Drivers Could See Twice As Much In The ‘90s Than They Can In Some SUVs Today

Pedestrian and cyclists fatalities are skyrocketing and poor front-end visibility might be partly to blame

As pedestrian and cyclist fatalities continue to rise (up 37 and 42 percent over the past 25 years, respectively) researchers are looking more closely at what’s changed on the roads. One increasingly obvious factor is visibility.

As cars have grown larger and more stylized, seeing out of them has become harder. A new study takes a closer look at just how limited that view has become and introduces a standardized way to measure it.

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The latest research, conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), analyzed 17 vehicles across six nameplates. It wanted to see how blind spots have changed over the years, so it gathered each generation of the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Suburban, Honda Accord and CR-V, Toyota Camry, and Jeep Grand Cherokee from 1997 and 2023. Then, it set up a 360-degree camera system where the driver’s eyes would be. The resulting imagery painted a bleak picture.

A Clearer Look at What Drivers Can’t See

Within a 10-meter radius, visibility fell as much as 58 percent for the SUVs over that period. The F-150 saw visibility fall just 17 percent, but the IIHS points out that it was already pretty bad to begin with back in 1997. Interestingly, the cars came out better with an overall decrease in visibility of under 8 percent.

“The across-the-board decrease in visibility for this small group of models is concerning. We need to investigate whether this is a broader trend that may have contributed to the recent spike in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities,” IIHS President David Harkey said. “This study also illustrates that the new method developed by IIHS gives researchers a straightforward, repeatable way to assess driver visibility,” he added.

What the Numbers Show

Digging deeper into the study, we find some interesting points. The Honda CR-V saw visibility diminish more than any of the other models. Drivers of the 1997 CR-V could see 68 percent of the area 10 meters ahead. For drivers of the 2022 model, that figure drops to just 28 percent. Suburban drivers saw a similar drop from 56 percent of the area being visible to just 28 percent in 2023.

In both cases, tall hoods and oversized side mirrors are key contributors to the problem, according to the IIHS. These design changes obstruct the frontal view and areas near the car’s corners, making it harder for drivers to detect nearby pedestrians or cyclists.

Sedans Show Minimal Change

The smallest decreases in visibility came from the Accord and Camry where the change was so small that it falls within the margin of error. “These results are notable because we already know that the portion of SUVs in the U.S. fleet grew substantially over these years as well,” said IIHS Senior Research Engineer Becky Mueller, who led the development of the new mapping technique and is a co-author of the Volpe Center study.

“If further research confirms that these changes reflect a general change, that would suggest that declining visibility in SUVs has compounded the effects of taller, blunt-nosed vehicles that IIHS has already documented.”

If anything, this data serves as another reminder that vehicle design choices, especially those that reduce driver visibility, come with serious trade-offs. And perhaps, with more attention on the issue, it could spark renewed interest in designing cars that don’t just look impressive but help drivers see what’s right in front of them.