When you get hit by something with a high grill you're more likely to go under the vehicle than over the hood (compared to a car).

This is allowed because when we evaluate cars for safety, we exclusively look at safety of the driver/passengers, not someone getting hit. This is a great place to start when looking for solutions to this problem.

Of course lack of safe infrastructure and a legal system that frequently dismisses 'accidents' also play a role.

EDIT: I'm talking about the American market and the way the NHTSA evaluates auto safety.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/nhtsa-too-slow-in...

https://www.codot.gov/safety/traffic-safety-pulse/2019/march...

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2020/04/28/vehicle-safety-standa...

This is not true at all. Pedestrian Safety Requirements are why most modern cars tend to look the same from the front these days:

https://www.hotcars.com/why-pedestrian-safety-ruining-car-de...

https://www.treehugger.com/why-all-modern-cars-look-alike-48...

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15118822/taking-the-h...

[0] https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-419.pdf https://one.nhtsa.gov/cars/problems/studies/bumper/index.htm...

At least in Europe, pedestrian safety is part of the assessment:

https://www.euroncap.com/en/vehicle-safety/the-ratings-expla...

It would be useful if you explained how or why there's a problem with OP's post.

If you do, Euro NCAP has them.

The insurance companies should have this data and I would be interesting to FOIA it if it’s not public

Driving is a skill, and if it’s not taken seriously or encouraged then it atrophies like any other skill. One of the best refreshers I’ve ever had was my motorcycle safety course; while I hated it because it was mandatory, it did teach real skills to help keep you alive on the road, and even if I found it boring, most of the people in my class were in dire need of that refresher.

IMHO the only way for such a culture to emerge is if driving is not something that is required by a mass amount of people.

We're all still trying to live by the punch clock like it's 1950 and everyone needs to be at their factory station at a certain time, all together at once. It's collective insanity.

https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Ped%20Spotl...

https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/pedestrian_safety/i...

It's also notable that fatality rates are only worse for some minorities-- those typically in the lower socioeconomic brackets. And the difference isn't nearly as dramatic as the difference in homicide victims in general.

Yes, we need smaller cars, but it's worth noting that the common case isn't someone being run down walking to the train on their morning commute, as the Doerner quote might insinuate without further research.

- There are a LOT of cyclists that don't bother respecting traffic laws (e.g. blow past red lights without even stopping, not respecting right of way, etc.). It's to the point that when I stop at a stop sign and let the other person go because they have the right of way, they are actually surprised I do it. I have noticed similar things with pedestrians as well (e.g. walk where there isn't a cross walk, jump out when there isn't a walk).

- There are a staggering amount of motorists that are on their phones texting/checking facrbook/I don't know what they are doing. I really wish this would have a much harsher penealty and it was enforced much more.

> "Slower speed limits and street redesigns such as wider sidewalks, narrow roads and rumble strips are among the group's priorities." A lot of motorists DO NOT care about the speed limit. 25 mph in a neighboorhgood with kids? yeah it's still amazingly common to be cycling at 25 mph on a road to be pasted by a car going 40-50 mph.

I say those things to say I think there are bad actors on both sides, and to be honest, I don't know much of a solution.

You get people doing 40-50 in a 25 when the road is as wide and straight as a 40-50 mph but the speed limit has been reduced because there are homes with kids nearby.

Make the road narrow, add curves to it, and suddenly people will do lower speeds naturally because they don't feel like they have as much of a buffer.

Same reason you're more likely to find someone speeding on a highway than down a narrow side street

I am not sure how that would be possible where I live. This would involve destroying a bunch of residential homes to add curves (the neighborhood I am in goes back at least to the 1930s, as thats when the house I am in was originally built).

The article touches on SUVs being more common and deadlier, but doesn't go into why that is. For a typical sedan, a pedestrian is struck at the legs, then rolls over the car. By contrast, an SUV strikes a pedestrian in the chest, and is pushes the pedestrian forward because it is too high to roll over. This means that the pedestrian both has a higher delta v (direct impact vs glancing blow), a shorter collision duration (single impact vs roll), and a more fragile region (the torso has important organs that the legs so not). All of these combine to increase the fatality rate when hitting pedestrians, turning a broken leg into a death.

