Enlarge / It actually feels intimidating standing next to a vehicle like this GMC Yukon Denali when the hood is level with your shoulder. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

It’s hard to escape the fact that American trucks and SUVs have been on a steroid-infused diet for the last few years. The trend was all too apparent at the last auto show we went to—at Chicago in 2020, I felt physically threatened just standing next to some of the products on display by GMC and its competitors. Intuitively, the supersized hood heights on these pickups seem more dangerous to vulnerable road users, but now there’s hard data to support that.

It hasn’t been a great few years to be a pedestrian in the United States. These most vulnerable road users started being killed by drivers more frequently in 2020, and while some states were able to reverse that trend, others went the other way, making 2022—the last year for which there is full data—the most deadly year on record for US pedestrians.

The problem has multiple causes. For decades, urban planners have prioritized car traffic above everything else, and our built environment favors speeding vehicles at the cost of people trying to cross roads or cycle. But it’s not all just the fault of those planners, as the vehicles we drive play a large role, too.