone use is a compelling case:

https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1ubbfrv/oc...

iknowstuff3• 30 days ago

Nah thats the same everywhere. Stroads and piss poor urban design, largely due to objections from stubborn fire departments chasing the wrong metrics and refusing to downsize, are a compelling case.

paulsutter• 30 days ago

Human drivers are killing people, not the cars.

Weirdly NYC just blocked Waymo again.

groundzeros20152• 30 days ago

Isn’t Waymo a guy driving a car remotely (or at least supervising)?

rpmisms• 30 days ago

Blah. It's a regulation problem. Allow powerful trucks to be small again and they will. Perverse incentives are a bitch.

whall6• 30 days ago

I believe that as self-driving cars become more ubiquitous, these deaths (and other traffic-related deaths) will decrease. I was driving on a 4 lane road at 5 in the morning and all of a sudden my Tesla model 3 slams on its brakes, missing a deer that jumped across the road by ~2 feet. Its path was completely perpendicular to the road and I couldn't see it until a few seconds after my car started braking.

Imagine a future when a much larger proportion of drivers have 360 degree vision with no blind spots, infinitesimally small reaction times and a human failsafe in the driver seat.

neves2• 30 days ago

They also drink a lot more fuel and contributing for co2 emissions. Thank you Americans for destroying Earth

whatever12• 30 days ago

Deadly for the rest. Not the owners. We need more trucks. Be the good guy in a truck.

baq4• 30 days ago

Precisely. Want to cross the street? Get in the truck. Want to walk to that Starbucks next door for a quick espresso? Take the truck. Are you a newborn in a stroller? Your fault for not being in a truck and putting yourself at risk.

whatever12• 30 days ago

City planners need to rethink from scratch. Imagine how many parking spaces we would save if everything was drive through for trucks. Restaurants, office work, cinema, hospitals, schools etc

And now with self driving, newborns can also have their truck

piker9• 30 days ago

Those A pillars are MASSIVE liabilities in the UK where people just hop right out onto "zebra crossings" expecting the right-of-way to be yielded to them.

On a number of occasions I have nearly hit people who I simply could not see crossing in my Volvo XC90 due to these pillars. I've been driving for nearly 30 years in the US and UK and have never felt anything like it.

[edit: for future readers, please note that I am not saying it would be legal or correct to hit these people.

I am saying precisely that the A pillars on the XC90 are dangerous as they introduce blind spots that I've never experienced before. We test drove the vehicle, and they weren't apparent during that test drive. I am now responsible for them.

Down in this thread you will read some responses that seem confused about that point. No, it is not legal to run people over in the road. You will be at fault. No, that doesn't make it smart to jump into the road until it's clear that the traffic has yielded you your lawful right of way. IAAL]

bijowo16764• 30 days ago

I like Teslas Forward Collision Warning system which alerts me if it sees the obstacle such as car, a corner, or pedestrian on a path.

there is also Active collision avoidance that will adjust vehicle if it senses a car on the nearby lane about to hit my side

I think these safety systems need to be mandatory

ErroneousBosh7• 30 days ago

I think these safety systems need to be mandatory

Why do you think that?

alamortsubite16• 29 days ago

There have been several studies showing driver assistance systems cause a psychological shift that leads to drivers not paying attention. I guess we have to ask ourselves if we want to encourage people to pay attention while driving, or just leave it up to the latest vibe-coded OTA update Tesla's pushing out.

I'm glad backup cameras are mandatory, though.

cjs_ac3• 30 days ago

Those A pillars are MASSIVE liabilities in the UK where people just hop right out onto "zebra crossings" expecting the right-of-way to be yielded to them.

Those pedestrians do have the right of way; you need to have another look at the Highway Code.

piker9• 30 days ago

This is such a British response.

Obviously that's what the law says, yes. But if they hop into someone's blind spot, it won't matter to their family much that they were in the right.

baq4• 30 days ago

Can’t see if there are pedestrians at the crossing? Slow down

piker9• 30 days ago

It's not a speed issue. They're in a blind spot. Your brain tells you that you can see everything, but it's incorrect.

My experiences have been under slow circumstances only. And that makes sense because the individual "lingers" in the blind spot (and perhaps matches your speed) if you're going slow. If you were going fast, the blind spot would be moving much faster and you would see them.

quickthrowman• 30 days ago

I move my neck, head, and eyes to look around the A pillar in my vehicle to verify I don’t hit anybody. Yes, every time I start moving forward and there’s a pedestrian crossing in front of me.

