Pedestrian deaths are on the rise in the U.S., and experts are warning that larger cars could be to blame.
Annual pedestrian deaths have risen by about 75 percent since 2009, in part thanks to the growing popularity of large trucks and SUVS, according to a new analysis by The New York Times. The report found that these vehicles come with bigger hoods, which are more lethal to pedestrians, and larger blind spots that make it harder for drivers to see people walking nearby.
The report estimates that 200 to 400 pedestrians would not have been killed each year if vehicles had stayed about the same size over the last 25 years. The NYT’s analysis also found that the shift toward cars with taller hoods caused about 3,000 pedestrian fatalities from 2016 to 2024.
Shawn Harrington, founder of Forensic Rock, a firm that specializes in accident reconstruction, told the newspaper that experts have seen “a lot of devastating collisions even at lower speeds because the pedestrian gets punted forward.”
“Before the driver knows what’s happened, the pedestrian’s head is under the wheel,” he added.
It seems these massive trucks and SUVs are here to stay, with large vehicles accounting for 48 percent of global car sales as of 2023, according to the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.
Now, experts are calling on automakers to consider pedestrians’ safety when designing their large vehicles.
SUVs and vans with hoods taller than 40 inches are about 45 percent more likely to kill a pedestrian during a crash compared to cars with hood heights under 30 inches, according to a 2023 analysis by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
“It’s clear that the increasing size of the vehicles in the U.S. fleet is costing pedestrians their lives. We encourage automakers to consider these findings and take a hard look at the height and shape of their SUVs and pickups,” David Harkey, the organization’s president, said in a release.
Large blind spots can be especially dangerous, too. A “large driver-side blind zone” can raise the risk of hitting a pedestrian while making a left turn by 70 percent, a 2025 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found.
Experts have also warned that larger vehicles are associated with higher CO2 emissions. If all SUVs were grouped together and treated as a country, they would be “the world’s fifth largest emitter of CO2,” according to a 2024 report by the International Energy Agency.
