It’s an intuitive concept that a vehicle’s speed is the decisive factor in determining whether a struck pedestrian is seriously injured or killed. New research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows front-end height compounds the injury risk created by speed. Findings show that a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit may be too fast for crowded city centers because of the country’s fondness for SUVs and pickup trucks.
While it might be frustrating to give legislators another reason to lower speed limits, IIHS didn’t pull its research out of a hat. The organization was clear in outlining its methodology:
To estimate injury risk at different impact speeds, IIHS researchers examined 202 crashes involving pedestrians ages 16 or older. The records came from two databases — one of crashes that took place between 2015 and 2022 in Michigan and another of crashes that occurred in 2022 in California, New Jersey and Texas.
The researchers used photographs of the vehicle models involved to determine the height of the hood’s front edge. They then looked at the effect of vehicle speed and vehicle height on the risk of injuries of different severities.
They focused on front-end height because that determines the point of impact on a pedestrian’s body, which is a key factor in injury severity. (In contrast, vehicle weight doesn’t play a major role in pedestrian crashes since any vehicle, even a small car, vastly outweighs a person.)
When hit by a median-height car, the chance of serious injury increases from 9 percent to 52 percent when speed increases from 15 mph to 35 mph. The same speed increase for median-height pickups sees the serious injury chance ramp from 11 percent to 91 percent. A serious injury would considered a grievous wound requiring immediate medical attention, like a compound bone fracture.
For fatalities, both vehicle categories are at less than two percent at 15 mph. However, the percentages quickly diverge. At 35 mph, a pickup has a 42-percent chance of killing a pedestrian in a collision while a car only has a 15-percent chance.
Transport for London lowered its speed limit to 20 mph from 30 mph in the center of the British capital in March 2020. The agency found that the slower speeds reduced crashes involving pedestrians by 63 percent. Other cities working to follow suit. New York City will have a 20-mph speed limit in select areas. It might seem inconvenient behind the wheel, but it will save lives on densely populated streets.
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