We continue to make cars larger to make them safer for the people inside of them, but this is a race to the bottom that makes everyone less safe overall
When they modelled the outcome of crashes that only differed in vehicle size, they found that every 100kg of vehicle weight increased fatality odds by 6 per cent, and for every 10cm of vehicle height, the odds of a pedestrian death rose by 11 per cent.
Funniest shit is that in the picture, the smallest car is a fucking SUV
"Local physicists, engineers overheard saying, 'well, duh.'"
This just in: scientists discovered momentum.
There should be a word for things like this where my first reaction is, “Well, duh! What are you, some kind of idjit to need a study to tell you that?” But then I think about it for a second and I’m glad they studied it because we should be making policy decisions based on data.
Now if we could just start actually doing that…
Bigger cars cause more damage in crashes. How are these cars consumer cars again?
I hate that I walk through a parking lot and half the trucks there have hoods that are above my head height at 6 ft and well above the roofline of my car. They are just driving a brick wall at this point.
All the more reason to get one of these bad boys.
https://www.motor1.com/news/615702/2023-rezvani-vengence-suv-pepper-spray/
Of course armored body panels and bulletproof glass are on the list, but how about armor for the passengers? Vests and helmets are available, along with gas masks, magnetic deadbolts for the doors, run-flat tires, sirens, ultra-bright lights, a thermal night vision system, and we aren't joking about shooting pepper spray. It's also an option, and if you need to find cover for a quick escape, it even has a smoke screen feature.
No shit? How do I get a research job like that?
And smoking isn't good for your health! Yeah, I know. Shocking.
Like with smoking, there is a lot of effort going on to deny the obvious though and a lot of people are in denial.
No shit sherlock
I remember looking up which cars are safest to drive. I remember the article saying, unsurprisingly, the expensive luxury vehicles being the safest, with bigger vehicles being on the safer side too (for the driver and passengers). It also said that it's only recently that people have been testing the question of vehicle safety as it relates to the vehicles impact on other's safety, and corroborating this piece here, the answer is pretty obvious.
My job has a drive-thru that seems to have been built before vehicles started ballooning. I take a lot of satisfaction in seeing people struggle to squeeze their monstrosities through it. Especially when they damage their hunks of junk on the protective barriers.
Fuck cars.
These U.S. states have no restrictions on lift kits for vehicles:
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
Kansas
Louisiana
Mississippi
Montana
Nebraska
New Hampshire
New Jersey
North Carolina
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Texas
Vermont
Wyoming
It's true, size matters, my hot wheels never killed anyone! (I know of)
OK, now do fatal accidents including pedestrian deaths and see how that goes. The size of car you drive doesnt serve as an indication of whether you're a bad driver, but the damage that can be caused ought to exclude some cars from the road.
It's an arms race. It's not good, but I'm not going to lose at it either.
Car sizes have grown for decades.
You may have noticed that big cars are popular in Australia.
Sales of sedans and hatchbacks have followed the US trend into a long-term decline, changing the shape of our national passenger fleet.
Pedestrian deaths have started rising in the US and, to a lesser extent, in Australia, leading to questions about the effects of this shift in popular car design.
A new study of more than 10,000 crashes could provide some clues.
To see how cars have changed, let's compare different car models over the years.
You will see them get longer and heavier, but when it comes to the safety of the woman and child pictured, the most important dimension to watch is their height.
Older cars tended to be lower with sloping bonnets.
When we turn back the clock to 2005, the most popular car was the sedan.
You can see the woman is taller than the car, which is less than 1.5 metres high and weighs nearly 1.7 tonnes.
If she were to be hit by it, the impact would likely be lower on her body — for example, her legs or waist — rather than her head.
By 2015, medium SUVs like this one were becoming popular.
Ten years later, SUVs are on the rise.
This is a 2015 medium SUV at a height of 1.7m and it tips the scales about the same point as the sedan from 10 years ago.
So, it's not huge.
SUV sales overtook more traditional cars in 2017 and have continued growing in popularity … and size.
New Australian research shows that as our vehicle height grows, the risk to pedestrians does too.
For every 10cm of vehicle height, the odds of a pedestrian death rise by 11 per cent.
Utility vehicles were the highest selling cars last year.
Last year, this ute was the most popular choice among Australian buyers.
At about 1.9m, it's 30cm higher than the average woman or 15cm taller than the average Australian man. This means it towers over most pedestrians.
The pick-up truck has started becoming more popular in recent years.
And as our car trends follow the US, these large pick-up trucks are also becoming more common on our roads.
This 2026 model stands about 2m high and weighs up to 3 tonnes.
And while they can be useful for towing or other heavy-duty jobs, the reality is that many are spending time in heavily populated areas.
You will have noticed the bonnet shape change over the years, from low and sloping to higher and blunter.
A US study of crash data found that for every 10cm increase in front-end height, the risk of pedestrian death increased by 22 per cent, with women, children and seniors more at risk than other people.