I know that sometimes SUVs or trucks are needed, such as for electrical workers who need to get to a repair site during/after a snowstorm. In most cases, though, there is a social responsibility not to buy SUVs, due to the danger they pose to society in general.

As always with traffic death data, it is eye-opening to compare with the EU (https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/sites/roadsafety/...).

There, pedestrian deaths about decreased by a third over about the same period, and stayed at about the same percentage of all traffic deaths (figure 2, page 4), so non-pedestrian traffic deaths also must have decreased significantly.

(And no, it isn’t because US traffic deaths already are very low. They’re high, compared to the EU)

Also, Not Just Bikes on YouTube https://youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes

The statistic only says that cars are more likely to hit pedestrians, not that being a pedestrian is itself more dangerous. If people were walking 2x as much in 2020 then this 20% increase would actually mean pedestrians were relatively safer. There's no conclusion to be drawn until you consider the miles-walked number too.

Due to a pretty dark and nasty history of race-based subjugation; race and inequality were tightly intertwined in this country and we're still untangling it to this day.

So... since finance is an integral component of pretty much every social interaction, economic inequality rears it's head everywhere. Correlation seems like causation and all that, which means that if every single issue is looked at through the lens of "is this racist?" the result is always "uh oh, maybe it is."

I dunno. Seems to me that constantly re-casting economic inequality issues as racial inequality issues is going go to make race relations worse rather than better...

You can't improve a problem without first measuring its impact.

It also just feels like pandering. Now that the problem is framed as racism, politicians can just paint a mural or something and continue to not actually fix anything.

That's why some on the left believe that the elites (of both the NYT and Fox news persuasion) welcome and encourage identity politics. Marxists would say class is the important divisor and the rest is a distraction.

In the case of pedestrian fatalities, there is clearly a difference by race. The next questions are why that difference exists, what can be learned from it, and what needs to be changed. Perhaps it is a difference by location, and sidewalks need to be set back further from the road. Perhaps it is increased miles by walking, and the solution is to have wider public transportation that doesn't need as much walking at the endpoints. No matter what the fundamental cause is, the existence of a measurable difference in fatality rates means that we can look for deeper causes to see why those differences exist, and what can be improved.

There's no racism in identifying a difference in death rates. There would absolutely be racism to ignore and allow such a difference to continue.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

The net effect of a moderation policy like yours is further entrenching of the status quo, since that's always the most "polite" opinion. Any challenge to power structures or other entrenched ideas is always read as "impolite", because that's how power reacts to a challenge.

If you go by how badly other commenters behave, how vitriolic various replies are or you feel they are, and so on, that's a recipe for a downward spiral, because literally everybody feels that way. I'm not saying everybody behaves equally badly (that's not so), or that everybody is equally right on the issues (also not so). I'm saying that everybody is subject to the same cognitive biases, which have hugely distorting effects on perceptions and therefore on behavior.

One of these biases is that we evaluate our own behavior in one way and other people's in a completely different way. I've been describing it this way lately: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Another bias is that our image of the group is determined by the datapoints that we notice and place the greatest weight on, and those unfortunately tend to be the ones we dislike or find painful: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... That means that people have a distorted tendency to see the group as worse and more hostile to themselves than it really is, which leads to a "why bother" and eventually a "fuck it" sentiment which you seem to be feeling when you say things like "I've long since noticed that being polite doesn't matter here". The problem with these perceptions is that they end up creating the very situation they feel they're reacting to.

The solution is to prioritize taking care of the commons, no matter how badly others are behaving or one feels they are.

Sorry, but no they wouldn't. They might make YOU feel better, but it would do VERY little to solve the problem. In fact, I'd bet a fair amount of money that you'd end up with deadlier vehicle vs pedestrian accidents because you'd dramatically increase the number of hit-and-runs, reducing the number of pedestrians that receive prompt care.

