U.S. Pedestrian Deaths Up 77% Since 2009 & The Auto Industry Knew It Would Happen
America’s Pedestrian Death Crisis: 77% Rise in a Decade Shows How Car Capitalism Kills Walkers
In Japan, there is tax benefits if your car fits certain dimensions. That's why there are so many small boxy cars in Japan. I don't understand why this isn't a thing anywhere else. It has so many benefits: Fuel economy, parking space, pedestrian safety, …
But no, "I can see better if I sit higher" is still the #1 killer argument for these urban tanks.
Americans gladly go into more debt to show off the things they can't afford
In Finland, car sales tax and yearly tax are based on the Co2 output, and it worked quite well to keep most cars small, light and efficient. Until hybrid and electric cars arrived on the market, that is...
There really does seem to be a kind of social cohesiveness in other countries. In America it's dog eat dog and fuck everyone else as long as I get mine.
My freedoms>your kids life
-Americans
Very much true in my specific limited experience.
I live in a nice little town here in the US, and I'm a well educated middle aged white guy. It's safe to say that I get to see a pretty nice version of America even as horrible shit is happening all over the place.
I've gotten to spend a few weeks in Sweden of all places over the past few years. Plus I got to see the insides of some airports in other places luke Belgium and Germany.
There's just something different in the air over there, in a good way. I thought of it as a kind of dignity that came from respect for others as well as oneself, but I like how you call it social cohesiveness.
I think some of the details around food and drink showed it best, and they make good examples because they apply to a mix of the general public.
The food itself is obviously much better over there. Even things like the hotel breakfast or the cafeteria at a workplace had a huge variety of fresh, real foods as opposed to ultraprocessed manufactured branded products.
But the dishes and utensils were some of the most interesting to me as an american. In places like an office cafe at work, or a local restaurant, or I think even an airport, they would have actual GLASSES, plates, and silverware. And on top of that, you would often return your dishes to the kitchen or even put them directly on to the dish washer rack waiting for you.
This breaks my american mind. Fragile non-disposable cups in a public place? Other than coffee mugs on people's desks or restaurant glasses being dropped off and picked up with at your table, I'm not sure I've ever seen that within these borders. If you could use glasses and silverware in public places here, I can't decide what would happen first: somebody would get cut on one of the immediately broken glasses, or so much of the stuff would get stolen that they'd close it down.
I like to call out their bathrooms too. The way we do it over here is big men's and women's restrooms with next to no privacy (it's one big room with flimsy floating dividers forming the toilet stalls) and stupid culture wars about who should and should not get their genitals inspected or whatever. Over there it's just several individual doors, each with a small bathroom. Much better privacy, no fodder for the bigots, and much better utilization of the resources.
Dutch road tax is by weight.
It's at least partially the American emission standards, which loosen the emissions requirements as the size of the vehicle grows.
I’m not buying that. Sure, what you say is absolutely true but we’re talking pedestrian deaths. That’s more of the fault of the high steel wall at the front, and that is purely a style choice.
I can see better if I sit higher
Japanese import here. :)
One woman nearly broke into tears when she saw how little I had to spend to fill it with fuel.
I don’t understand why this isn’t a thing anywhere else.
A lot of it is because companies want to support the macho American image of guns, trucks, and bacon.
They know these insecure losers will spend more money to look tough in front of their idiot peers.
I think I can see better on my bicycle than in a car, nothing blocking my view and you also sit relatively high compared to cars.
its to stroke the egos of soccer moms, and overcompensating men.
By 2030, they will be stand up driving like speedboats.
Partly the ridiculous sized vehicles. Partly the fact that nearly every single person driving is watching Netflix, while browsing TikTok, while eating a big Mac and running late cause they have no time management skills. And they are driving 20-30 mph over the speed limit, full of road rage, with no concern for anyone or anything. The only person on the road that matters is them.
Not to mention poorly aimed LED lights rivaling the lumen output of the fucking sun.
That just comes standard on pretty much every SUV now. Half the electric vehicles here have a fuckin light bar across the front. It’s insane how much worse visibility is at night outside of towns. Add in more aging drivers and everyone else not even looking at the road and it’s not surprising.
Reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 and how the youth drive dangerously because they haven nothing to live for.
Have you...ever been near another person before?
American here living in a car-only area.
I didn't even raise an eyebrow at that previous comment. Sure most drivers are fine, but there are plenty of people who make me wonder what the hell combination of these issues (and others) is going on with them.