I suggest doing the same thing unless your cervical vertebrae are fused together. If that’s the case, I understand your concern.

piker9• 30 days ago

Yes, obviously this is what is required.

and there’s a pedestrian crossing in front of me

This is wrong. You have to do it every time because the pedestrian is in your blind spot.

ErroneousBosh7• 30 days ago

Those A pillars are MASSIVE liabilities in the UK where people just hop right out onto "zebra crossings" expecting the right-of-way to be yielded to them.

They're also just MASSIVE.

I keep hearing about how "SUVs" are dangerous for pedestrians because you can't see them, but I've got a far better view out the front of my elderly Range Rover than I do in for example the nice little Kia Niro EVs or Renault Zoes we had at work.

Modern cars have so much crap with sensors hanging off the middle of the windscreen you basically can't see anything that's not immediately in front of the driver, and then they have these huge thick door pillars that block the rest.

neves2• 30 days ago

What a marvelous piece of visualization. Best in class

dinkblam• 30 days ago

All of the problems (high hood, bad visibility downwards) are fixed by sports cars and especially mid-engined and rear-engined sports cars. Plus, the brake distance is much lower.

andrepd• 30 days ago

It's really astonishing how virtually every single quality of life indicator is negatively correlated with number of cars in the road. One of the most effective things you / your city / your nation can do do improve your live in every dimension is to take measures to reduce the number of cars.

elektronika• 30 days ago

We all know how much local PDs like collecting traffic fines, but I wish they would enforce the laws around yielding to pedestrians with the same enthusiasm as speed limits. I walk a lot and pretty much every day someone blows by in front of me while I'm in the crosswalk or takes a right on red into me because they're not looking. It'd be trivial to set up a sting for this sort of driving, just have one plain clothes officer cross back and forth with another cop parked on a side street ready to flash their lights.

kccqzy• 30 days ago

In Sunnyvale the police definitely does this! At one point the sting was a small child crossing the road repeatedly while an officer observed nearby.

yboris• 30 days ago

Super relevant: Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? by Douglas Husak

One of my favorite philosophy papers. The author argues that because of the high crash incompatibility of SUVs, they are immoral - imposing needless harm on others. It's also ironic that on average, there is no net safety benefit to those who drive them -- because of higher rollover risks!

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447

rconti• 30 days ago

We've already lost the war on outward visibility. Virtually every bit of our safety regulatory system encourages or demands vehicles that you can't really see out of anymore. Side impact standards and higher door sills all around, curtain airbags, etc. Hell, they encourage (more profitable) SUVs because they don't have to be built to passenger car safety standards. And the market's doing the rest.

The only response from the safety industry is more doodads. Auto braking, backup cameras, lane departure warnings, blind spot warning.

Cars going too fast in your neighborhood? Build huge speed bumps you need an SUV to navigate to navigate at any speed over 5mph!

I don't think there's actually any hope for human-driven cars, long-term. The system doesn't want them.

cucumber37328429• 30 days ago

We've lost a more general war against the social acceptability of demanding something must be done while simultaneously being stupid to think a few steps ahead.

All these concerns were raised back when vehicles were getting crappy to see out of in the late 00s but "something must be done" and "the statistics say" screeched the exact same demographics if not literal individuals, and so, things were done, and now here we are.

And this is just the tip of the goddamn iceberg. Seems like every axis of discourse and policy is afflicted by this. I have no idea how we fix it.

tinyplanets8• 30 days ago

As I'm sure the commentors here from outside of the U.S. can plainly see - it's going to be a long road to get regulations in place to somehow incentivize smaller vehicles (and that's assuming we ever have a functioning government again). For Americans, a lot of our self-image/worth is tied up in the vehicles we drive. I suppose it's a combination of cultural history (hyper-individualism) and decades of marketing and advertising from auto manufacturers.

NegativeLatency2• 30 days ago

And a lack of other good options, so anything other than a personal vehicle just doesn't compute for lots of people.

bfrog• 30 days ago

Sitting in a modern pickup is worse than a school bus for visibility. You cannot see in front of the truck at all. Real blue collar work seems to mostly have moved to work vans like the sprinter which have much better visibility, much more friendly height for storing, can still tow, etc.

