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IIHS Study Shows Vehicles With Tall Front Ends Pose Greater Risk To Pedestrians

Vehicles with a high, squared-off front end are more likely to kill pedestrians in the event of a collision than those with lower, sloping front ends, a recent IIHS study indicates.

According to data presented by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or IIHS, both the height and shape of a vehicle’s front end affect the lethality of accidents involving pedestrians.

IIHS referenced tall vertical front end on a Chevy Silverado HD.

The IIHS research indicates the exact shape of a vehicle’s nose may be a moot point if it is 40 inches tall or higher. With front ends this high, fatalities among pedestrians struck by vehicles are 45 percent more numerous than deaths caused by those with 30-inch or lower front ends. The large contact area with the pedestrian’s body in these cases increases the seriousness of injuries and likelihood of death.

However, for vehicles with a front end between those two heights – the fatally dangerous 40 inches and the safer 30 inches – front-end shape is far more important. Sloping front ends between 30 and 40 inches high are safer than those with a vertical, blunt shape, which are potential killers. Squared-off “battering ram” fronts in this height range caused 26 percent more deaths than sloping configurations of the same height.

Front three quarters view of the 2024 GMC Sierra HD.

David Harkey, president of IIHS, commented that vehicles with high front ends are “pretty intimidating when you’re passing in front of them in a crosswalk” and that “our instincts are correct” that “aggressive-looking vehicles can indeed do more harm.”

The proliferation of larger vehicles such as SUVs and pickup trucks, and the expansion of these models’ dimensions in recent years, may be contributing to rising pedestrian deaths from vehicular collision. Since 1990, according to the IIHS, the average vehicle now weighs half a ton more and is 8 inches taller. Meanwhile, 80 percent more pedestrians are being killed than in 2009, with over 7,300 fatalities in 2021.

Front view of the Chevy Suburban.

Overall, heights over 40 inches and grilles sloped at 65 degrees or less were the deadliest front end design features. IIHS researcher Wen Hu noted that “lowering the front end of the hood and angling the grille and hood to create a sloped profile” will create far less dangerous vehicles regardless of the vehicle’s overall size.

Hu added that there is “no functional benefit to these massive, blocky fronts” such as those found on the Cadillac Escalade SUV, Chevy Silverado HD pickup, and many other popular GM truck and sport-utility models.

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Comments

  1. Getting hit by a car is and can be deadly period. We should not being changing design of cars because if human gets hit one can do more damage than another. 99 percent of time the pedestrian is at fault. If you want to stop people from getting hit by cars teach the public to get off their phones while crossing streets and look before crossing the road. If some of these agency has their way vehicles would have bubble wrap all around them.

    Reply
    1. …and there we have it folks – Joe has identified the real issue, entitled vehicle drivers who blame everyone else for accidents!

      Reply
    2. And the same goes for people in their cars. Get off the phone, especially get off the texting. I see it all the time. Nothing like sitting at a just turned green light waiting for the guy in front of you to finish the oh so important text. I’ll occasionally take a blue tooth call, but keep it short. Driving is a job.

      Reply
    3. 99 percent of the time? Where did you pull that random number from?
      Also, blaming people getting hit by a 6,000 lb piece of machinery traveling at 60 miles per hour on average is mind boggling.

      Reply
      1. We must ban big trucks and do it for the children, women, disadvantaged.
        I don’t want to get hit exiting my Escalade boarding my private jet to fly to Italy to participate in a round-table regarding global warming, err climate change.
        We have to start somewhere. I’ll volunteer to be last.

        Reply
        1. Semis are safer because they have extra mirrors, a front end flush with the windshield glass, or both.

          Reply
  2. They needed a study for that?

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    1. And I bet the study cost $millions to come up with the answer any 5th grader could tell you.

      Their next study will identify white vehicles as racist.

      Reply
      1. That’s next

        Reply
    2. No, but they did one anyway.

