41% of vehicle deaths are people not even in a car[1]. Yet car safety regulation is heavily focused on the 59% that are, nothing to regulate the ridiculous gender-affirming hood heights or aftermarket lifts that turn a survivable collision into a deadly collision.
[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... Table 1, paragraph above
The data even points to the fact that, by total vehicles vs vehicles that cause pedestrian deaths, regular passenger cars cause 19.9 pedestrian deaths per 1MM registered vehicles while trucks, as and entire category, cause 19.2 pedestrians deaths per 1MM registered vehicles.
"nothing to regulate" is also an exaggeration. Many states to regulate aftermarket lifts. 6" lifts are typically the maximum legally allowed limit for trucks like the F150. You only see them higher because there is no enforcement of the rule.
Unenforced rules effectively don't exist. Selectively enforced rules are a focal point for discrimination and corruption. I don't think you're making the argument you think you are.
I don’t think you meant literally “all”, but one that comes to mind that definitely is intended for pedestrian safety is around requiring that EVs make audible noises when they’re moving at slow speeds (the fake humming as they move forward, and the beeping as they reverse).
Most regular SUVs should be taken off the road.
Look at this example: a dozen kids aligned in a neat row in front of the SUV and the soccer mom drivers can see none of them!
https://www.nbcwashington.com/investigations/driveway-danger...
My thought: demand a certain level of visibility from car manufacturers, and they can figure out how to design around it. Like, I must be able to look left and see the pedestrian 3 feet away from walking into my car. Blind spots like that in the front are ridiculous
However I think your EV examples shows an important attitude about what types of vehicles can be regulated. EVs are fair game for regulation, oversize trucks and SUVs are not. That's an attitude not based on safety, but on societal priorities.
This two-class system extends even beyond safety regulations, into emissions regulations too. Trucks and oversize SUVs get a free-ride out of everybody else in society.
In the old days, reflectors and diffractors were rather crude and light distribution wasn't even at all. Regulation was setting a light intensity limit for the arc above the cutoff, assuming that the brightest spots would be just that, unintended brightness outliers. And when those would comply with the limit, the typical brightness hitting the eyes of oncoming traffic would be much lower.
Now reflector design is SO much better manufacturers striving to make their buyers happy can make lights pushing out photons exactly at that old regulatory limit over the entire cutoff area, and with a precise jump where the cuttoff stops. That's awesome for the person behind the wheel ("best lights I ever had!"), technically within the old limits and a terribly blinding for everybody else.
Styling works against us too. The ability to control the geometry of the light beam improves with the size of the optics relative to the emitter, but people want a car with sexy little lights.
I designed optics for lighting in a past life, though never for an automotive application. This issue is actually on my radar because of the blinding brightness of bike lights on the local bike paths.