The Economist: Big, Heavy Cars Are Killing More People ⇥ economist.com

The Economist:

So how big is too big? At what point do the costs of the heaviest vehicles — measured in lives lost — vastly exceed their benefits? To answer this question, The Economist compiled ten years’ worth of crash data from more than a dozen states. Like the data compiled by Messrs Anderson and Auffhammer, our figures come from reports filed by police officers, who are tasked with recording information about car crashes when called to the scene. Although all states collect such data, we focus on those that collect the most detailed figures and share them with researchers. The resulting dataset, which covers more than a third of America’s population, provides us with a sample that is both big and representative.

The results? According to the Economist, “if the heaviest tenth of vehicles in America’s fleet were downsized […] road fatalities in multi-car crashes — which totaled 19,081 in 2023 — could be reduced by 12%, or 2,300, without sacrificing the safety of any cars involved”.

Andre Mayer and Emily Chung, reporting for CBC News in June:

But the ubiquity of SUVs and trucks isn’t an accurate reflection of what people want to drive, say industry analysts.

The trend has been greatly influenced by a combination of savvy marketing, government regulations that incentivize bigger vehicles and limited supply of more modest ones.

Indeed, much of it is driven by one simple economic fact.

“Smaller cars are less profitable,” said Stephanie Brinley, associate director at U.S.-based transportation consultancy S&P Global Mobility.

People are guided to purchase an SUV or truck in the United States and Canada because most cities oblige us to own a vehicle of some kind, but inexpensive cars are not generally available, and other people drive oversized SUVs and trucks which makes us scared of driving anything smaller. Repeat until around 80% of new vehicle sales are various kinds of SUVs and trucks.

This forced market is dangerous for everybody except for those who are inside a large SUV or truck. It means headlights from oncoming traffic at eye level. It means small roads are less navigable and parking spaces need to be made larger. It means roads feel more dangerous so fewer people feel comfortable walking or cycling. It means more people are seriously injured and die. All because these vehicles are more profitable, many cities are inaccessible by other means, automakers have artificially constrained their wares, and people feel roads are competitive instead of cooperative.

Update: The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is proposing rules to comply with international pedestrian protection standards, even for larger vehicles. A good first step on a long and difficult path, and one which will have effects here as the Canadian auto market is more-or-less an extension of our southern neighbour’s.