The most common example I get to see is the people speeding through the elementary school parking lot in their luxury SUVs. I especially love it when they start a phone call as they start driving, after they just finished standing around, collecting their kid, and walking back to the parking lot.
The article doesn't talk about the fact that the increase is far greater in dark conditions, which is not readily explained by the changes to car design the article discusses.
This article talks more about that, and the linked report suggests population trends have contributed to more people walking at night along arterial roads with poor pedestrian infrastructure.
To be clear, daytime fatalities are up by about 40% in the interval shown, which is much more than the increase in population. Increasing vehicle size and hood height are real problems too, but don't seem to be the biggest factor.
There are sidewalks on both sides of the street in my neighborhood. People are walking 2 abreast in the street at night and joggers are commonly running about 4 feet into the street from the curb.
Regardless of the article's findings, some people are just oblivious.
Morons existed long before 2009. They are not a new phenomenon that accounts for a 40% increase in casualties. So your point, astute though it may be, is tangential to the article.
What is the condition of your sidewalks? My sidewalks are uneven and a neighborhood grandma who I walk with still prefers the street even though my street is not well lit. Uneven sidewalks are a tripping hazard that can be avoided by walking in the street. Her vision isn't great so a paved stretch of road is just easier to walk with a flashlight.
I knew someone who did that because the sidewalks were too uneven. She had bad ankles and kept rolling them trying to walk in the sidewalk
Since pandemic I’ve fallen twice because of bad sidewalks. It’s embarrassing as shit
Top tip: don't hit them.
Gee, there was no way they would have been able to change this....
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🍆💦💦💦💦💦💦💦💦⛽ 🫦
I propose we trick our fellow Americans by making smol cars offroady enough to embarrass an F150:
Look at them! Who would want a rolling brick over that?
And the Ford Focus is already mostly there.
Concur.
My stock Subaru can handle more off-roading than most trucks ever do
My old job had me going to a lot of places in very bad conditions and off road. I always drove an audi or a subaru and watched the lifted trucks spin out / go in the ditch / flip over / get stuck / and generally have a poor showing.
love this
these look dope af
And functional! You’re looking at Dakar rally champions, and hatchbacks so unreasonably fast on dirt, their league was banned.
This is what actual off-roaders look like.
This is an accepted part of the economy. Our leaders have decided us dying for private profit is fine. Now add up all the accepted deaths per year from every product and service and see how many of us are sacrificed for profit.
accepted part of the economy
... You got me thinking how far car caused deaths have to go to catch up with iatrogenic deaths.
sacrificed for profit.
But I need a massive truck to carry groceries and 2 kids.
/s
It’s literally style. Those pickup lifts often ruin durability and off-road capability.
It's hilariously stupid. First, they lift the trucks to pretend they off road, then they have to put wide wheels and spacers because the idiotwagon is tippy, which sprays water everywhere, then finally the suspension breaks because of geometry.
Two days ago near me. She was 75 and could not see the sidewalk or the building in her Barbie Boomer truck.
I need a 14 ft SUV to carry an 8 lb baby.
The real horror is the trend. Between 2009 and 2023, pedestrian deaths rose a staggering 80%, while all other traffic fatalities increased just 13%. In a decade-plus span, pedestrians have been dying at a rate nearly seven times faster than population growth. This isn’t random. It’s the intentional outcome of systems designed to prioritize vehicles over people.
Shameful and pathetic, what a material abandonment of the social contract.
Hood heights. You have pickup trucks that have to have a front camera now.
And mechanics now use stepladders.
FFS guys just buy a strap on dildo, she'll never know the difference.
Meanwhile in the UK pedestrian deaths are down despite the number of miles walked increasing.
The UK has among the lowest road deaths in the world.
I'm not quite sure why that is (although anecdotally as a pedestrian, you seem to be treated like royalty in the UK in comparison to other places I've been - so much as glance at a zebra crossing and cars come to an immediate stop).
Given how UK drivers often use summer tyres year-round, the weather is dark and cool, and the roads are usually damp, you'd logically expect poor results, but we see the opposite.
Perhaps it's due to the rather strict yearly MOT safety check? Who knows.
Are you sure they aren't selling you all seasons and calling them summer tires?
I don't live there by my impression was that while people walk a lot it's more within small dense areas and between those areas everyone buses etc, so maybe people and cars are better segregated?
The more people walking, the fewer people driving. Makes enough sense to me.
We need to switch to EVs to protect the environment
But also no efforts to keep vehicles from getting bigger and heavier, which not only uses more resources (in construction and during use) but also increases danger to pedestrians and cyclists.
