Toronto, Ontario — The Road to Zero Coalition (RTZ), an initiative of the United States National Safety Council, indicates in a recent report that larger and heavier vehicles, including electric vehicles, are contributing to an increase in traffic fatalities.
The RTZ is the United States’ largest traffic safety alliance, to end roadway deaths in the country by 2050.
The coalition’s recent report, Massive Hazards: How Bigger, Heavier Light Trucks Endanger Lives on American Roads specifically highlights how “a safety crisis on American roadways has been developing for decades, fuelled by an appetite for larger, heavier vehicles.”
The study continues that while larger vehicles have existed for decades, recent vehicles’ “weight, poor visibility from the driver’s seat and high, flat front ends prove far more lethal, especially to pedestrians than smaller passenger cars.”
When looking at specific details, the coalition further notes that nearly 75 percent of vehicles produced today are pick-up trucks, SUVs and vans. Moreover, the number of pedestrian deaths involving SUVs, pickups and vans rose about 77 percent between 2012 and 2022, while over the same period, the number of sales and leases for these vehicle types rose by 50 percent.
Features of these vehicle types—including electric vehicles now, the study says—that make them such a risk in collisions are height and weight relative to pedestrians; crash incompatibility with smaller cars; unique front-end geometry and stiffness; their large blind zones; and compounding impacts of speed accelerations.
When it comes to electric vehicles, the coalition also suggests that OEMs design narrower A-pillars to improve a driver’s direct vision or to optimize the frames of EVs to protect their batteries from fire and to minimize damage to other vehicle occupants in a crash.
Additionally, “emphasis on performance aspects of electric vehicles, such as battery range and acceleration rates, require larger, heavier batteries, especially for SUVs and pickups, adding considerable weight to already heavy vehicles. Previous research related to crash compatibility between light trucks and cars may be unable to account for today’s unprecedented weight differentials (nearly 7,000 pounds between the 2023 GMC Hummer EV light truck and 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage compact sedan), necessitating new crash-testing protocols and safety standards.
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