The EU has been urged to place limits on the ever-increasing height of car bonnets in order to improve road safety for pedestrians, especially children.
Recent analysis from the Transport & Environment (T&E) advocacy group found that, on average, car makers have been increasing the bonnet height in newly sold cars by roughly half a centimetre a year – reaching 83.8cm in 2024 compared with 76.9cm in 2010.
But it warned that the increase is leading to a greater number of accidents that can also incur a higher fatality risk for pedestrians. This is because higher bonnets both impair road vision for drivers while worsening the severity of collisions.
The analysis shows that high-bonneted SUVs and pick-up trucks typically strike adult pedestrians above the centre of gravity when involved in crashes, often first hitting vital organs in the body’s core, with a higher likelihood of knocking them forward and down, and a greater risk of driving over them. On the other hand, low bonnets tend...