Despite Safer Cars, Reports Show More Cyclist and Pedestrian Deaths Than Ever
Did you know that when cars are ranked for safety, the focus is solely on how the car performs in a crash, not how safe it is in terms of visibility and your ability as a driver to prevent accidents? This, combined with the average size and height of new vehicles, may be why while safety standards on cars have improved significantly in recent decades, it’s never been more dangerous to be a cyclist or pedestrian.
According to AP News, pedestrian and cyclist fatalities have risen over 60 percent between 2011 and 2022. And that’s not including injuries or near misses.
If you visit the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website, you can see how safe your car is. But the vehicle safety ratings only factor in how well the car handles frontal and rear impact, rolling and side impacts.
That’s fine, but what about how easy it is to see a cyclist on your right hand side as you go to make a right turn?
However, new cars aren’t just safer for drivers: They’re also bigger. We’ve reported on the issue facing many cities, where painted bike lanes on busy streets are taken over by SUVs and pickup trucks that can no longer fit within the lines painted on the road for cars. According to AP News, 78 percent of new cars purchased in 2022 were SUVs, pickup trucks and vans.
“Many studies have shown that larger vehicles like SUVs and pickups are more likely to kill or seriously injure pedestrians and cyclists when they’re involved in a crash,” Jessica Cicchino, vice president of research at the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, told AP News. The size of the vehicle not only can create visibility issues, it also means that if a driver does hit a cyclist or pedestrian, it’s more likely to be a fatal crash. (Want proof of visibility issues? Scroll this app that showcases blindspots to see how a higher vehicle can easily hide kids—and pets or cyclists on recumbent bikes.
And while people know they shouldn’t use cell phones while they drive—in fact, cell phone usage behind the wheel is reportedly down—the prevalence of touchscreens in the car that connect to the phone is up. And those displays, now common in newer cars, are as distracting (if not more so) than a cell phone. The fact that they’re built into the car also gives the illusion that they’re safe to use. A small-scale study from IAM Roadsmart found that “participants failed to react as often to a stimulus on the road ahead when engaging with either Android Auto or Apple CarPlay - with reaction times being more than 50 per cent slower.”
There’s currently a Change.org petition with nearly 35,000 signatures asking for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to include a vehicle’s risk of killing a pedestrian within their safety rating system. It seems like a small ask if it may help better inform drivers of the dangers they may pose to others on the road. The woman who started the petition knows the importance of this: In 2021, her five-year-old daughter was killed by the driver of a van as she was riding her small bike in a crosswalk, in a school zone.
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