This is mainly about A pillars, but one related problem I noticed and went through in particular are cars getting taller. Not just to sit in, but the entire body.
My wife is only about 5' tall which to be fair is fairly short, but she can't see over the hood on most new cars. Said another way, if a toddler were standing directly in front of the car she wouldn't see it. Even if she were closer to average height, I can see it still being a problem. Luckily we found a 2024 with a hood that sloped down towards the front bumper, solving the issue. The 2025 of the same make decided to flatten and box off the hood, causing the aforementioned problem.
And this is on a compact car. I have to imagine trucks, SUVs, and crossovers are even worse in this regard. I'm sure most of us have read stories about a person hitting a child that they didn't even see, and it's easy to see how.
It seems a lot of new cars are coming with pedestrian detection, but it feels like having a front camera that works like the rear camera when coming out of a stop would be beneficial if we insist on making them so tall.
I remember reading a story some time ago about a girl’s invention: wrapping some kind of foil around a pillars and using camera’s to project the outside view on the foil.
My first car was a 1992 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme S, which I got in 2010 and drove for three years before it bit the dust. It was an absolute boat but it was fun to drive, and I could see virtually 360°. I never once in the time I had it had any vision issues.
My next car I got in 2021 was a 2007 Prius. It has a super thick A-pillar in a really terrible spot that makes turning left quite stressful. The turning radius is amazing and I love driving what these days is considered a "compact car", but I absolutely loathe the A-pillar. I am constantly dancing in my seat to see around it, and will check both ways 4 or 5 times before crossing roads from a side street because my field of view is so limited.
I've always mused about whether reducing vision for the sake of crash safety actually ends up resulting in more accidents. Is it better to try to prevent accidents by improving visibility or mitigate harm in the event of an accident (which seems more and more like an inevitability these days where I live where there's virtually zero traffic enforcement; I see red-light runners multiple times per day, and a section of our city highway with 55 mph speed limit has the entire traffic stream going 75)?
I could talk for days about the design of modern cars in the US...
My wife is only about 5' tall which to be fair is fairly short, but she can't see over the hood on most new cars. Said another way, if a toddler were standing directly in front of the car she wouldn't see it. Even if she were closer to average height, I can see it still being a problem. Luckily we found a 2024 with a hood that sloped down towards the front bumper, solving the issue. The 2025 of the same make decided to flatten and box off the hood, causing the aforementioned problem.
And this is on a compact car. I have to imagine trucks, SUVs, and crossovers are even worse in this regard. I'm sure most of us have read stories about a person hitting a child that they didn't even see, and it's easy to see how.
It seems a lot of new cars are coming with pedestrian detection, but it feels like having a front camera that works like the rear camera when coming out of a stop would be beneficial if we insist on making them so tall.
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(EDIT) Found it: https://www.carscoops.com/2019/11/14-year-old-girl-finds-nov...
My next car I got in 2021 was a 2007 Prius. It has a super thick A-pillar in a really terrible spot that makes turning left quite stressful. The turning radius is amazing and I love driving what these days is considered a "compact car", but I absolutely loathe the A-pillar. I am constantly dancing in my seat to see around it, and will check both ways 4 or 5 times before crossing roads from a side street because my field of view is so limited.
I've always mused about whether reducing vision for the sake of crash safety actually ends up resulting in more accidents. Is it better to try to prevent accidents by improving visibility or mitigate harm in the event of an accident (which seems more and more like an inevitability these days where I live where there's virtually zero traffic enforcement; I see red-light runners multiple times per day, and a section of our city highway with 55 mph speed limit has the entire traffic stream going 75)?
I could talk for days about the design of modern cars in the US...