GAO to Investigate How Vehicle Design Impacts Safety

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) will look into how vehicle safety standards are impacting the rise in the deaths of pedestrians and other people outside of vehicles.

As Kea Wilson explains in Streetsblog USA, “Between 1993 and 2023, the average vehicle on U.S. roads swelled by 1,000 pounds, while simultaneously getting four inches wider, 10 inches longer and eight inches taller — bloat that's driven by the increasing sales of pick-up trucks and SUVs.”

Road safety advocates say this contributes to higher death rates. “One study estimated that 18 percent of pedestrian deaths could be avoided just by capping the hood height of passenger trucks and SUVs at the level of a modest crossover,” Wilson adds. 

For example, flatbed trailers like the one that killed diplomat Sarah Debbink Langenkamp in 2022, have major blind spots that are not addressed by current regulations — “and it also wasn’t outfitted with pedestrian and cyclist-specific “side-underride” guards that could have prevented her from being swept under its wheels.”

The investigation will assess the design features that impact safety including “height, geometry, driver visibility, and direct vision.”