Oh, look: 
Pedestrian deaths have also skyrocketed over a similar time period. Up by 70% from 2010 to 2023.
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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How are they breaking out car SUVs vs truck SUVs?
I think it's compact SUVs.
I guess my question is more about what constitutes a "truck suv". There is no way that SUV built on a truck frame out number SUVs built on car unibody frames by that much.
Many SUVs are built/classified as light trucks so businesses can get a tax break on a work vehicle, and so the emissions standards are easier to meet
The “car SUVs” and “truck SUVs” categories sound a bit nebulous, but they all encompass crossovers and SUVs, albeit in ways that might seem odd
https://www.theautopian.com/heres-the-exact-year-suv-sales-overtook-sedan-sales-in-america/
There's some discussion of that point later in the article, i believe.
I'm not saying I disagree... but I would be curious how this chart compared with a chart of "number of cyclists" or "distance covered by cyclists" over the same period....
Some additional items to look at might be non fatal accidents, are cyclists just as likely to be hit by cars, but more likely to die because of the increase in size of car, reduction in helmet use, or increased shared road speeds?
@Carawou is this the absolute number of cyclist? Because if so I think this plot is completely useless
Give the deaths per million or something like that to be useful
What happened in 2010?
The original iPhone released in 2007, so I'd assume something to do with distracted driving.
Doesn't explain it, as you'd then expect a rise that plateaus. I think the explanation of megacars is more plausble.
That's so a super fair thought. I'd be interested to see a chart of when bumper height started increasing vs this.
While smart phone adoption may have plateaued there may be continued increase in distracted driving. Smart phone adoption had the greatest increase between about 2010 and 2016 from 35-75% of US adults who say they own a smart phone, but the number of people who use their phones while driving may have continued to rise.
Especially as younger drivers are more comfortable with smart phone use over all, instant response and connection is expected, and apps have become more distracting.
I never thought that a bunch of words could channel that much boomer energy.
What happened around 2010 that made driving so much more dangerous?
Big trucks and SUV loopholes probably
Sorry, I thought that question would be functionally rhetorical in this group.
Smartphones. The answer is smartphones.
It's so incredible how fucking wrong you are, my belly hurts from laughing. I'm fucking serious.
Those existed well before 2010. I had owned multiple Palm, Windows, and Android smartphones before 2010. By then I think I was on a Motorola Droid 2 or 3.
Mass adoption of these devices, you are an outlier
I don't think your argument holds up very well looking at the actual stats on smartphone adoption, even after 2010 they were not ubiquitous: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
It seems much more likely to be connected to vehicle trends (not that distracted driving helps).
The NHTSA did troves of studies on this, it’s kinda telling the adoption of smart phones on your graph kinda correlates here.
Cars were getting bigger already.
Pontiac ran the wider is better campaign.
My bet is:
- more distracted driving
- larger trucks/SUVs
- more elderly drivers
Or a combo of all 3