Best Cars to Get Hit By as a Pedestrian

Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.

Today, we start with a quiz. What do these cars have in common?

  • Mazda CX-3
  • Volvo V40
  • Infiniti Q30
  • BMW Z4
  • Mazda MX-5

If you said they are the best cars for pedestrians to get hit by, you are fully woke.[1]

Why? According to an article in CarBuzz (by Jared Rosenholtz), they have better braking and, more importantly, are generally low to the ground.[2] The Europeans enforce things like this.

If they do hit you, they are more likely to scoop you off the ground and slide you over the hood (and the windshield, depending on the speed). If there’s any merit in it, they are nice looking cars, which, I suppose, is like looking down the barrel of a beautiful gun.

  • Mazda CX-3
    2017 Mazda CX-3 Sport NAV Automatic 2.0 Front

  • Volvo V40
    This comes with a pedestrian airbag! Skeptical? Read Volvo’s explanation.
    2013 Volvo V40 (MY13) T4 Kinetic hatchback (2015-12-07) 01

  • Infiniti Q30
    2017 Infiniti Q30 SE Diesel 1.5 Front

  • BMW Z4
    BMW Z4, Paris Motor Show 2018, Paris (1Y7A1387)

  • Mazda MX-5
    2015 Mazda MX-5 (ND) Roadster GT convertible (2018-10-30) 01

More importantly, here are some cars you do not want to get hit by, ever! They include any vehicle that’s likely to run over, not under you. And, of course, children are at greater risk.

SUV
BMW X2 Genf 2018

Pickup Truck
Dodge Ram

Vehicles with Bull Bars
Ostensibly mounted to protect the vehicle, these bars only worsen the chances of a pedestrian or bicyclist surviving a collision.[3]
Oregon State Police car

Bull bar roo bar on b double

1976 Volkswagen Kombi (T2) (40107027615)

That’s all for now, folks! Stay well!

 

____Footnotes____

[1] To my daughter in southern Colorado I owe the use of this word, which spoken about a dozen times sounds fine, assuring me that I am finally staying woke. For a little history, see merriam-webster.com.

[2] “These are the Six Best Cars to Get Runover By,” by Jared Rosenholtz, in Carbuzz. While the title states six cars, the article lists only five, the sixth perhaps being the Mini Cooper that is pictured with a crash-test dummy in front of it.

[3] According to “Should Law Subsidize Driving?”, “[A]ftermarket apparatuses such as bull bars—large metal bars added increasingly to the front of police cars, ostensibly to reduce damage to the police vehicle—are not regulated by U.S. law, even though they effectively defeat certain measures required by regulation. Researchers have concluded that bull bars ‘increase the severity of injuries to vulnerable road users’ and ‘result in an increased risk of pedestrian injury and mortality in crashes'” (p. 65, June 2019 version).