You can't really compare the two. Vehicle safety regulations might not be able to make up for the USA having stroads and in general bad design. For the same reasons trying to move safety standards over could make things even worse than the USA due to them not fitting the conditions.

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fabian2k 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If this were comparing absolute numbers I'd agree. But this is only the relative change over a few years, the road design hasn't seriously changed in that time. So those differences should affect these numbers directly.

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beAbU 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Many places in Europe has bad design as well. This is not a uniquely american thing.

	▲	otikik 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What you are saying is true, but it isn't the whole truth. In Europe, some stroads exist. The rest are streets or roads. In the US, some streets exist. The rest are stroads or roads.

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herbst 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Do you actually think that is the case? Because you have big streets and cars, small cars and actual safety standards would make it less safe?

That's the most American sentiment I've heard today

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VBprogrammer 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Whether they like it or not, American cars have become a lot more European over the years. I wish I had figures to back it up but from my own anecdotal experience when we traveled to the US when I was young almost every car was different and, for me at least, this made it feel strange and exciting.

Taking my own kids back there this year, most of the normal cars were common, or at most variations of the ones from Europe. Even many of the vans and work vehicles are now common European shapes, occasionally with a different badge. Trucks and full size SUVs were the last hold outs of US specific models.

Which makes me wonder, are the pedestrian deaths really heavily weighted towards these models?

For what it's worth we hired a full sized SUV. There was one point where I was about to drive out of our Villa's driveway when my partner shouted "wait!" There was a 8ish year old kid walking down the sidewalk towards where I was about to cross it who was completely invisible from the driving position. It was actually safer to forward park that thing because the visibility in the reversing camera was much better than driving forward.

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kelnos an hour ago | parent | next [-]

As an American who sometimes travels to Europe and sees and rents cars there, my experience has not matched with yours.

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silon42 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The problem of poor visibility due to fat A-pillars is not limited to large SUVs, it's a problem on normal cars too.

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herbst 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Anecdotally you got a different impression of the cars than 10 or 20 years ago.

	▲	VBprogrammer 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes. Congratulations, it appears you can read.