Feds want vehicles to better protect 1 area. What they have in mind.

The rise in pedestrian deaths on and along U.S. roads has been a troubling story for years.
But this fall, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced its intention to require most vehicles in the United States be designed to reduce the seriousness of certain types of crashes involving pedestrians.
The new rule would cover vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or less and include cars, trucks, SUVs and vans. It “would establish test procedures simulating a head-to-hood impact and performance requirements to minimize the risk of head injury” in crashes up to 25 mph, according to NHTSA.
The agency projects it would save 67 lives each year, a significant number for those saved as well as their loved ones but well shy of the annual death toll. NHTSA notes that between 2013 and 2022, pedestrian fatalities increased 57% from 4,779 to 7,522 annually.
Speed, distraction, infrastructure and, as a Detroit Free Press/USA Today Network investigation revealed in 2018, the increasing presence of large trucks and SUVs with their higher front ends, have all played a role, along with factors, including darkness and impairment.
Monday is the final day for the public to submit comments, and as of Friday, the proposal had already drawn more than 5,200, many of which, based on a random scan by a reporter, could comfortably be described as enthusiastic.
Ben Crowther, policy director for the national nonprofit advocacy group America Walks, described the proposal as rather limited in scope, given its focus on the hoods of vehicles and not the front-end design or height.
But he described it as a step forward, one that tackles “low-hanging fruit” that the agency could opt to move on quickly. That’s notable because the incoming Trump administration is likely to take a much different approach to NHTSA’s regulatory role than the Biden administration.
“It really becomes a question of what are we deciding to value in our society, and I think it’s really hard to argue with the fact that … we should be doing everything possible to protect everyone who’s out and about on our streets,” Crowther said.
More:I-375 report says community still has time to make replacement project transformative
Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, described the proposed rule as one piece of a multipart effort to address pedestrian safety that is “sorely needed” and one that would be a significant milestone for federal regulations in this area.
“The NHTSA pedestrian safety proposal currently open for comment relates specifically to head impacts and hood shape, and would help reduce the risk of death and injuries due to head trauma. If successful it would be the agency’s most significant rule to date in the area of pedestrian crashworthiness.”
But Brooks also said he expects this rule and the multistage pedestrian effort to be “delayed significantly by the incoming administration. And ultimately, successful pedestrian protection and a reduction in the current record death and injury rates is going to require significant additional efforts by NHTSA and partners.”
Brooks pointed to speed and impairment prevention technology, better visibility standards, so-called vehicle-to-everything communications and even changes in state and local infrastructure as areas that need to be addressed as part of that process.
NHTSA noted that the rulemaking is intended to work “hand-in-hand with the growth and expansion of automatic emergency braking technologies.”
Although many comments submitted to NHTSA urged approval of this rule as well as action to tackle subjects such as vehicle size, not everyone is on board.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing numerous automakers and suppliers, including Ford Motor Co., General Motors, Hyundai, Stellantis and Toyota, takes a different view.
More:GM to make bicyclist-alert technology standard on most of its vehicles
The alliance called safety a top priority for the industry.
“In the 10 years since NHTSA first began considering this plan, vehicles on the road have gotten even more safe as automakers across the board test, develop and integrate breakthrough safety technologies that we know can help save lives and prevent injuries for drivers, pedestrians and road users,” according to a statement from the group. “Unfortunately, the agency deviated from standards already in place around the world, a decision that could require new vehicle designs, diverting resources from other safety research and development efforts and adding additional costs for vehicles in the U.S. market.”
NHTSA, however, noted that the proposed rule would meet a Bipartisan Infrastructure Law directive to “harmonize U.S. vehicle regulations globally to promote vehicle safety.” A NHTSA news release said the standard would align with a global technical regulation dealing with pedestrian safety “with focused enhancements to ensure that uniquely American platforms, such as pickups and large SUVs, would provide the proposed level of pedestrian head protection.”
That’s a key point. While automakers have global operations and many vehicles likely already meet these kinds of standards, large pickups and SUVs aren’t as common elsewhere.
Raphael Zammit, chair of graduate transportation design at Detroit’s College for Creative Studies, said Europe was “all over this” issue a decade or so ago.
And he noted the advances some companies have championed, such as Volvo’s pedestrian airbag which was designed to pop out from under the hood as a horseshoe-shaped cushion along the bottom and lower sides of the windshield.
“People are soft, and cars are hard,” noted a narrator in a promotional video from 2012.
Zammit acknowledged that changes like those in the proposed rule do affect the look of vehicles and will add cost, but other considerations matter, too.
“As a designer … you’re in the industry and you have to deal with it as kind of a design constraint, you’re not happy about it because there’s so many things that we can’t do now because of it, but it also makes for saving lives and that’s worth it,” Zammit said. “It’s a good thing at the end of the day.”
To the alliance’s point about diverting resources, Zammit said it is arguably better to avoid hitting someone all together. In other words, resources spent to soften a vehicle could go toward improving other safety technologies.
But that can also invite a difficult ethical debate. And Zammit pointed to the past to highlight how design changes for safety reasons have long been a reality in the industry.
“We took fins off of cars in the ‘50s and ‘60s so that you wouldn’t be impaled on them, and we survived,” he said.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: [email protected]. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
To submit a comment, go to https://www.regulations.gov/document/NHTSA-2024-0057-0001