Pickups are 1000% pointless now

chris_money2022• 30 days ago

I drive a 2004 truck, it's not as big as the newer trucks but it's still pretty big. My 2004 truck also has 0 sensors on it and no cameras. If I were driving a newer truck, I believe pedestrians would be safer because of the added safety sensors and cameras.

RIMR3• 30 days ago

Well, the statistics say otherwise, so I don't get the argument you're making. That you would trust the car's sensors over your own observations and judgments might actually mean you'd be a more dangerous driver in a newer truck.

chris_money2022• 30 days ago

Don't recall saying I would trust them over my own judgement, they are an additional layer of perception

realo• 30 days ago

No problem with big SUVs ...

Just cap their top speed at 40 mph, use thin A pillars to better protect pedestrians and make them ugly as hell.

But make damn sure they comfortably transport the family to the soccer game, yes...

aucisson_masque• 30 days ago

There was an excellent documentary on it in France from cash investigations.

Not only it kills more pedestrians, but also when you get an accident with one of the people driving these monstrosity, you get a lot more chance of dying.

So if either you want to be safe, you got to buy an even heavier car.

This is a race to the bottom.

Hopefully with the rise of gas price, people will start to rethink buying SUV.

washbasin• 30 days ago

Very thankful for Reader Mode.

Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.

Just no.

WalterBright• 30 days ago

There needs to be tax incentives to put truck trailers on rail cars.

tills132• 30 days ago

Beyond just being dangerous, it's also incredibly frustrating to go down to my local grocery store and 50% of the stalls have these massive trucks and SUVs sticking out over the sidewalk / into the through-road / taking up literally the entire width of the stall. It boggles me that people buy these things and then use them for puttering around town 99% of the time.

Rover2225• 30 days ago

You sound like a good candidate for EU citizenship.

tills132• 30 days ago

I'm Canadian so that would be an honour.

akouri• 30 days ago

I'd like to start or contribute to a philanthropic effort to see the pickup truck and SUV arms race fought somehow. I think the strongest avenue, at least in the USA, would be better litigation and direct criminal responsibility for those that own them and are negligent in their operation (cell-phone use, speeding, illegal lift-kits, etc).

Does anybody know of such a nonprofit or organization that is currently making meaningful progress here that I can contribute to?

deadbabe• 30 days ago

I propose a radical solution where the US government pays people by buying back their big trucks, after which they are scrapped for raw materials.

suralind• 30 days ago

I was in US three times for work events. Every single time I would try to walk somewhere and would be forced to navigate around pickup trucks stopped in the middle of a freaking crosswalk. Sometimes those cars were so large that I could stand right in front of it and I’m convinced the driver would not be able to see me. It was by far the worst thing about my time in the US. Like you have so much space, why do you need to block the damn crossing?

Rover2225• 30 days ago

The solution is not to ban large vehicles. Self-driving vehicles are what will solve this problem (slowly, as the current fleet of human-driven vehicles phases out). In general, having humans drive vehicles is incredibly dangerous. Small cars too.

Rover2225• 30 days ago

Datac enters bad, big cars bad, nulcear bad (yeah those were people of the same ilk that ruined that industry).

Keep it up. China will win, as we flagellate.

schaefer• 30 days ago

The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs...

safety stilts.

CapitalistCartr• 30 days ago

For work, I drive an F-350 diesel with a work-bed full of tools and supplies, and a ladder rack. It's a bit nerve-wracking driving through city side streets, especially with pedestrians. It's 22 feet (6.7m) long. Across the tow mirrors is 8.5 feet (2.6m). It probably weighs 4 tons. Yet people happily choose to drive bigger vehicles as commuter cars!

antonymoose• 30 days ago

What common commuter vehicle do you imagine here exactly? I’m riding 2.5 Ton full-frame SUV and struggle to see anything much more than a solid 3-ton vehicle.

brikym• 30 days ago

These are the epitome of individualism. It's a Fuck you I'm safe. They're even designed to look like fists. Here is a quote from General Motors truck designer Karan Moorjani:

“I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”

... we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer."

The design of these things is deliberately antisocial. The huge hood is not even needed since it's possible to stand inside the mostly empty engine bays of these things as FortNine showed: https://youtu.be/YpuX-5E7xoU?t=431

But it's not just the hood heights wrong with modern vehicles. Multiple design trends are hostile to other road users and reduce safety equality if you will.

