IIHS Sharply Criticizes Automakers over Front-End Designs in New Report

[rperez817]

2 hours ago, silvrsvt said:

AFAIK, the IIHS has no legal way of enforcing its findings-its more or less shaming companies into doing something else under the guise of safety. 

 

That's true, but IIHS does share its expertise with regulatory agencies such as NHTSA. Here is an example relevant to the topic of this thread in which IIHS responded to an RFC from NHTSA to update the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) with information about crashworthiness pedestrian protection of new vehicles. IIHS Comment on Docket No. NHTSA-2023-0020

[GearheadGrrrl]

Owners of the taller hood trucks might want to seriously consider their huge liability in a serious accident with a pedestrian or cyclist- In the trucking industry trial lawyers are winning multi million dollar verdicts for at fault auto occupants that ran into the back of trailer that didn't have a fully functional rear underside guard. Often these verdicts exceed the company's insurance limits and the balance comes out of the company's assets. Take a look at a tall blunt nosed light truck and it's easy to see how a crash with a pedestrian/cyclist could result in million dollar+ verdicts that far exceed the normal insurance liability coverage. Something to think about before you buy a too tall truck...  

[rperez817]

14 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

Owners of the taller hood trucks might want to seriously consider their huge liability in a serious accident with a pedestrian or cyclist- In the trucking industry trial lawyers are winning multi million dollar verdicts for at fault auto occupants that ran into the back of trailer that didn't have a fully functional rear underside guard. Often these verdicts exceed the company's insurance limits and the balance comes out of the company's assets. Take a look at a tall blunt nosed light truck and it's easy to see how a crash with a pedestrian/cyclist could result in million dollar+ verdicts that far exceed the normal insurance liability coverage. Something to think about before you buy a too tall truck...  

 

Good example regarding underride collisions. A related phenomenon is frontover collision, something that is exacerbated by the designs of many pickup trucks and SUV, especially the larger ones. Example from Consumer Reports.

 

[GearheadGrrrl]

And these tragic crashes are largely preventable- Truck makers are jacking up trucks and raising hood heights for styling reasons, not because they need to for cooling or off road ability that's rarely used. GM's are probably the worst, especially the mediums with the high hood and low cab that guarantees poor front visibility.

[DeluxeStang]

4 hours ago, Rick73 said:

Sadly,, enforcement doesn’t stop speeding either.  Much of safety gains are due to safer cars and roads.

 

Won’t autonomous vehicles essentially eliminate accidents?  Seems collisions with pedestrians would be one of the easiest to avoid or reduce significantly, making this front end design a non issue before too long.

 

 

One would think, I predict dark days ahead for car design in the near future. But long term, in 10 or 15 years, things will hopefully improve. 

 

[DeluxeStang]

30 minutes ago, GearheadGrrrl said:

And these tragic crashes are largely preventable- Truck makers are jacking up trucks and raising hood heights for styling reasons, not because they need to for cooling or off road ability that's rarely used. GM's are probably the worst, especially the mediums with the high hood and low cab that guarantees poor front visibility.

It is getting a little out of hand, just look at how big this truck is relative to our maverick. Then imagine driving around in a 2009 Kia Rio clown car where your entire door is thinner than the armrest in an explorer, no exaggeration, and the grille of these trucks is taller than your roof. That was a major factor that led to us getting rid of it, despite it still be relatively trouble free. 

[Chrisgb]

45 minutes ago, rperez817 said:

 

IIHS' long-term study of a 5 mph increase in speed limits found increases in fatality rates both on freeways and other types of roads. As a corollary to that, driving 5-10 mph over the limit is anything but "perfectly safe". Speed (iihs.org)

 

 

 

 

It would be interesting to see what the corollary is between an increase in a speed limit and the increase in the actual speed. For instance, increasing an Interstate speed limit from 70mph to 75, whereas the actual average speed was 77mph, does the average stay the same or go up by 8-10mph? Part of the problem as I see it, is that while speed increases, by and large following distances don't correspond very well. 

 

[Chrisgb]

If you frequently walk in high traffic areas...

 

[rperez817]

23 minutes ago, Chrisgb said:

It would be interesting to see what the corollary is between an increase in a speed limit and the increase in the actual speed. For instance, increasing an Interstate speed limit from 70mph to 75, whereas the actual average speed was 77mph, does the average stay the same or go up by 8-10mph? 

 

Excellent question Chrisgb. IIHS found average travel speeds increased when speed limits were increased, as did fatalities directly attributable to speed.