      Reply
  3. I walk on dirt side roads in my community and drivers looking for a short cut run up my @ss and want me to get the hell out of their way. I guess the paved roads are to slow for them.

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  4. I’ve also read a big factor in the increase is reduced traffic enforcement since covid began. I know in my city there used to be speed traps on certain roads. I’ve not seen any since covid. I walk my dog near one of the intersections that used to have heavy enforcement and I would see a car pulled over almost every time we walked that intersection. I’ve not see a trap at that spot since covid. I know the city barely enforces traffic now as they are severely understaffed. To the point that residential burglary will not even get you an officer to come out to look for prints. Funnily enough, there was a street takeover and one of the councilmen was stuck at an intersection on hold with 911 for 20 minutes. It was sweet the council got to see first hand what the rest of us see.

    Reply
    1. strange. its full on ticket mode round here. always been and never let off. have you considered they arent camping an area because they fished it out? you cant keep fishing the same spot, you run out of fish.

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      1. No my state is the same there’s almost no traffic enforcement since the pandemic. The interstate is a free for all. I commute in a Silverado to increase my chances of walking away.

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  5. The things people waste money on.

    Reply
  6. The best way for pedestrians to survive a vehicle hit is don’t walk out in front of vehicles. If you get hit hit you’re going to get hurt. DUH.

    Reply
    1. Walking in a crosswalk?

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    2. It sure would help if they looked at the traffic and not at their cell phones. I cant count how many times people walk in front of me with eyes glued to cell phones.

      Reply
  7. This is amazing considering that about 30 or so years ago one of the European safety/nanny organizations decided that cars with low, sloping front ends were more dangerous to pedestrians. The thinking back then was that when hit, a car with a low nose caused people to roll up the hood and strike the windshield and/or hood. Europe put regulations in place that required the hoods of all vehicles to be at a minimum height. I don’t know if it still is in effect, but this study apparently would be in conflict to the older European findings?

    To me this study just sounds like another group looking for a reason to say SUV’s and trucks are bad, and that we all should be driving Prius’.

    Reply
    1. We found out in the years since that people who are flipped up onto the hood survive MORE often than people who are knocked down. I think the EU changed their regulations when the evidence came to light, and they now require every vehicle smaller than a semi to have the same lowish bumper height.

      Reply
  8. Well duh, we didn’t need a study for that, big moving hunk of metal hits person and person gets hurt.

    I wonder how much that study cost.

    Reply
  9. We were told that the front end of vehicles need to be more upright in order to protect pedestrians so they won’t get injured or a thrown onto the hood by a pointed front end. Now we are told that the blocky front end in dangerous pedestrians. NHTSA, you can’t have it both ways.

    Reply
    1. We learned something about pedestrians who were thrown onto the hood: they don’t die as often.

      Reply
  10. They had to study that?!!

    Reply
  11. Look for that elderly driver to have a small pedestrian stuck on the front of their huge SUV and drives home.

    Intersting how Detroit never learns lessons from the past about making huge vehicles which brings in massive profits for them.

    Reply
  12. After 7 suburbans I was ready to buy new. Sat in a Denali XL with the seat all the way up and the hood was straight out from my outstretched arms. I’m 5’4″ now in my senior years and my ’08 LTZ at least has a slightly sloping hood. I didn’t feel comfortable with the driving position and now have a deposit down for a Lexus TX550h+ Hybrid which has the largest cargo area below a Tahoe (same as Chevy Traverse, Grant Highlander). SAD!

    Reply
  13. So getting hit by something big and tall is more deadly than getting hit by something short and small?
    Was this quandary sent to the Rand Corporation for some exhaustive round table discussions and some field testing with people who have donated their bodies for science? So it’s better to get hit at 60mph by a Corvette than an Escalade – Got it.

    This is right up there with figuring out if falling down an elevator shaft is deadly or just life threatening.

    So this is what GM spends all their money on in their Research and Development department?

    Reply
    1. Insurance institute for Highway Safety, not GM.

      Reply

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