Feds want vehicles to be safer for pedestrians’ heads; new regs proposed

America has been getting more and more dangerous for pedestrians over the past few years. It’s a trend with several contributing factors—our built environment prioritizes passenger vehicle traffic and encourages speeding, and traffic enforcement is virtually absent in many cities. But it’s undeniable that vehicle design—particularly of large pickup trucks and SUVs—has been causing excess casualties. For example, a study published in January found that an increase in hood height of four inches (100 mm) translated to a 28 percent increase in pedestrian deaths.

Today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that vehicle design needs to change to reduce the number of pedestrians killed or seriously injured in crashes. The notice of proposed rulemaking, which is open for public comment for the next 60 days, wants to harmonize federal motor vehicle safety standards (FMVSS) with a global standard already in effect in many countries around the world.

“We have a crisis of roadway deaths, and it’s even worse among vulnerable road users like pedestrians. Between 2013 and 2022, pedestrian fatalities increased 57 percent, from 4,779 to 7,522. This proposed rule will ensure that vehicles will be designed to protect those inside and outside from serious injury or death. We will continue to work to make our roads safer for everyone and help protect vulnerable road users,’ said Sophie Shulman, NHTSA’s deputy administrator.

Your car may already comply

NHTSA wants to adopt global technical regulation 9, which would establish a new FMVSS that would apply to any new vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of less than 10,000 lbs (4,536 kg). That would include class 3 medium-duty trucks like the Hummer EV that do not require a commercial driver’s license to operate.

Since many countries around the world use GTR 9, most passenger vehicles sold in the US already meet the pedestrian head impact standards, NHTSA says. But the pickup and large SUV market, which accounts for more than one in five auto sales, is uniquely American, and these vehicles will most likely require some redesign to comply.

The agency says the new FMVSS would also bolster the New Car Assessment Program by providing “a legal counterpart” to new pedestrian crash tests that it plans to add to NCAP.

The new standard would subject vehicles to a pair of tests, one using an impactor (or crash test head) representing a six-year-old child and another representing a 50th-percentile male. Various areas of the hood will be tested “at specific speeds and impact angles replicating a real-world vehicle traveling at 40 km/h (25 mph) and impacting the adult or child pedestrian.”