What kind of EVs?
The Aptera?
Peter Perkins' Solar Powered Van?
If we switch to painting the entire bodywork in cheap recyclable low-light efficient photovoltaic paint made from carbon buckyballs and nanotubules, and photovoltaic dyes in the windows... and hemp sourced graphene capacitor bank batteries, EVs could help protect the environment, yup.
... And likely help protect pedestrians and cyclists too... certainly far more than the high-mass high-inertia high-hood high-glare low-visibility SUV tanks going around.
Edit: Hrmm... why'd those image links no work? http://www.evuk.co.uk/imgs/solarvan_ev1.jpg http://www.evuk.co.uk/imgs/solarvan_ev2.jpg Edit: Oh, because http not https?
The Aptera?
I hear the Easter Bunny drives one of these. Aptera deliveries have been imminent since 2009 but you have to believe in elves and fairies if you think that small area of solar cells will charge that motorcycle (it's not a car).
We need simple laws restricting vehicle weights. The hummer EV is 10000 lbs and wastes most of it charge just carrying around a stupidly large 3000lb battery pack. In a rear end collision, the car in front, and the car in front of that are all dead.
My wife is a medical coder for the ED, for more than a dozen hospitals and says the overwhelming area for vehicle fatalities she codes is intersections crossing in front of traffic. Particularly trying to make the yellow. The plural of anecdote isn't data mind you, but she's been at this for 15+ years and has a pretty good sense of it.
My similar anecdote is people taking a right on red without stopping (or apparently looking), and would probably be included in those statistics. Since there may be a pedestrian or cyclist just around the corner you can’t see until you’re at the intersection, stopping and looking is critical for safety
I used to be a proponent of right on red, because who wants to be stuck at a dead intersection? If you only consider cars, it’s a nice efficiency gain. But now non-car users like pedestrians and cyclists don’t have a safe time to cross the intersection. And it’s so much worse now that people turning right on red seem to have forgotten the parts about “after coming to a complete stop” and “yielding to other traffic”
For sure! When driving downtown this is what freaks me out most while driving around. Last thing I want to do is hit someone.
When in NYC and Makati it shocked me to see how flagrant people are with just crossing the street wherever. Two places I'll never drive, I'm not a good enough driver to not hit people in places like that.
I want to know how many are related to drivers blinded by LED headlights. I've seen (and been a part of) dozens of near hits in the past few years because of this.
edit: Let me just be very clear about this — if you think that the issue is only aftermarket headlights or modified vehicles, you are mistaken. you can look at pretty much any modern Toyota or Subaru or Mazda or pickup with LED headlights and see that the low beams are just as bright as the high beams, just aimed lower. and that aim lower does not matter when the low beams are shining in somebody's face, which happens often because roads are not level and flat. and you know where this is often the case? intersections. intersections often are raised in the middle, which means the car on the other side is angled slightly upwards, which means their low beam LED headlights are blasting the person on the other side in the face, even with their "but much cutoff is correct excuse".
the simple inexcusable unavoidable fact is that headlights that blind people like this with this frequency are simply bad design and dangerous, and yes they also make the driver an asshole for having that vehicle and treating other people like this. like how would people feel if I just went around blasting them in the face with a flashlight that bright while walking around. they'd be livid. this is literally not any different, you're not special just because you bought a 4,000 lb vehicle that has dangerous features.
Bigger vehicles with high hoods too.
Whoever invented LED bulbs for cars needs to be blacklisted from the auto industry
There are plenty of cars with stock LED headlights and proper cutoffs, so they’re less blinding than traditional headlights
It’s aftermarket “illegal” LEDs, LEDs that are misaligned or started at a bad height, and way too many drivers who never turn off their high beams. Yet another safety rule we only pay lip service to, resulting in unnecessary deaths
They need to make them frosted so they disperse the light and they need to design headlights that are focused downwards so they can't hit your eyes directly.
Those are aftermarket lights, or people with lifted pickups. Lights are designed to work at a set distance off the road, when people lift the truck, everything is now hi beams.
The problem is not the industry, it's a lack of safety laws and enforcement. North America does not safety inspect vehicles.
