> 40 years ago a 5 or 6 year old mostly had to contend with sedans with hoods lower than 30 inches
> Vehicles with hood heights of more than 40 inches and blunt front ends angled at greater than 65 degrees were 44 percent more likely to cause fatalities.
I'm not sure that height matters for a young kid and, 40 years ago, there weren't abs and sensors that will brake for you. Plus, drunk driving rates were much, much higher and the vehicles were significantly heavier.
I don't have any insight on the answer but I'd be curious if the rates of kids dying as pedestrians/cyclists have gone up (per mile, which would be hard to track down and sway the numbers significantly).
Small nitpick, abs isn't there to reduce braking distance, it just prevent someone who panic brakes from losing the ability to steer. Technically it even increases minimum braking distance a bit, but if someone is locking their brakes up anyways they were already incapable of achieving that peak braking performance because you need to maintain about 10% wheel slip and most drivers are not practised race car drivers.
40 years ago there was ABSOLUTELY ABS.
ABS in aviation goes back to the 1950s in planes and the late '60s in cars.
But what percentage of cars on the street had it. I understand it existed but not even disc brakes were nearly as ubiquitous as they are today, let alone electronics control of them.
They came in pretty quick. They were standard on every Cadillac and optional on many Fords by 1971, for instance.
Obviously they haven’t gone up, all rates are massively down. They’re just a worrier.
It’s a perfect example from the article. “I totally would let my kid leave the house, but [made up danger]”
Pedestrian vehicle fatalities are up over 40 years, have increased significantly recently, and are a very real problem. https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/fatality-statistics/deta...
The chart there is certainly worrying but it lacks a per 1000 column (but does include it in this quote, "The rates of pedestrian crash deaths per 100,000 people are highest for people ages 20 and over.").
Population is up but less people are walking (probably). Is it more dangerous to be a pedestrian now than it was at some point in the past? That chart doesn't have that information.
You would also need vehicle miles traveled and pedestrian miles traveled. The overall numbers are up, and there is ample evidence that US cities are both less walkable and more dangerous to walk in than our counterparts in Europe. Just because people don’t let their kids walk places doesn’t indicate that vehicles don’t hit kids.