After a decade and a half rise in pedestrian deaths, the US government is finally starting to take some action to stop huge pedestrian-killing SUVs.

Cars have been getting safer and safer over time, but the same has not applied to pedestrian safety.

While theoretically many of the safety improvements on cars ought to help protect those outside the car (emergency braking, crumple zones, etc), statistics have shown this has not been the case. Currently, pedestrian deaths are at a 40-year high in the US.

There are multiple culprits here, including insufficient infrastructure for non-car road users (cyclists, pedestrians, etc.), and distracted driving due to the suffusion of technology into our lives.

But most of all, the culprit is gigantic vehicles. And vehicle sizes have ballooned for multiple reasons in recent years, both due to automaker profits and consumer preference (which are in turn led by automakers who preferentially advertise larger or more polluting vehicles), and a perception of safety despite the significant danger that huge vehicles bring to the road.

It’s gotten so bad that even Jim Farley, CEO of Ford – which sells the F150, the most popular large vehicle in the US (and one of the deadliest) – said that America needs to “get back in love with smaller vehicles.”

But one of the less-talked-about reasons that vehicles keep getting bigger is the matter of government regulations that create a perverse incentive to increase vehicle size, like the EPA’s so-called “footprint rule” and various other credits or incentives for large vehicles.

Thankfully, the US government seems to have noticed its part in creating this problem, and is finally signaling that its ready for a change.

NHTSA, EPA make moves to reduce vehicle size

The latest move in this respect comes from the NHTSA, which published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) this week which brings pedestrian deaths into focus.

The NHTSA is a government agency, part of the Department of Transportation, which among other things is responsible for automobile crash safety testing.

While most of its safety tests focus on the safety of car occupants, NHTSA wants to add a new test focused specifically on reducing the danger of pedestrian head-to-hood impact – both adults and children.

One problem with giant SUVs and pickups is that their high, blunt front ends tend to result in impacts with pedestrian torsos, rather than the legs. A torso hit will tend to send a pedestrian onto the ground, rather than onto the hood of the vehicle – and vehicle hoods tend to be softer than asphalt, and less likely to result in the pedestrian being run over by a vehicle.

This is why pedestrian safety regulations focus on the height of the bumper – something that has not been a significant part of US safety regulations before now. But this new NHTSA rule would seek to change that, and to harmonize US rules with “Global Technical Regulation No 9,” an international safety standard which would also have the benefit of making US cars more interoperable between territories. This rule harmonization process was part of Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Not only are huge vehicles dangerous for pedestrians, they also create more pollution. After all, a recent analysis showed that emissions could have dropped 30%, but SUVs ruined it for everyone.

Part of the reason for this is because the EPA gives some leeway to larger vehicles, allowing them to be slightly less efficient than smaller vehicles.

While that is still the case, EPA signaled it’s interested in changing that recently. In the most recent final emissions standards, EPA included one line that we here at Electrek noticed and were thrilled by: “EPA is finalizing the proposed approach to flatten the slope of each footprint standards curve and to narrow the numerical stringency difference between the car and truck curves.”

Essentially, this means that EPA is going to reduce the amount of “extra credit” they give to SUVs, which means that automakers won’t have as much incentive to go bigger. While it’s a minor change and will take a while to settle and affect vehicle designs, it at least shows that the EPA acknowledges its part in the mistake, and that it intends to improve the situation.

Electrek’s Take

The situation in the US is really desperate. In a time of so much focus on car safety, the fact that pedestrian deaths have risen so sharply is unacceptable.

But it’s not just about pedestrian deaths, but the absolute unavailability of reasonable vehicles in this country.

Virtually everything available today is a huge SUV. And this applies to EVs as well – while in the early days of EVs there were a lot of small hatchbacks available, now almost everything is an SUV. Some of them are smaller-sized (though the most reasonably-sized one was stopped by ill-considered tariffs), and there are a few sedans like the Ioniq 6 and Model 3. But it feels like almost all the new EVs coming out this year are giant three–row SUVs (and, uh, whatever this is).

Even the electric trucks that are coming out are far too big – meanwhile, the Ford Maverick, a small(-er…-ish) truck is flying off the shelves. Imagine how well an EV Maverick could do.

But rule changes like this give us some hope. Not only has the government finally realized the gravity of the huge-car situation, but it certainly feels like there’s some societal pushback against enormous cars brewing.

For example, when Rivian, a company not known for its large-car shyness, revealed its much-anticipated R2, it followed with the surprise R3, a likely Golf-ish-sized hatchback… and promptly received much more excitement, by our measure, for the hot hatch than for the mid-size SUV.

It just feels like it’s getting to be that time again, when we’ve finally reached the point of too much, and we might rebound and see the pendulum swing back towards some normal-sized vehicles again.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but we sure hope so.

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