Not knowing how testing works or the criteria in USA/Canada, I'm surprised it's even allowed here. I'd rather be hit as a pedestrian by almost any other truck since at least F-150s and RAMs don't have sharp edges like the Cybertruck...
I don't care so much about the edges. I'm more worried about the height of these newer trucks and SUVs, which create massive front blindspots. The below report focuses on kids, but I'm an adult and some of these trucks seem taller than me.
I drive a smaller hatchback as well and notice the same thing.
I’ve been on the other side of it once. I got roped into driving an acquaintance’s H3 Hummer years ago. I went to change lanes, checked my mirrors, looked over my shoulder out the window, and all seems clear. It wasn’t. There was a car that was completely invisible to me. Had other people not been in the car and looking, I would have run them right off the road. I have no idea how anyone drives those things on a daily basis. I was a nervous wreck.
I think the best visibility I had in a car was my old GTI. I could see all 4 corners and knew exactly where I was at.
> thanks to all of the cameras and sensors everywhere.
Cameras are a band-aid that help a bit, but nothing beats actual clear visibility in all directions, something which newer cars lack.
My partner has a newish VW and it's a menace to drive IMO. For example turning left onto our street, just when I need to see clearly if there is anyone on that street (it's a neighborhood of lots of kids) all I see is a giant A pillar and even more giant rearview mirror, blocking most of the view to the left. I have to contort in all directions back and forth to look around these obstacles which creates its own safety concerns. Visibility to the rear quarters is also terrible.
On my older cars with low doorlines and thin pillars I have perfect visibility into any turn, 100x safer.
Smaller cars don't give them the feeling of power they lack in their life. Yearning for feeling bigger, more powerful, and scarier correlates quite well with some folks driving big trucks, it's a purchase to fill a void.
A 10cm increase in bonnet height, from 80cm to 90cm, raises the risk of death in a crash by 27% for pedestrians and cyclists, according to a Belgian study involving 300,000 casualties. Children were substantially more likely to be killed as pedestrians in collisions than adults, the report said.
But again, here in the US we are an order of magnitude less likely to be hit by a car. EDIT: Than being in a car accident
Obviously we could get into incentives and prioritizing pedestrian safety and urbanizing. But if you take the current status quo of where Americans live and how they drive, I can very much understand regulators choosing to prioritize the safety regulations that will save the largest number of lives on the roads we have now.
It's especially concerning when you see that US drivers tend to drive huge tanks. Whereas in Europe we have a lot of tiny compact cars. And yet they still die in the US in larger numbers :O
There's a really good video by Road Guy Rob that goes into very good detail about the specific causes of pedestrian fatalities in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEj-pyjA2oo
TL;DW: It's most likely happening at night, on an arterial street, by a truck or SUV.