The consequences are already quite severe, though subject to some uncertainty and heavily based on the circumstances of the accident which... is probably pretty appropriate. In basically every other context in criminal policy, increasing penalties beyond a certain point really doesn't affect the underlying rate of the target crime by very much, and can actually be harmful. Three strikes laws are a good example where a run-of-the-mill crime gets turned into a situation where you might as well go for broke and murder every policeman you see because you're going to prison for life anyway so criminals are incentivized to do whatever they can do to escape.

The point was that killing someone with a car is a crime that is almost never prosecuted, not that the penalties are too low.

"While 25 percent of pedestrian deaths are attributed to the driver’s failure to yield, pedestrian behavior looks pretty bad too — they lie down in the street, dart into the road, cross improperly, and so on"

So it would make sense, at least ostensibly, that the majority of drivers receive little punishment. Now, in a place like New York, I have a hard time believing that in the majority of instances drivers are the only witnesses.

Unless it's malicious road rage with video evidence of the incident and intent, it's probably not going to be the penalty they deserve.

I get it, everyone makes mistakes. But when your mistake costs someone else their life, you deserve to have the book thrown at you.

I'm hopeful the increasing amount of cameras in cars will allow for more strict prosecution, as they establish a clearer record of fault (e.g. did biker zoom out of nowhere across a red, or did driver miss obvious biker).

Perspective 1: Cars are, by default, supreme on the road. The use of personal motor vehicles on public roads should be an assumed right, a first principle of modern life. Non motorized transport should be assumed to be lesser in all cases. Complaints about ‘distracted pedestrians’, and people ‘misusing’ a bicycle on public roads.

Perspective 2: The enlightened one whose eyes have been opened. Personal cars are the absolute devil. Unredeemable assholes drive pickup trucks with hoods as high as my forehead. Etc, etc.

How did we get to a place where this is so contentious? Why is everything politicized to extremes.

These are problems people care about. No one is actually stating the exaggerated positions you’ve characterized.

There is a comment on hood heights.

There is a comment about cyclists using streets even though there are recreational paths.

There are several comments about distracted walking.

I use the term political as derogatory in a contentious discussion because 1) people come into them unwilling to change their mind 2) their beliefs are largely inherited and they will not acknowledge or state the assumptions and underlying opinions that underly their positions

Everything is political, "politics" is just shorthand for "this is how I think people should be treated". Politics is about how we structure and interact with society, so of course it permeates everything.

This is a left-wing narrative. When you want to change the entire system from the ground up you want everyone to be involved in politics and campaign for your cause. Those who prefer to be left out of it become your enemies. This is the same narrative that was used in USSR and everyone knows how it played out for them.

Drivers are also to blame because they're doing the same dang thing!

The point of discussion is "what level of responsibility if any do pedestrians bear in these accidents". Your point tries to make a false moral-equivalency with rape and makes the claim "0 responsibility". I argue there is nuance and just like rape, its possible to make it more / less probable with reasonable measures, but beyond that point, it is wrong to blame the victim.

So if you disagree, then address the point: should we consider the effect that pedestrians looking at phones, J-walking or ignoring signals, and listening to music has on safety or _only_ a single factor (drivers)? If you want to actually save lives then I'd argue for examining all reasons pedestrians are being hit by cars (and not resort to moral reasons to avoid even asking the question).

Who's "the victim" here that should not be blamed?

Or, negligence from the driver, as the OP mentioned.

Or, both.

This comparison does not seem tenable.

Cyclists are also completely unaware, it's almost depressing to stop at a red light and just watch swaths of riders zoom past into incoming traffic.

One thing i'd like is diagonal crossings that would force you to look in the traffic direction. But then, most people don't bother to walk 10 meters to use the crossing anyways.

Earbuds or headphones while walking near a motor vehicle road with anything shy of a barrier-separated sidewalk should be illegal.

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2020/01/27/jaywalking-while-blac...

There is a large difference between people ought not do <> and cops ought to be given the privilege of harassing and imprisoning people who do <>.

It's perfectly possible to wear headphones and use your eyeballs to ensure the path ahead is clear in fact your ears aren't all that useful. I can SEE an oncoming car as much as a mile away if I am hearing a car about to crease me its already too late.

