SUVs Contribute to 46 Percent Pedestrian Death Spike Since 2009: Report
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
SUVs Contribute to 46 Percent Pedestrian Death Spike Since 2009: Report
Last October, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released its 2016 traffic fatality figures, with a trend of increased road deaths emerging from the statistics. It reported 5,987 deaths as a result of pedestrians being hit by vehicles in 2016, the single worst year since 1990.
Just seven years prior in 2009, statistics showed a lower rate of fatal accidents involving pedestrians than any other year in history at 4,092. However, during the aforementioned peak, 2016 statistics climbed by a measure of 1,895 over 2009's all-time low, a 46.3 percent increase over a period of only 7 years. Why the reversal? The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crunched the numbers and found a multitude of attributable factors.
Location, road type, and time of day are listed as contributing factors to fatal collisions, but the single greatest statistical hike comes from pedestrian versus SUV matchups: 81 percent. The IIHS partially attributes this to the taller profiles of SUVs and SUV-like crossover vehicles, which have swarmed the market in recent years, dominating sales. Hood height of these vehicles, greater than that of sedans, allows increased chances of chest or head injury, which are more likely to result in fatal injuries.
High-horsepower vehicles showed correlation with greater accident rates, but taking into consideration the often-greater curb weight of SUVs, automakers tend to fit them with more powerful engines.
Increased vehicle weight typically correlates with longer stopping distances, and taller ride height with dampened perceptions of speed, though neither factor was cited by the IIHS.
Crossover and SUV demand is strong enough to pull struggling automakers like Mitsubishi back from the brink but at what cost will it come to American pedestrians? Or vehicle buyers, who suffer from soaring auto prices?
The NHTSA has not yet released its accident figures for the year of 2017, but when it does, come back to read The Drive 's analysis. We can only hope the upward fatality trend reverses itself.
This is a BETA test article seeded per request from Perrie. The process to seed an article seems to be the same as usual. The URL did not automatically show in the text portion of the article and so I added it to the text portion of the seed...
Please advise me if anyone sees or has any problems with how I seeded this article. I just used my normal process...
The URL will not show in the body. We are now encapsulating the URL in the SEEDED CONTENT button. That button, when pressed, should take you to the seed URL.
Thus the only thing I would suggest you do different is not include the URL in the body. You need not repeat the title either, but that might just be personal preference.