Tag: pedestrians

Study: Vehicles with Higher Front Ends Pose Greater Risk to Pedestrians

According to a recently published study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), vehicles with higher, more blunt front ends are more dangerous to pedestrians. IIHS says that vehicles with a hood height higher than 40 inches are 45% more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian accidents than vehicles with a hood height of 30 inches or less.

Pedestrian accident deaths have risen 80% since their lowest point in 2009. In 2021, more than 20 people died per day after being hit by a vehicle.

Over the last 30 years, the average vehicle has gotten about 4 inches wider, 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller, and 1,000 pounds heavier in the US. Many vehicles are more than 40 inches tall at the leading edge of the hood.

The IIHS study examined 17,897 crashes involving a single passenger vehicle and a single pedestrian. Using Vehicle Identification Numbers to identify the vehicles, they calculated front-end measurements corresponding to 2,958 unique car, minivan, large van, SUV, and pickup models. Vehicles with pedestrian automatic emergency braking systems were excluded from the study, along with others that could affect the likelihood of a fatality, such as speed limit, and age of the struck pedestrian.

Front-End Height affects Fatalities

The study found that vehicles with hoods more than 40 inches off the ground at the leading edge and a grille sloped at an angle of 65 degrees or less, were 45% more likely to cause pedestrian fatalities than those with a similar slope and hood heights of 30 inches or less. Vehicles with hood heights of more than 40 inches and blunt front end angled at greater than 65 degrees were 44% more likely to cause fatalities.

Researchers looked at several other vehicle characteristics, including the angle of the windshield, the length of the hood, and the angle of the hood. Among these, the slope of the hood had the biggest effect. There was a 25% increase in the risk of fatality for vehicles with flat hoods (those with angles of 15 degrees or less) compared to vehicles with more sloping hoods.

Researchers found that vehicles taller than 35 inches were more dangerous to pedestrians because they tend to cause more severe head injuries. Of the vehicles taller than 35 inches, those with more blunt front ends were more dangerous than those with sloped front ends, because they cause more frequent and severe torso and hip 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,” IIHS Senior Research Transportation Engineer Wen Hu, the lead author of the study, said in a statement on Tuesday. “There’s no functional benefit to these massive, blocky fronts.”

Buckfire & Buckfire, P.C. 2023
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Walking the Line: Tort Immunity and Pedestrians Outside the Crosswalk in the City of Chicago

Heyl Royster Law firm

Recently, the First District Appellate Court determined that a pedestrian who “walked the line” and was injured while partially inside and partially outside of a crosswalk was barred from recovering for those injuries from the City of Chicago. In Swain v. City of Chicago, the plaintiff was walking through an intersection and broke his foot while stepping in a pothole just a few inches outside of the marked crosswalk. Swain v. City of Chicago, 2014 IL App (1st) 122769 at ¶ 3.

The Illinois Supreme Court has recognized the well settled rule regarding the duty of a municipality to maintain its street in a reasonably safe condition “is that, since pedestrians are not intended users of streets, a municipality does not owe a duty of reasonable care to pedestrians who attempt to cross a street outside the crosswalks.” Vaughn v. City of West Frankfort, 166 Ill. 2d 155, 158 (1995). The court explained:

“[T]he question of whether a municipality owes a duty does not depend on whether the plaintiff-pedestrian was struck by a moving vehicle or tripped over a pothole, but rather depends on whether the municipality intended that the plaintiff-pedestrian walk in that part of the street where the injury occurred and permitted the plaintiff-pedestrian to do so. We note that, except for those cases in which street defects were in the area immediately around a parked vehicle, Illinois courts have refused to impose a duty on municipalities for injuries to pedestrians which were caused by those defects.” Vaughn, 166 Ill. 2d at 163. [emphasis added]

Vaughn further held that “local municipalities owe no duty to maintain streets and roadways in a reasonably safe condition for pedestrians who choose to cross the street outside the protection of the crosswalks.” Id. at 164.

This case serves as a reminder that public bodies benefit by having well maintained intersections and crosswalks that are clearly marked. When injuries allegedly occur within those intersections or crosswalks, the public body should take immediate action to (1) obtain an exact description of where the “injury” occurred and (2) examine and document the intersection and area immediately surrounding.

ARTICLE BY

Chrissie Peterson
OF
Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, P.C.