If you have powered mirrors, reflect the light back into their eyes...works great
doesn't work well in my experience. now I typically just leave my mirrors all the way out and up when driving at night, so the headlights never hit my eyes from them
I can see everything I need to from the rearview and turning my head. it's not like you can see anything using the side mirrors at night when somebody with LED headlights is behind you anyways, all you see is a giant flare and you can't even tell if it's in your lane or the next lane or how close it is
LED headlights are literally making the roads less safe by decreasing visibility and awareness
It is insane how bright they are now and due to LEDs appear as point sources. Even if they are adjusted correctly for flat roads as soon as you get to any ripples in the road now they are aimed right into your eyes. For some reason insurers and the gov don't recognize this problem.
I think this is the biggest issue here..
Those are pretty staggering numbers considering the population has only grown by maybe 12% in that same timeframe.
A truck drove by me the other day that was so high up and had such a big body there is no way the driver could see anything 10 feet around the truck in all directions.
When you need a step ladder to get into your truck maybe it is too high for public roads.
I'd love to see EU numbers side by side for a fair comparison.
40% decrease from 2013 to 2023
But Americans, please don't look at that.
Keep trusting your billionaire oligarchs. Maybe they care.
Options for reasonable sized cars is the US have decreased. Mega trucks ans SUVs are what sells, I guess.
Part of this increase may also be because there are a lot of people out there driving like there are no consequences to their actions. Is it just because I am older, or are there more aggressive speeder out there?
Mega trucks ans SUVs are what sells, I guess.
Unfortunately, people buy what they are told to buy through advertising and marketing. The demand for sports cars didn't dry up because people lost interest, but because better margins were found in large vehicles (and since emissions requirements were easier to hit for large vehicles than small powerful ones).
If the auto industry decided small cars were more profitable, the entire marketing machine would start touting the benefits of small cars, and in a few years, people would be claiming they always loved small cars and are so glad they are back so they can replace their monster trucks with tiny hatches.
We’re still working on the loss of caring about driving from pandemic. For some reason it brought out the worst in people, and some of them are still there
There's just more fucking people in general so the odds of encountering the worst of them goes up
Options for reasonable sized cars is the US have decreased
I think that's only true if you're buying an american vehicle, which you shouldn't be doing anyways unless you like shit that breaks.
I'll stick with my boring, boomer sedans. I genuinely don't enjoy driving SUVs and light trucks--primarily due to the blind spot issue and high hoods that the article describes.
I’m driving my little Subaru into the ground before I buy a big ass overpriced piece of shit crossover or pickup truck with pillars thicker than my thighs. I like being able to actually see out of my car.
They are impossible to park in a multilevel garage but hilarious to watch Chuck Boomer driving round and round to find a spot. These people are fucking idiots.
I wonder how much of that increase is from LED headlights, LED street lights, reduction in road safety education campaigns, phone use in cars, glaring LED lit dashboards and other in-car distractions. ... Rather than just "cars bad".
I'm not sure how you got to "cars bad" when it explicitly talks about an increase from 2009, and that it's the largest increase of vehicle fatalities.
Modern cars have significantly larger blind spots than cars from 2009, which is part of what they're suggesting is the cause.
I've also seen other reports pointing out that the taller hood height is more likely to kill a pedestrian, rather than just injure them, in the case of a collision
my c posts in my 2020 car are so big that i frequently have no idea there's a pedestrian right in front of me about to enter a crossing. it stresses me out
A big part is due to the higher trucks making it not only harder to see in front if someone is crossing near you but also if you hit something it is more likely to go under the truck. The bar to get a license in the US is also ridiculously low compared to Europe.
Keep selling these massive juggernaut trucks. There is no reason for them beyond emotional driven buying and profits. Then there is the matter of low license barriers, poor vehicle maintenance, and a lack of regular driving fitness testing. The US is also pedestrian unfriendly. I have to drive almost everywhere since there is very little within walking distance to my home. If I do try to walk there are stretches with no sidewalks and very sketchy intersections I have to cross.
Interesting to me is some new cars will auto brake before crashing, so I guess the issue is "fixed".
That would be included in the data. The auto braking is also worse when it comes to to pedestrians than other cars if I'm remembering a report from a little while that came out correctly.
Like other heavily pushed products in recent years, it atrophies the individual's responsibility. "The thing does that for me."
Great stuff. Big car go splat.
Can't see the data, cant see the icon of who is posting the data. Something is fucky here.
Is this written by the AI? Its devoid of any substance and the "author" is just pissing and shitting about not having the infrastructure they only realized they want after they started watching NJB videos a few years ago. Horriblely written article, not related to technology at all.
Could this relate to homeless people living right next to streets? At which rate did homeless population grow?
It relates to horrible, anti-human policies all around. For comparison: in the EU the number of pedestrian fatalities dropped by 40% in a similar period.
