Are there any vehicle regulations designed to protect pedestrians or cyclists? A quick search of "pedestrian" in the FMVSS returns nothing [1]. We can't blame automakers for marketing whatever they think will sell best that passes the regulatory bar. If new regulations would be helpful, let's make them.<p>What would it look like to optimize for pedestrian safety? The new USPS truck [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/fmvss" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/fmvss</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/23/22297823/usps-postal-service-mail-truck-electric-oshkosh-workhorse" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/23/22297823/usps-postal-serv...</a>
Humans are mauled every day by cars. I think general awareness of this is lower than it should be, as is the desire to do something about it.<p>Perhaps this hyperfocus on the Cybertruck will help jumpstart a larger shift in public opinion on general automobile-pedestrian safety?
The concern about the Cybertruck seems disproportionate to the dangers of millions of heavy, low visibility, high front-bumper vehicles on the roads right now.
For some reason they're called "bumpers" instead of "slicers" or "crushers" and frankly I just think that's just a failure of language not being able to keep up with the blazingly fast pace of transportation technology over the decades and decades. /s but not really
This is from Tesla, the U.S. company which has been shipping a half baked safety critical feature under the name Autopilot/Full Self Driving for years, with no government pushback.<p>America is basically the wild west. Whether you're a pedestrian or in another car, you're on your own.
Just to add, it seems like the overwhelming concern i hear expressed is for pedestrians.<p>I'm also a bit concerned in general with the trend of vehicle on vehicle collisions. Cars are adding a good fraction of a ton of batteries, and that's somewhat terrifying: that a cars inertia is so much higher than it used to be. Now instead of a car with well designed crumple zones we have a car designed by some lunaric to go out and win Robot Wars, designed for Mad Max car combat?<p>In the US, we have trouble with bad visibility & vehicle heights that send pedestrians under. But there at least been a somewhat civil world where we don't have giant swinging blades and cleavers attached to cars. It's hard to see the cybertrucks design as anything but something out of Carmageddon, as flauting the at least semi polite society we lived & building something <i>terrible</i>. With the added vehicle masses at play, it feels like we could start to see some incredibly terrible vehicle on vehicle colossions too, not that we don't already have enough vehicle based horrors to haunt us.
No mention of the AEB system on modern cars?<p>AEB is a system, not just on Teslas, that will stomp on the brakes if the vehicle is about to plow into a person. The Cybertruck has this. It helps.
<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212737005/cars-trucks-pedestrian-deaths-increase-crash-data" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212737005/cars-trucks-pedest...</a><p>Bumper height plays a far bigger role in pedestrian fatality than hardness of the vehicle shell. Cybertruck's bumper is significantly lower than pretty much every other pickup truck out there.
This is a rather one sided discussion here. Aside from the fsd hysteria, the camera set and current functionality for automatic breaking may significantly reduce front impact to pedestrians. I also feel it is disingenuous for no one to mention how dramatically lower the front “grill” is compared to other trucks and many cars. the sharp angle is a concern(see, give evidence of a balanced view). overall, the low and regularly sloped hood is probably a better situation than many here are guessing. unless your boots are stuck in the mud, people carry the majority of their weight above the bumper of the cybertruck- this really changes the dynamics, suddenly you’re sliding up a perfectly smooth slope. obviously still some questions about how the steel will respond and hardness is a concern still. but perhaps the equation changing doesn’t mean it its for the worse, many parts and pieces come together in something fairly novel here.
> "The big problem there is if they really make the skin of the vehicle very stiff by using thick stainless steel, then when people hit their heads on it, it's going to cause more damage to them," said Adrian Lund, the former president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), whose vehicle crash tests are an industry standard.<p>Who is hitting their head (and on what) in this sentence? Clearly there are no such thing as soft cars when it comes to human skulls?
Pseudo-journalism at its best. There's nothing special about the CT's pedestrian safety compared to all the other massive trucks on US roads.
what… is the point of this article? some randos raised “concerns”? classic journo-trash. not a cybertruck afficionado by any means, but… come the fuck on.
That's all the experts came up with?<p>Expert 1:<p>>Samer Hamdar raised concerns about limited "crumple zones," but added that other features might make up for that.<p>Innovative vehicle design could challenge traditional safety paradigms like crumple zones. I guess we'll have to check the extent of the compensatory shock-absorbtion mechanisms.<p>Expert 2:<p>>"If you're in a crash with another vehicle that has a crumple zone and your car is more stiff, then their cars are going to crush and yours is resistant."<p>A stiffer structure could also protect the occupants better by deforming to a lesser degree? We're entering somewhat paradoxical territory with this criticism.<p>Expert 3:<p>>The heavy weight of the trucks and their high acceleration "raise red flags for non-occupants."<p>Heavy weight vehicles aren't a new phenomenon in the automotive industry, right? I'm uncertain about how this safety hazard is specifically unique to the Cybertruck, as opposed to many other vehicles.