In celebration of its 100-year anniversary, Automotive News has been running a series of news articles that “honor our legacy by connecting topics of today with our historical coverage as we look ahead to the next 100 years.”
This is a good idea in theory, but the trade journal has thus far shown that its journalistic chops are quite limited when reaching beyond routine coverage.
As a case in point, Pete Bigelow (2025) recently wrote a piece on traffic deaths that focused inordinately on automated-driving technologies such as self-driving cars. Although the story acknowledged the limitations of that technology, it mostly steered clear of discussing alternative ways to reduce fatalities.
Bigelow did not mention that in recent years U.S. traffic deaths have increased at the same time that they have declined in other nations. From 2013 to 2022, U.S. pedestrian fatalities grew by 50 percent whereas they fell in Germany by 25 percent, Australia by 17 percent and Canada by 14 percent (Naumann et.al, 2025).
U.S. has been slow to regulate pedestrian safety
One reason why U.S. fatalities have grown may be due to the federal government’s slowness in requiring changes to hood designs of new vehicles that are in sync with global standards developed by the United Nations in 2008 (Brown, 2024).
The European Union added pedestrian safety tests to its crash rating more than two decades ago. In recent years Australia, China and Japan have also done so (Zipper, 2022).
One of the last actions of President Biden was to publish new pedestrian safety standards (NHTSA, 2024). The wild card is whether these are vulnerable to current President Trump’s call for regulatory rollbacks and budget cuts (Charniga and Lawrence, 2025).
While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s proposed regulations could reduce the likelihood of death from a head impact to a vehicle, Smart Growth America has argued that the standards are obsolete.
Also see ‘NHTSA and automakers drag their feet on pedestrian safety’
“Unfortunately, this rule fails to take modern vehicle design into account. NHTSA needs to look beyond just hood design and examine how today’s larger or heavier vehicles pose different threats to people walking,” argued Nora Brown (2024).
Even the NHTSA noted in its rule-making announcement that in 2020 trucks and multipurpose vehicles accounted for almost as many fatalities as passenger cars (NHTSA, 2024; p. 23).
Average U.S. vehicle size has grown in last 30 years
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has found that vehicles with both tall and medium-height front ends can be particularly dangerous.
“Whatever their nose shape, pickups, SUVs and vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches are about 45 percent more likely to cause fatalities in pedestrian crashes than cars and other vehicles with a hood height of 30 inches or less and a sloping profile, an IIHS (2023) study of nearly 18,000 pedestrian crashes found. However, among vehicles with hood heights between 30 and 40 inches, a blunt, or more vertical, front end increases the risk to pedestrians.”
The IIHS also noted that in the last 30 years the average U.S. vehicle has grown four inches wider, 10 inches longer, eight inches taller and 1,000 pound heavier. “On some large pickups, the hoods are almost at eye level for many adults,” the IIHS (2023) noted. That presumably makes it harder for a driver to see pedestrians.
Why won’t Automotive News do serious journalism?
Since Automotive News is supposedly exploring long-term trends, one would think that it would discuss how major changes in vehicle size, weight and design have impacted pedestrian safety. Yet Bigelow (2025) was silent on that topic, instead devoting an entire section of his article to Waymo’s self-driving technology.
If Automotive News considers it taboo to talk about how cars have gotten so big, I assume that an even more taboo topic is how Europe nations have lowered traffic death rates partly through more multimodal transportation systems. And while vehicles have also gotten larger in other countries, higher gasoline taxes or weight-based fees have arguably reduced their growth in popularity (Zipper, 2022).
In short, Automotive News has once again shown that it doesn’t have very strong journalistic chops when it tries to go beyond routine coverage. And that raises the question: With the cost of a subscription going up, what exactly are we paying for? (Go here for further discussion.)
Automotive News reminds me of General Motors in the 1980s. It is still the dominant player within its immediate field, but it is being increasingly outclassed by media outlets in the broader business press.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Bigelow, Pete; 2025. “Traffic deaths show no signs of abating despite years of tech advances.” Automotive News (subscription required). Posted March 24.
- Brown, Nora; 2024. “The US could catch up to an international safety standard, but bold action is still needed.” Smart Growth America. Posted Nov. 15.
- Charniga, Jackie and Eric D. Lawrence; 2025. “NHTSA culls 4% of staff as DOGE cuts hit auto safety agency.” Detroit Free Press. Posted Feb. 24.
- IIHS; 2023. “Vehicles with higher, more vertical front ends pose greater risk to pedestrians.” Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Posted Nov. 14.
- Naumann, Rebecca B. et. al; 2025. “Pedestrian and Overall Road Traffic Crash Deaths — United States and 27 Other High-Income Countries, 2013–2022.” CDC. Posted March 13.
- NHTSA; 2024. “NRPM Pedestrian Head Protection Standard.” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Published Sept. 1.
- Zipper, David; 2022. “US Traffic Safety Is Getting Worse, While Other Countries Improve.” Bloomberg. Posted Nov. 3.
Be the first to comment