Bigger is better or so the mantra goes. There’s an exception to be made though when it comes to the huge growth in SUVs. Expanding vehicle size is a part of a systematic push from auto manufacturers to sell their most profitable models — but the costs don’t end on the sales lot. Instead, the surge in both in size and quantity in pickup trucks and SUVs pose substantial risks to life, to the environment and to our wallets.
As reported by Bloomberg’s CityLab, while road deaths across high-income countries have been significantly falling over the past few decades, the United States has become a road safety anomaly. From its position as a road safety leader in the 1970s, now, only Saudi Arabia and the Bahamas have less safe roadways in the high-income group — and a Swedish road user is around seven times safer than an American.
The surge in both in size and quantity in pickup trucks and SUVs pose substantial risks to life, to the environment and to our wallets.
Pedestrian deaths in the U.S. have risen by 75% since 2009, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. A new analysis from the IISH and The New York Times found that pickup trucks and SUVs growing larger over that period are a significant contributor to that rise. Massive changes in vehicle shape, increases in weight and decreases in driver visibility are all also contributing factors to this worrying trend.
First, longer, higher hoods can extend blind spots to more than 14 feet, two to three times larger than the front blind zones of most sedans and compact cars. Stellantis’ Ram TRX pickup truck’s hood, for example, is taller than the average 9-year-old, compared to the now-discontinued VW Golf, which offers a clear line of sight to an average 4 1/2-year-old standing in front of the hood. A recent investigation from NBC News4 in Washington found that it took 10 sitting children lined up one after the other for the last one to be seen by a driver at the wheel of a typical SUV.
In a crash, the design of larger vehicles plays a massive role in whether a vulnerable road user, such as a pedestrian or cyclist, will survive. Higher-fronted cars typically strike adult pedestrians above the center of gravity, first hitting vital organs and are then more likely for the victim to be knocked under the car, rather than pushed to the side. According to one recent study, just a 4-inch increase in front-end height was associated with a 22% increase in the odds of fatality for pedestrians. The Times likewise recently estimated that up to 400 more pedestrians would have survived each year if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century.
And where America leads, the rest of the world follows. The appetite for larger vehicles globally has increased, with SUVs accounting for more than half of new car sales. In Europe, there has been year-on-year growth in SUV’s popularity since 2000, with road deaths predicted to be 2,600 higher by 2040 due to increasing car sizes. This growth also poses a particular challenge for urban spaces with older cities struggling to deal with the space needed by these vehicles.
Supersize SUVs aren’t just bad for public safety, but as energy drains, larger, heavier vehicles need more energy to move, costing consumers more at the pump, creating more air pollution and contributing more to our growing climate challenge. In the past year alone, SUV drivers have seen fuel costs skyrocket by up to $630 annually, according to the Global Fuel Economy Initiative, in part thanks to major spikes in oil prices. Further, the shift to larger vehicles has damaged progress on climate action as energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions could have fallen 30% more between 2010 and 2022 if, globally, vehicles had just stayed the same size.
A mixture of incentives and regulation is needed to help quash the unmitigated growth of these automotive behemoths.
According to the Institute for Traffic and Development Policy, adopting policies that would limit continued growth in private passenger vehicle size would save consumers up to $130 billion a year at the gas pump by 2050. At the same time annual greenhouse gas emissions would decrease by up to 48 megatons, PM2.5 emissions would decrease by up to 1 kiloton (4%) and annual road deaths would decline by up to 11%.
However simply telling people that their car choice poses a risk to others in a range of ways does not appear to lead to changes in buying choices, at least not in the United Kingdom. Instead, a mixture of incentives and regulation is needed to help quash the unmitigated growth of these automotive behemoths.
Tackling vehicle size at a city level, where pedestrians and cars are more likely to mix, and the need to move across rugged terrain is limited, is an increasingly popular option. In 2025, Paris voted to triple parking costs for SUVs, which, complemented by massive investment in safe cycling infrastructure, more pedestrianization, and robust public transport, is reshaping how people move in that city. The new policy is also, as with the ultra-low emission zone in London, helping to shape the vehicle purchase choices of consumers —but it is not enough on its own.
In short, bigger cars cost more to run, put more pressure on our energy supplies, take a toll on our air quality, contribute to the climate crisis and contribute to more deaths in road traffic incidents than would be the case with smaller vehicles. Accordingly, everyone from policymakers to consumers needs to think bigger about the challenges that this supersizing presents. It will take bigger ambitions, bigger policy changes and a bigger resolve to place safety and sustainability over style and profits to bring the monsters lurching through the streets back down to a more manageable size.
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