It has been a year and a half since the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) published its report showing that pedestrians are far more likely to die when struck by tall, blunt vehicles, such as pickups and large SUVs, than when hit by a car or minivan with a lower, sloping front end.
Despite this compelling research, automakers and government regulators have not taken any steps to mitigate the effects of the trend toward more blunt vehicle designs, even as existing models are being replaced by new versions with a popular square design.
“Some of today’s vehicles are pretty intimidating when you’re walking across a crosswalk in front of them,” said IIHS President David Harkey at the time. “These findings tell us that our instincts are correct: more aggressive-looking vehicles really can do more harm.”
For this report, IIHS researchers examined 17,897 crashes involving one passenger vehicle and one pedestrian. They closely studied available records of 121 crashes collected by the International Consortium for Pedestrian Safety at the Center for Automotive Medicine to gather more information on the nature and severity of the crashes.
“Manufacturers can make vehicles less dangerous for pedestrians by lowering the front of the hood and angling the grille and hood to create a sloped profile,” concluded IIHS Senior Research Engineer Wen Hu, the lead author of the study. “There is no functional benefit to these massive blocky front ends.”
Nevertheless, there was no clear response from the industry or government to address this issue, despite an 80 percent increase in pedestrian fatalities since 2009. Automakers had previously responded to European pedestrian protection requirements with measures such as softer front sheet metal, soft hoods to absorb impacts, relocated or broken wiper mountings, and even active measures like pop-up hoods that increase the space between the sheet metal and the rigid engine beneath.
The installation of softer, crumpled front ends or lower-angled fronts is likely to be complicated by the fact that popular full-size SUVs and pickups sit high regardless of their design, noted Consumer Reports Automotive Testing Center Operations Director Jennifer Stockberger.
She noted that some of these vehicles need to be high and have rigid front edges for accessories like snowplows. If pedestrian protection is needed for these vehicles, there will likely need to be a graduated system that still allows work-oriented vehicles to have the necessary features, Stockberger concluded.