Vehicles with particularly tall, blocky, front ends are most dangerous to pedestrians. SUVs, pickups and vans with a hood height more than 40 inches – regardless of their nose shape – are about 45% more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than those with a hood height of 30 inches or lower and a sloping profile. And medium-height vehicles with hood heights of 30-40 inches with blunt fronts are deadly, too. They were 26% more likely to cause pedestrian fatalities.
Those are the findings of new research about pedestrian crashes announced on Tuesday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit financed by the insurance industry.
“Some of today’s vehicles are pretty intimidating when you’re passing in front of them in a crosswalk,” David Harkey, president of the Insurance Institute, said in a statement. “These results tell us our instincts are correct: More aggressive-looking vehicles can indeed do more harm.”
Earlier research linked SUVs and pickups to higher fatality risk in pedestrian crashes, but this new study, which aims to offer automakers guidance about how to design vehicles that are safer in crashes with people, shows that some vehicle features, like hood height, front end profile, and hood slope, contribute to the risk of death in pedestrian crashes, the institute said.
Pedestrian crash deaths have spiked 80% since hitting their low in 2009, according to the report. “Nearly 7,400 walkers — more than 20 people a day — lost their lives in 2021 after being struck by a vehicle. While speeding and poorly designed infrastructure have helped fuel the increase,” it noted, “many safety advocates have also drawn a connection to the growing portion of the U.S. vehicle fleet made up of pickups and SUVs.” In addition, over the past 30 years, the average U.S. passenger vehicle has gotten wider, longer, taller and heavier.
For the study, researchers analyzed nearly 18,000 crashes involving a single passenger vehicle and a single pedestrian, excluded vehicles with pedestrian automatic emergency braking systems, and controlled for other factors that could affect the likelihood of a fatality, including speed limit and age and sex of the struck pedestrian.
In another assessment, researchers examined records from 121 crashes involving the front end of a car. The data included detailed crash reconstructions, including information about the motion of the pedestrian’s body during the crash and the nature and severity of their injuries.
“Manufacturers can make vehicles less dangerous to pedestrians by lowering the front end of the hood and angling the grille and hood to create a sloped profile,” Wen Hu, senior research transportation engineer for the Institute and the lead author of the
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Malaysia’s island region of Sarawak is a treasure trove of relics and rarities. Take a stroll down Carpenter Street in Sarawak’s capital city of Kuching and you’ll see stalls selling wood carvings, colourful beadwork, blankets and the woven mats that line the floor of traditional tribal longhouses. Nearby, at the waterfront, a bazaar of handicraft booths in the historic Steamship Building sells jewellery, paintings and scarves created by some of the country’s leading artisans. They’re guardians of Sarawak’s heritage, preserving skills that date back thousands of years and that might otherwise be lost in the rush to embrace 21st-century technology.
At the beginning of each year, Skift launches its annual Megatrends, forecasting the top trends that will define the travel industry for the year ahead. See last year’s predictions here.
Cyber Monday and Travel Tuesday may be over, but Delta Air Lines is still rolling out the deals for travelers eager to get away. The airline recently published a list of “Fly Into A Winter Wonderland” deals on their website, which offers discounts both in cash and using Delta SkyMiles redemptions for flights both within the United States and internationally. “Redefine the winter blues and take advantage of low seasonal fares to destinations from cozy cities to tropical escapes and alpine adventures,” Delta shares on their website about the sale. Travel + Leisure spotted deals from nearly every one of Delta’s hub cities in the United States. The current promotion offers deals between December 2023 and January 2024. The lowest miles fare was 14,000 miles and $12 for a round-trip flight from Seattle, WA, to San Francisco, CA. Some of the other top flight deals include:
Bear watching is always a fabulous activity in Alaska and if you want to witness the same up-close in person then you must head towards Bearviewinginalaska.com because they offer some of the best brown bear tours in Alaska that you can ever get. They offer a host of bear-watching tours that include bear-watching by plane and bear-watching on a boat. You can choose from half-day to full-day tours as per your interest.
Statewide Hawai‘i hotel room revenues totaled $447.8 million (+5.7% vs. 2022, +32.7% vs. 2019) in October 2023. Room demand was 1.3 million room nights (+3.6% vs. 2022, -2.4% vs. 2019) and room supply was 1.7 million room nights (+0.4% vs. 2022, +4.2% vs. 2019).
Dubai Municipality had assigned a field team of 12 staff to supervise 72 cleaners working on a regular basis and around the clock to keep Dubai’s public beaches clean. It also equipped the team with 13 new mechanisms and equipment to improve communication and emergency response time.
Things like smoking, touring the cockpit, and using a steak knife used to be commonplace on planes in the 1950s. Today, rules for passengers and cabin crews are more strict.