Australian crash data showed no significant association between vehicle height and weight, and men's fatality risk.
But for women, an increase in either of those two dimensions became "significant predictors of death", according to the researchers (more so for height than weight).
We don't have bonnet-height crash data in Australia, but we do now have analysis linking taller cars to increased risk of death.
Will Australia continue to follow US trends?
Like the US, the number of pedestrian deaths in Australia has risen in the past five years (after years of trending down), while the fatality rate for passengers inside a vehicle has roughly stabilised.
Melbourne University researchers wanted to explore if there was a particular factor behind this trend.
They looked at 10,376 crashes between 2012 and mid-2025 in Victoria, including details such as vehicle type, road environment, speed limits, time of day and the characteristics of drivers and pedestrians involved.
When looking at vehicle type, they found station wagons carried a probability of pedestrian death 1.2 times that of passenger cars such as sedans and hatchbacks, and for utes the figure was 1.6 times.
When they modelled the outcome of crashes that only differed in vehicle size, they found that every 100kg of vehicle weight increased fatality odds by 6 per cent, and for every 10cm of vehicle height, the odds of a pedestrian death rose by 11 per cent.
The previous US study's finding on overall height was weaker than the Australian figures (6.6 per cent increase in fatality odds per 10cm of height), suggesting if Australian data on front-end height was available, it could show a stronger fatality association than the US data.
University of Melbourne associate professor Milad Haghani, one of those behind the Australian study, says one of the main reasons for the increased risk is the point of impact on a human body.
"If the point of the crush is to the upper part of the pedestrian's body, and also if the pedestrian doesn't end up on the bonnet and instead ends up on the ground hitting their head on the concrete, those are elements that can increase the likelihood of fatality," he says.
They found women were disproportionately impacted because they were, on average, shorter than men, so their head and torso were at a critical point of impact.
Dr Haghani explains that a crucial finding was that the fatality risk remained, even in lower-speed crashes.
"These are otherwise survivable crashes that are turning fatal as a result of vehicle design."
Researchers estimate that if cars remain at those early and mid-2000s heights and weights, it could save about 9 per cent of the lives lost.
"Some people might say that: 'Oh, well, you're at a higher level as a driver, you should see that,' but that is not the case," Dr Haghani says.
"You see further down the road where it doesn't matter, but you don't see much right in front of your vehicle, which matters the most."
Last year, the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) tested five large utes as part of its safety rating process.
The utes all met Australia's road vehicle standards, but ANCAP chief executive Carla Hoorweg says there could be improvements.
She says improving safety is about ensuring vehicles have the right crash-avoidance technology to prevent a collision in the first place.
ANCAP testing with a dummy child pedestrian.(Supplied: ANCAP Safety)
ANCAP Safety testing the Ford F-150.(Supplied: ANCAP Safety)
ANCAP testing the Chevrolet Silverado 1500(Supplied: ANCAP Safety)
The utes underperformed in simulated scenarios of a child running in front of the vehicles at night and the driver's vision while the utes were turning.
"Where we see vehicles falling short is that they tend to have the technology, but it doesn't work in the breadth of scenarios of vulnerable road user dummies," Ms Hoorweg says.
Ms Hoorweg says one of the biggest risks to pedestrians is older cars that don't have as many safety features as newer vehicles.
Victoria Police Road Policing Assistant Commissioner Mick Hermans says too many pedestrians are being killed or seriously injured, but there is a range of factors at play.
"We tend to see a mix of both drivers and pedestrians at fault in fatal pedestrian collisions, with drivers most likely to fail to give way to pedestrians, while pedestrians are opting to cross a road mid-block rather than at a designated crossing," he says.
He says motorists need to pay attention to their surroundings, especially in built-up areas, and pedestrians need to look up when crossing the road and use designated crossings.
The National Transport Research Organisation has called for a review into the safety standards of large utes.
ANCAP is working on its next three-year vehicle safety protocols, which could include factors such as bonnet height, use of technology, automatic or advanced emergency braking and car design.
The Melbourne University researchers propose a range of solutions, including removing tax concessions, revising import safety regulations, and introducing specific licence conditions for large vehicles.
"The big cars have the momentum, and without any change in policy, the momentum is not going to go away," Dr Haghani says.
"Right now, there is no disincentive to go and buy big."
Reporting: Andie Noonan
Visual production and additional reporting: Margie Burin
Design: Emma Machan
Development: Josh Byrd
Editing: Cristen Tilley
Tried to read this last night, but didn't want to deal with the interactive features ABC sometimes does for the articles.
Don't get me wrong, the interactive features can be fun when I have time to sit down and enjoy them, but it'd be nice to have an option to just read the straight article.
Newton proven right, time and again.
KE = (1/2) * mv^2
Any first year physics student could have concluded that higher mass means more energy transfer in a crash.
TIL: Just me being in the car increases fatality odds by 6%.
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