We have spoken a lot about pedestrian fatalities over the years (here, here, and here are a few posts), and, if there is a general rule of thumb, it is that pedestrians are safer in dense urban environments where there are a lot of other people walking around.
But another important factor might be average vehicle size. Here is a recent study by Justin Tyndall that combined US pedestrian crash data with car sizes to come up with the effect of front-end vehicle height on pedestrian death probability. This is an important metric because larger/higher front-ends are more likely to fatally hit someone in their chest and/or head.
What was ultimately found was that a 10 cm increase in front-end height — which is really not a lot — causes a 22% increase in pedestrian fatality risk! Meaning that something as simple as reducing front-end heights could reduce pedestrian fatalities. By his estimation, a 1.25 m height cap would reduce US pedestrian deaths by about 509 people each year.
This is pretty interesting, especially considering that average car sizes seem to keep going up.
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