- Headlight hues are white and blinding

- Headlight positioning has increased with the hood height which tends to blind people.

- The pillars in vehicles are really thick and raked which is safer for the occupants but also means visibility is reduced. Great, so now people in bigger, newer, safer vehicles are more likely to hit pedestrians and people in older, smaller vehicles.

- Windows are more tinted and often smaller meaning vehicles are opaque walls now which hinders visibility and communication at intersections.

Gene5ive• 30 days ago

I've always hated trucks for all of these reasons. Thanks for doing the science to help me explain why, NYT.

by_the_bay• 30 days ago

https://xkcd.com/3167/

apparent• 30 days ago

Weird that this article did not mention the Chicken Tax [1] and the differences in CAFE standards and safety standards applicable to passenger vehicles and light trucks/trucks. Basically, the latter were more profitable for automakers, so they shifted toward selling SUVs that qualified as light trucks. This was a crucial step in the arms race toward larger/higher vehicles.

While I don't disagree with what the article says, it is surprising that they have completely missed these aspects of causality, which have been well-known and discussed by policymakers for decades.

1: https://publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/jlpp/2024/11/25/t...

ishankunam• 30 days ago

i really enjoyed the interactive elements / visualization in this post.

LandenLove2• 30 days ago

Seems like they put a lot of time and effort into this article. It's a shame that I cannot read it because it is covered by, "Sale ends soon. $0.50/week for your first six months year. Subscribe!", on my screen.

GarnetFloride• 30 days ago

Wasn't there a case of a F-150 running over a Lamborghini in a parking lot a few weeks ago, because the driver of the pickup couldn't see the supercar?

LandenLove2• 30 days ago

I hate everything about modern vehicles. Built cheaply, yet cost a fortune. Are filled with laggy infotainment computers that requires subscriptions and replace reliable and easy to locate climate controls. They are the size of tanks despite having a smaller bed size than a Japanese kei car. The list goes on and on.

yanhangyhy• 29 days ago

https://carnewschina.com/2026/06/05/chinas-passenger-cars-ga...

China’s passenger cars gained 392 kg in 12 years as the EV era hits a heavy turning point, report says

Dig1t• 29 days ago

A huge number of people in the US use these cars for transporting large items like plywood and drywall (4 feet by 8 feet), a full sized truck or SUV are the best options for this type of work. Additionally, most tradespeople need these types of vehicles for their work, ask any carpenter, plumber, electrician what they drive. A non-trivial portion of the US economy relies on these types of vehicles.

Safety can dramatically be improved just by focusing on the design of our infrastructure. For example adding bike lanes to a road can dramatically improve safety for both pedestrians and cyclists. The vast majority of the US road network has no bike lanes. Instead of trying to regulate the types of vehicles people are allowed to own even more, why isn't the focus on improving the design of our infrastructure? The amount of taxes we pay is a staggering sum, there's more than enough room in the government budget to spend on roads.

linzhangrun• 29 days ago

Look at those BEVs in the Chinese market — they're truly scary, 3-ton heavyweights running all over the streets.

aristofun• 29 days ago

How easy it is to put all tge dogs on a vehicle, rather than on drivers.

If you ban a truck - the asshole driving it will just buy bmw instead.

Don’t you see? Why all the good people have to suffer?

cieslak• 29 days ago

Besides the news being very concerning, this article is beautiful. NYT really delivered on this one.

meristohm• 29 days ago

One way to reduce the speed of such large vehicles in urban areas is cyclists to conspicuously use the wider lane. I do this regularly with my Class 1 ebike (assists to 20mph), in part because the wider lane is smoother (I often carry a child whose disability means they don't handle bumps well), there's less debris, and especially because I'm so much more visible. Yeah, I get honked at (which means drivers see me!), but the speed limit is an upper limit, not a minimum, and I'm usually going close to that (yeah, I know that doesn't matter when we get splattered by a road-rager in a toy tank, but I will not sit idly by). The normalization of massive climate-controlled lazy-boxes is both bonkers to me as a person who thrives on moving under my own power, and understandable: we like getting something for ~nothing, and it's so easy not to consider the long-term consequences of regularly spending fuel to move a couple tons of metal and plastic to drive two miles to pick up some groceries.

nacozarina• 27 days ago

Blaming inanimate objects instead of drivers is just gaslighting.

The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

Related Stories