American roads are becoming more dangerous, with an increase in accidents and fatalities since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Large cars and trucks are contributing to the increase in road-related danger, and in a post recently shared on Reddit, it is easy to see why. The post showed a picture of a large truck with a child standing in front of it. "Good luck seeing children from behind the wheel of vehicles like this," the original poster wrote, referring to the fact that the child would not be visible above the hood of the car.
The enormous size of the truck in question meant that there was a big blind spot in front of the vehicle, making it unlikely that the driver of the vehicle would be able to see anything that short standing in front of it.
The average size of new cars has increased by a massive 20% or more over the last 10 years, which is having serious repercussions on safety — including increased collisions with pedestrians.
For example, a report by The Economist has shown that the fatality rate of highway crashes in the U.S. is twice as high among occupants of heavy pickup trucks compared to compact cars, across all accidents. And when such large cars hit compact cars, they are also more dangerous for the people in other cars, with a fatality rate seven times higher for occupants than when colliding with another compact car.
These absurdly large vehicles are also responsible for an increase in pedestrian deaths, which in the first half of 2022 was more than double the number since the first half of 2010, per the Governors Highway Safety Association (via CleanTechnica).
The presence of such large vehicles on the road creates even more problems for pedestrians, including schoolchildren, who in many cases are already taking their lives into their own hands when they cross the street. Unsafe roads, coupled with a lack of infrastructure for pedestrians, have made walking around town dangerous in a lot of U.S. towns and cities.
Vehicles like these also have an increased environmental impact, guzzling more gas than much smaller cars, which leads to increased air pollution. Air pollution has a detrimental impact on people's health, especially those who live in communities next to busy roads, and is linked to increased asthma and other respiratory diseases.
"These should be illegal," one user commented on the post.
Several other commenters were in agreement, with one writing: "These things are dangerous and need to be banned."
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