alt Hacker NewsData shows that introduction of iPhones in 2007 is a better explanation for the increase in pedestrian deaths than heavier trucks and SUVs: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1ubbfrv/oc... (All the credit for this analysis goes to the reddit user, I’m just summarizing.)
Trucks and SUVs have been getting heavier consistently since 1980 while pedestrian deaths consistently decreased from 1980 to 2009. Truck sizes went up much more from 1980 to 2009 than from 2009 to present. But pedestrian deaths dropped almost in half from 1980 to 2009.
The NYT study on which this article is based acknowledges that pedestrian deaths dropped in half from 1980 to 2009, but then does nothing with this information.
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From the late '70s through 2009 there was a huge drop in the number of people who walked or bicycled, and there was also a significant drop in drunk driving over that time. Those explain most of the pedestrian fatality drop.
As far as truck sizes go, yes they have steadily increased, but the bigger trucks did not have as much effect on pedestrian fatality rates in the '80s or '90s because they were a much smaller percentage of vehicles on the road. In 1980 trucks were only about 1/5 of new vehicle sales. It was up to about 1/3 in 1990. By 2000 it was a little under 50%. By 2010 it was a little over 50%. Sometime around 2017 it was 2/3 trucks, and about 4/5 by 2023. (SUVs are counted as trucks in these numbers).
Remember those are figures for new sales, so changes in the percent of trucks on the road will lag changes in the percent of trucks in new sales.
You can get an idea of whether phones or size was the more responsible factor by comparing injuries to deaths. Phones would increase deaths mostly by increasing the number of accidents. Big trucks/SUVs would increase deaths by making accidents more fatal. In the phone case injuries and fatalities should rise at about the same mount. In the big vehicle case fatalities should rise more than injuries.
Fatalities have in fact risen more than injuries (80% vs 15%), suggesting that size is the much more significant factor.
Weight of SUVs/Trucks isn't really the right metric to use though.
The proportion of them which have a grill height which impairs visibility of the average height pedestrian would be a "better" metric, except it isn't as easy to cleanly define that.
With me driving in my 2000s Ranger, I can at least see adults walking in front of it just fine, even though it is bigger than a 1980 Toyota pickup.
If the issue is distracted drivers, I don’t see how heavier trucks is still not the issue. With lighter vehicles you would likely have a higher chance of surviving.
Why do you focus on the old data and not the new data? It is 2026 and hood height for trucks and crossovers (which didn't exist in 2009) has be getting higher and this is what the research talks about.
It isn't weight, it is hood height and blunt fronts. But the Great Bluntening didn't happen until recently.
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...
The times article hand-waves away distracted driving by saying that other countries haven't seen a similarly large increase. The problem with that is that vehicle sizes in all other countries have also been increasing, and other countries like Canada and Australia have seen almost identical market shares of those large vehicles without the surge in pedestrian fatalities.
The large factors are phone use (more prevalent among american drivers and there's data to show this), and homelessness - the homeless are dramatically overrepresented in US pedestrian deaths and the population has increased dramatically in the US over the past decade. Even more so though it appears to be attitudes, Americans are twice as likely as Europeans or Canadians to say using a phone while driving is acceptable. Though no single factor is a smoking gun, vehicle size is one of the least convincing. Getting hit by a 4000lb car or an 8000lb truck matters much less than how fast the vehicle's going (let's all remember our high school physics class).
This blog post is the best deep dive I've seen on the data: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/more-on-us-pedestrian...