This should help you understand the problem of higher vehicles limiting visibility of what's in front of them: https://imgur.com/a/aYbCbyg

Modern vehicles beep like crazy with sensors when something is in front of the car like that though. It is impossible not to know.

To add to this, an M1 Abrams tank and a Peterbilt 857 semi have better visibility than some SUVs and pick-up trucks:

* https://ifunny.co/picture/a-semi-truck-has-better-visibility...

Because we can safely assume that under normal atmospheric conditions and within the distances we are talking about, light travels in straight lines and the SUV is too high thus blocking some of it from reaching the drivers eyes. I can't pull the sources now, but there was a study discussed here on HN a couple months ago showing an analysis of how this plays out.

Becauase they are high and tend to have long flat front hoods, creating an extended blind spot for short objects (like children) in front.

Newer models have forward collision sensors that partially mitigate that. (And backup cameras that do an even better job of mitigating the rear low-height blind spot, as long as people use them instead of direct vision when backing up.)

Consider the larger vehicle shown in the picture at the top of the linked article; now imagine a child before the adolescent growth spurt standing in front of it — how far away does the child have to be, for any part of them to be visible to a driver sitting in the driver's seat?