 

Not surprisingly, higher limits established after the 1995 repeal were associated with immediate increases in travel speeds. For example, within one year after speed limits were raised from 55 to 70 mph on three urban freeways in Texas, the percent of passenger vehicles traveling faster than 70 mph increased from 15 to 50 percent; the percent exceeding 75 mph increased from 4 to 17 percent (Retting & Greene, 1997). On California urban freeways where speed limits were raised from 55 to 65 mph, the percent of motorists traveling faster than 70 mph increased from 29 to 41 percent.

As limits continued to rise to 70, 75 and 80 mph, travel speeds continued to go up (Hu, 2017; Retting & Teoh, 2008).

Fatalities also went up. Deaths on rural interstates increased 25-30 percent when states began increasing speed limits from 55 to 65 mph in 1987 (Baum et al., 1989; Baum et al., 1990; Baum et al., 1991). In 1989, about two-thirds of this increase — 400 deaths — was attributed to increased speed and the rest to increased travel.

[rmc523]

2 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

That's correct, urban transportation design and planning in 20th century and into the 21st deliberately favored automobiles, thereby endangering other street users especially pedestrians. In fact, jaywalking regulations specifically were introduced in the U.S. nearly a century ago at the behest of the automotive industry, as California Assemblyman Phil Ting described.

 

 

Many locales have adopted a "complete streets" design philosophy that does a much better job accounting for street users who are not in cars and trucks, resulting in a dramatic reduction of pedestrian injuries and fatalities. Below is a simple example in Seattle (Rainier Avenue).

 

 

Yes, that's one of the chief advantages of autonomous vehicles. Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (Ford Motor Company is a member of that organization) had a panel discussion a few weeks ago on how "advanced vehicle technologies" including ADAS and AV can improve pedestrian safety. PAVE Virtual Panel: “How Advanced Vehicle Technologies Can Improve Pedestrian Safety” – Full Recording | PAVE Campaign

 

 

Very well said GearheadGrrrl. The IIHS research paper referenced in the original post mentioned several of the more recent studies in that regard. The association between passenger-vehicle front-end profiles and pedestrian injury severity in motor vehicle crashes (iihs.org)

 

 

 

AKA - remove lanes and cause more traffic because people can't stay out of the road.....;

[rmc523]

Here's a thought - don't run in the road in front of a car.

 

How about we address problems BEFORE they become problems - more thorough driving tests (which helps a multitude of issues), and make people responsible for their own actions instead of having to "pad every corner" to use a phrase my brother uses.

[akirby]

3 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

IIHS' long-term study of a 5 mph increase in speed limits found increases in fatality rates both on freeways and other types of roads. As a corollary to that, driving 5-10 mph over the limit is anything but "perfectly safe". Speed (iihs.org)

 

I’ve looked at the raw data and the conclusions are not as clear cut as IIHS would have you believe.  Some studies found they went down.  Most did not measure actual speeds and they didn’t take into account  number of vehicles/miles traveled which obviously increases every year.

 

Of course higher speeds will result in worse injuries in most cases, but speed differential is usually more important than actual speed for causing accidents and seatbelt use is a huge factor in fatalities.  Also congestion - which gets back to measuring actual speeds vs limits.

[akirby]

56 minutes ago, rmc523 said:

Here's a thought - don't run in the road in front of a car.

 

How about we address problems BEFORE they become problems - more thorough driving tests (which helps a multitude of issues), and make people responsible for their own actions instead of having to "pad every corner" to use a phrase my brother uses.

Nope, we have to take drastic measures inconvenience everybody and spend billions to protect people from doing stupid things.

 

I subscribe to the “remove all the warning labels and let natural selection sort it out” approach.

[Rick73]

I recall a study that concluded the safest speed is that of traffic flow.  People who drive much slower or faster than average flow cause more accidents.  If I recall correctly, accidents didn’t always involve them, so data can be misleading.  In my personal experience, people who drive very slowly on Interstates cause backups which makes many drivers caught behind them impatient, and often aggressive in an effort to get around the backup.  And the guy at front who caused the problem in the first place wasn’t even aware of accident.

[92merc]

31 minutes ago, akirby said:

I subscribe to the “remove all the warning labels and let natural selection sort it out” approach.

 

When ever I did something not too bright as a kid, and failed, my dad would say "Did you learn anything?"  Usually the answer was yes.

 

Unfortunately, for too many people today, the answer is No.

[rmc523]

51 minutes ago, Rick73 said:

I recall a study that concluded the safest speed is that of traffic flow.  People who drive much slower or faster than average flow cause more accidents.  If I recall correctly, accidents didn’t always involve them, so data can be misleading.  In my personal experience, people who drive very slowly on Interstates cause backups which makes many drivers caught behind them impatient, and often aggressive in an effort to get around the backup.  And the guy at front who caused the problem in the first place wasn’t even aware of accident.

