The American Way of Death
By 
We’ve talked about this occasionally here over the years, but it’s worth noting again, since the New York Times has a big thing about it, that the obscenely large and growing size of American vehicles is killing a lot of people so that insecure Americans can feel safe, which is in itself quite a metaphor for the Trump years.
The surge in pedestrian deaths has baffled researchers. Most other wealthy countries haven’t seen similar increases, suggesting that possible culprits like smartphones don’t tell the whole story.
Other likely causes of deadly crashes, such as drunken and distracted driving, have attracted immense attention from the public and policymakers. But the trend toward ever-larger vehicles has received much less scrutiny, even after federal researchers in 2022 cautioned regulators that it was endangering pedestrians.
After analyzing federal and industry records, including never-before-examined data on vehicle dimensions, we found that the rise of large pickups and S.U.V.s is an important factor.
Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century. That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.
There are two reasons bigger vehicles are deadlier: They have taller hoods. And they tend to have larger blind zones.
The article then goes into the horrible graphics that plague so many stories today. Do people actually like their stories broken up like this in an unreadable way to get some graphic bits? I know I’m old but so is the Times readership so what I am missing here? Anyway, one thing I have long noticed overseas is how small the cars are compared to the United States. This is slightly less true in Mexico because migration has contributed to Truck Culture returning south, but you also can’t park those things on most Mexican streets. Being in Argentina and Chile for the last few weeks, I am reminded of this. The other day, I saw a giant Chevy truck and was struck by it because I hadn’t seen a big ass American truck in so long.