Crash testing old cars vs. new cars

[Otherbrother]

I respectfully disagree with a number of your points.

There are absolutely a number of ways to package a truck’s drivetrain such that you don’t need the hood to be 5 feet off the ground, and the current designs have nothing to do with finding space for a V8 on top of an axle. As a mechanical engineer I could delve into some of the packaging details for this but I really don’t need to. Just look at the freaking hoods and terrible forward visibility on the new electric trucks from Ford and Chevy, which have no gas engines up front at all. It was 100% a design choice, not at all driven by misguided safety standards.

And there are still many cars that can tow just about anything short of an enormous 5th wheel trailer. Volvos, Subarus, Mercedes sell wagons that are pretty good and even Chrysler minivans can tow pretty substantial loads. Personally I tow my teardrop trailer around with my Honda Fit.

Undoubtedly there are a few people out there who truly need a powerful truck for towing giant trailers, but they are the small, small minority of truck buyers.

And while I disagree that current rules caused the problem, I do agree that we need to revisit pedestrian safety standards yesterday.. Plenty of countries do a lot better than the US in that regard.

NHTSA Isn't Doing Enough To Protect Us From Giant Trucks

At the heart of the problem is the NHTSA’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), the one that results in the star-rating system you hear about on all those car commercials. NCAP does precisely zero assessment related to the safety of a vehicle for those outside the car. It’s all about the people inside the car.

This is not the case in other countries. Since 2016, the European and Japanese NCAP programs have tested pedestrian safety in much the same way they test passenger safety, by slamming the car into stuff with crash test dummies (both child and adult sized, daytime and at night) and seeing what happened. So, too, is there an international standard, established in 2008, to require vehicle bumpers and hoods to have absorption capabilities to limit pedestrian injuries in the event of a crash.