 

This is absolutely a problem - and wouldn't be AS bad if the slowpoke would stay in the right lane - instead, they'll dart all the way over to the left lane to do 10 under the limit....like WTF?

 

34 minutes ago, 92merc said:

 

When ever I did something not too bright as a kid, and failed, my dad would say "Did you learn anything?"  Usually the answer was yes.

 

Unfortunately, for too many people today, the answer is No.

 

Well, often failure isn't even allowed - i.e. participation trophies.

 

"Padding too many corners" as my brother says.

[grbeck]

4 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

Excellent question Chrisgb. IIHS found average travel speeds increased when speed limits were increased, as did fatalities directly attributable to speed.

 

 

 

The federal government studied this issue in the early 1990s...it found that changes in the posted limit had little effect on travel speeds. The IIHS claim that the repeal of the 1995 limit resulted in higher speeds is therefore not necessarily conclusive.

 

Also note that, under the definition used by the federal government, a "speed-related fatality" encompasses accidents involving a drunk driver who was exceeding the limit; a person fleeing the police during an official pursuit; and accidents during inclement weather. If a person is driving at 50 mph during an ice storm, and has a fatal accident, that is a "speed related fatality." The term isn't limited to someone driving 80 mph in the 70 mph zone. 

 

In other words, take everything posted by the IIHS with a boulder-sized grain of salt. 

 

Finally, we repealed the national 65 mph speed limit in late 1995, which coincided with a long economic boom. When the economy is doing well, discretionary driving increases, and that brings about more accidents and fatalities. People are more likely to be killed driving home at 1 a.m. from a party or a bar, as opposed to driving to and from work during the day. 

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by grbeck

[grbeck]

3 hours ago, akirby said:

I’ve looked at the raw data and the conclusions are not as clear cut as IIHS would have you believe.  Some studies found they went down.  Most did not measure actual speeds and they didn’t take into account  number of vehicles/miles traveled which obviously increases every year.

 

Of course higher speeds will result in worse injuries in most cases, but speed differential is usually more important than actual speed for causing accidents and seatbelt use is a huge factor in fatalities.  Also congestion - which gets back to measuring actual speeds vs limits.

 

Seat belt usage is critical. I've noticed that a fair number of local fatalities involve the driver and/or passenger being thrown from the vehicle. That tells me that neither was wearing a seat belt.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2023 by grbeck

[rperez817]

2 hours ago, Rick73 said:

I recall a study that concluded the safest speed is that of traffic flow.  People who drive much slower or faster than average flow cause more accidents.  

 

That's related to a civil engineering guideline for traffic control called 85th percentile speed. IIHS described this concept, including its limitations, on the same webpage I shared earlier in the thread.

To set speed limits for specific roads, traffic engineers for decades relied heavily on the 85th percentile speed, which is the speed that 85 percent of vehicles are traveling at or below in free-flowing conditions. Recent work has highlighted the importance of other factors, such as roadway design and context, as well as the prevalence of pedestrians and bicyclists.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials recommends a range of 10 to 25 mph for most city streets, based on reducing crash risk for pedestrians and cyclists (NACTO, 2020). A recent report by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program has suggested a range of criteria, including the 50th and 85th percentile speeds, vehicle and bicycle traffic volumes, geometric considerations, traffic control devices and the presence of parking (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021). The report considers different road types, ranging from local roads to freeways, and different contexts, ranging from rural to urban core.

One problem with relying too much on the 85th percentile speed to set limits it that it’s a moving target. Numerous studies of travel speeds have shown that 85th percentile speeds on rural interstate highways increased when speed limits were raised and then continued increasing (Najjar et al., 2000; Retting & Cheung, 2008; Retting & Greene, 1997; Retting & Teoh, 2008). When speed limits are raised to meet the current 85th percentile speed, a new, higher 85th percentile speed usually results.

 

Also, IIHS provided the following information comparing speeding vs. speed variation.

Some people contend that speed variation, not speeding, is the real danger. This idea is rooted in research conducted in the 1960s on two-lane rural roads, which found that vehicles traveling much faster or much slower than average were more likely to be involved in crashes (Solomon, 1964). However, that same research found that involvement in severe crashes increased with speed.

While less speed variation is associated with fewer crashes because it cuts down on passing maneuvers and lane changes (Garber & Ehrhart, 2000; Transportation Research Board, 1984), the risk of death and severe injury is directly related to the speed at the time of a crash, not the speed difference between vehicles.

