Recently I had the good fortune of taking Elon Musk’s ‘Pedestrian Death Machine’ — the CyberTruck — for a joyride.
Setting aside any aesthetic criticism, the CyberTruck is an impressive machine. With rear-wheel steering, a stainless-steel exterior, and an unrivaled 500 miles of range, the specs really do speak for themselves. But this vehicle is also a reflection of a growing trend in the US auto industry: size matters.
Consumers continue to grow more and more concerned about road safety as new data shows that passengers in larger vehicles are more likely to survive collisions. In fact, 15 of the 20 car models with the highest death rate in 2017 were classified as small cars or mini cars (IIHS). This has sparked a vicious arms race among automobile manufacturers to churn out bigger, bulkier vehicles.
Imagine that two cars are involved in a head-on collision at 40 mph. One is a beefy, 9,900lb Ford F-350; the other, a dainty, 4000lb Kia Soul. In accordance with the laws of physics, the Ford F-350 will leave behind a mangled spatter of steel, plastic and polyurethane foam strewn across the highway like the innards of an antelope on the African plain. It’s a kind of demented natural selection playing out before our eyes every day. One driver gets a headache, the other becomes a data point on a spreadsheet for an actuary at GEICO. Ostensibly, all that is missing from this evolutionary spectacle is the David Attenborough narration and a BBC camera crew.
Real photo of a Kia Soul taking flight after running over a tire
Consumers prefer safer cars, and safer cars require additional size to accommodate safer features. Airbags, crumple zones, and safety cells are spatially demanding yet effective solutions for reducing injuries & fatalities at high speeds. But what happens when a vehicle with the latest-and-greatest safety features collides with a consumer-grade tank like the CyberTruck? How does an auto-manufacturer adapt to this new mutation in the food chain?
If one were to apply the same historical approach to safety design, they would need to sufficiently armor the next generation of vehicles to survive this new apex predator. Bulletproof glass and stainless-steel plating would become the new normal.
As it turns out, there's a much more effective way to improve road safety -- though it comes at the expense of something that the public may not want to sacrifice: speed.
The fact is, at high-enough speeds, even the smallest of sedans will obliterate every conceivable safety feature or mechanism that could in theory be added to a vehicle. It’s bullet vs. pillowcase.
A graph demonstrating how likely you are to survive a collision at various speeds
But the solution isn't as simple as just lowering speed-limits across the board. Tackling the speed problem will first require tackling the lesser-known street design problem. The Federal Highway Administration and local municipalities tend to prioritize speed over safety when designing roads, leading to wider lanes, faster speed limits, and, ultimately, more fatalities.
The issue isn't with freeways, either. If you live in most urban developments in the US, you are familiar with the arterial roadways that cut through downtown areas. These are the multi-lane streets lined with storefronts and main-street destinations, with signalized crosswalks and high-speed limits. These high-capacity urban roadways make up 15% of our road infrastructure, yet account for 70% of pedestrian deaths.
A Typical Arterial Roadway
The reason the Vehicular Arms Race exists is because auto manufacturers and regulators are focusing on addressing symptoms of safety issues, rather than tackling the root causes. As a result, we're seeing higher car prices, rising insurance premiums, and, perhaps most concerning of all, an increase in vehicle fatalities.
Narrowing the roads and lowering speed-limits will save lives and save money -- but until that happens, we can expect to see the evolutionary mechanism favor increasingly larger and stronger vehicles.
At this point, if Chevrolet unveiled a brand-new Sherman Tank for their 2025 product line, I would hardly bat an eye.
It would be the perfect family vehicle for safely navigating the suburban sprawl.
Doubling Down
Given recent trends, auto manufacturers could explore several innovative solutions to win the Vehicular Arms Race, such as:
Backwards-facing thermite launchers to prevent rear-end collisions
Spiked paneling to keep other vehicles at bay
Explosive charges along the frame for mutually assured destruction
Sure, it’s not the most pragmatic vision for the future, but it isn’t too dissimilar in principle to the current design ethos among auto manufacturers.
Written by Sam Louwrens
Lead Editor
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