Not listening to music or a podcast seems a reasonable sacrifice to make, in exchange for being within a few feet of multi-ton vehicles at 30+ mph relative velocity.

There are infrastructure issues too, but vehicle size alone is sufficient to explain most of the increase.

Found a study from 2005 - https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/11/4/232

Light truck (pickups, suvs, vans) accounted for ~30% higher relative risk vs cars.

Surprisingly (to me) motorcycle/pedestrian accidents are three times as likely to result in a fatality.

Personally I think it's mostly related to distracted driving/walking but vehicle type almost certainly plays some role.

My neighbor's Smart Car and Cooper Mini beg to differ. Also, the proliferation of electric cars requires shedding weight in order to get more mileage. Sure, we still have lots of massive SUVs on the road but I would dispute the notion that vehicles overall are getting heavier on average.

> Larger vehicles, such as the popular SUVs and trucks that dominate new car sales, are more dangerous for pedestrians than sedans

Most new car sales are now SUVs and trucks. The share of SUVs and trucks sold is up over the period considered in the article, your neighbor notwithstanding.

https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-...

Also, VW Golf/Rabbits. Civics. Accords. They're all huge. And they've all got a lot less glass than they use to have. (High beltline, small windows)

Not that long ago you could get a car that was ~2000 lbs. A big car was 2 tons.

I haven't checked the sales numbers, but I see far fewer Smart Cars today compared to even 5 years ago. Also the latest Mini Coopers are massive. Much larger than most normal cars.

Given vehicle size trends, holding all else equal, this is exactly the outcome you would expect.

I don't hold all else equal, because nothing is equal. I contend that pedestrians are more distracted than ever, as are drivers.

The control for the 'bigger cars more death' would be evaluating the death rate of smaller cars.

The headline doesn't say 'accidents' are getting deadlier, it's saying 'roads' are getting deadlier.

> I don't hold all else equal, because nothing is equal.

Well yes, obviously. My point is that the observed outcome is in line with the expected outcome based on the increase in car sizes. But still it's a bit more complicated.

note the following:

> In 2019, 6,301 pedestrians were killed by vehicles on American streets — up 46% from 2010. Over the same timespan, the total for all traffic deaths rose by 5%.

This implies that distracted driving could be partially responsible, but something else is probably going on with pedestrians.

and:

> And in the first half of 2020, while driving was down because of the pandemic, the pedestrian death rate — the number of people struck and killed compared with the number of miles driven — soared by 20%, putting 2020 on track for the largest one-year increase in the death rate ever.

The article goes on to posit the popular theory that increased vehicle speed is the key factor in the last year. In fact a lot of the advocacy around the issue is focused on traffic calming in urban centers which has been shown repeatedly to lower the number of pedestrian deaths.

> The group reported about a third of pedestrians were intoxicated when they were struck

Also, do cyclists register their bikes within the states that they ride them? Do they pay taxes on tires, fuel, etc.? Maybe cyclists should consider that roads were designed and intended for automobiles...

Should pedestrians also have to do this? Also it really doesn't make much sense since drivers are typing charged by weight, because that's what matters when it comes to wear and tear on the roads. Bicycles weight nothing compared to cars. Having such a system and charging bicyclist by weight would be orders of magnitude more expensive then the money it brings in.

I pay taxes on my tires. I pay tax on the food I eat. I pay tax on the gasoline I buy too. I also volunteer to help build new trails for bikes.

I wasn’t aware that roads were ‘designed and intended for automobiles’ given that so many of them existed long before the automobile, and so many of them also include provisions for cyclists, pedestrians, buses, trucks, trams, motorcycles etc.

Yes, yes, and in many places they also have to register them and pay taxes at that point as well.

So to clarify for anyone thinking "that's not the car's fault, they would've been watching for pedestrians on the sidewalk," there were no sidewalks. Only road.

Not uncommon for suburbs in the US, because why would anyone want to walk when you could drive a 4000 lb SUV everywhere?

Regarding your actual point, obviously the roads meant for automobiles and similar are the only way to get from A to B for almost all A and B, leaving many cyclists no other choice than to ride among automobiles.