Many differences in travel speeds are unavoidable because of the slower speeds of turning or merging vehicles. Higher speeds of other vehicles exacerbate this problem. Besides, many crashes and nearly half of those resulting in occupant deaths are single-vehicle impacts in which differences in speeds between vehicles play no role or only a minor one.

[rperez817]

4 hours ago, rmc523 said:

How about we address problems BEFORE they become problems - more thorough driving tests (which helps a multitude of issues)

 

Regarding the problem of speeding motorists (and their deleterious impact on pedestrian safety), more thorough driver education and testing actually won't help a multitude of issues unless combined with speed management measures. IIHS submitted data and recommendations to NHTSA on this subject 4 years ago in an RFC. IIHS urges NHTSA to look beyond education to address speed problem

 

A large body of evidence shows that education has not been effective in addressing traffic safety issues such as alcohol-impaired driving or seat belt use, Jessica Cicchino, IIHS vice president for research, wrote in the comment.

Moreover, drivers already know the risks of speeding, and that knowledge has not influenced their behavior.

According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s 2018 Traffic Safety Culture Index, for instance, the majority of U.S. drivers believe that driving 15 mph over the speed limit on freeways and 10 mph over the speed limit on residential streets are very or extremely dangerous. Yet nearly as many drivers admit to having driven that fast over the past month.

Measures such as encouraging the use of automated enforcement and incentivizing automakers to install intelligent speed adaptation — technology that alerts speeding drivers or automatically slows the vehicle to ensure compliance with speed limits — offer greater potential benefits than education. Promoting effective law enforcement strategies, safe speed limits and traffic-calming techniques would also be beneficial.

[Deanh]

3 hours ago, akirby said:

Nope, we have to take drastic measures inconvenience everybody and spend billions to protect people from doing stupid things.

 

I subscribe to the “remove all the warning labels and let natural selection sort it out” approach.

I say get rid of Automatic transmissions...free for all and lot harder to text...plus chances are people would bebetter drivers or just use public transport...its seriously getting worse to the point I barely ride the Bike anymore....tailgating is my biggest pet peeve....and if you leave adequate space thats just an opening for some twit to speed into andhit his/ her brakes...

Edited November 15, 2023 by Deanh

[AGR]

7 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

IIHS' long-term study of a 5 mph increase in speed limits found increases in fatality rates both on freeways and other types of roads. As a corollary to that, driving 5-10 mph over the limit is anything but "perfectly safe". Speed (iihs.org)

 

 

 

 

 

The IIHS wants to lower speed limits so more people will get speeding tickets. Then the insurance companies can jack up their premiums. The first I in IIHS stands for Insurance. The IIHS is bought and paid for by insurance companies. I don't believe their studies.

[Chrisgb]

8 hours ago, rperez817 said:

 

That's correct, urban transportation design and planning in 20th century and into the 21st deliberately favored automobiles, thereby endangering other street users especially pedestrians. In fact, jaywalking regulations specifically were introduced in the U.S. nearly a century ago at the behest of the automotive industry, as California Assemblyman Phil Ting described.

 

 

Many locales have adopted a "complete streets" design philosophy that does a much better job accounting for street users who are not in cars and trucks, resulting in a dramatic reduction of pedestrian injuries and fatalities. Below is a simple example in Seattle (Rainier Avenue).

 

 

Yes, that's one of the chief advantages of autonomous vehicles. Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (Ford Motor Company is a member of that organization) had a panel discussion a few weeks ago on how "advanced vehicle technologies" including ADAS and AV can improve pedestrian safety. PAVE Virtual Panel: “How Advanced Vehicle Technologies Can Improve Pedestrian Safety” – Full Recording | PAVE Campaign

 

 

Very well said GearheadGrrrl. The IIHS research paper referenced in the original post mentioned several of the more recent studies in that regard. The association between passenger-vehicle front-end profiles and pedestrian injury severity in motor vehicle crashes (iihs.org)

 

 

 

5 hours ago, rmc523 said:

 

AKA - remove lanes and cause more traffic because people can't stay out of the road.....;

Looks like the volatiles in the yellow paint must've killed the trees...

 

 

[akirby]

2 hours ago, grbeck said:

 

Seat belt usage is critical. I've noticed that a fair number of local fatalities involve the driver and/or passenger being thrown from the vehicle. That tells me that neither was wearing a seat belt.

 

 

But the media usually fail to mention the lack of seat belts.  And they always say “speed was a factor”.  No shit.  If they were sitting still they wouldn’t have wrecked.  

[GearheadGrrrl]

I live in Minnesota but in the Sioux Falls TV market, and South Dakota lives up to it's expectations for stupidity, driving included. Fatal road crashes are an everyday event, usually on a 2 lane involving trucks or SUVs and occupants electing to leave the safety of their vehicles.