Grilled to death: How can we keep our community safe in a sea of mega-trucks?
Large vehicles are becoming larger. They block sight lines and cause far more bodily damage in a crash than smaller vehicles with sloped hoods. Photo: Heather Drugge
The sun was out and the skies were blue over the North Shore on a midweek afternoon in July. At the Lynn Valley Mall, kids were playing hide and seek behind the bear sculptures while coffee-sipping shoppers enjoyed the warm weather. In the parking lot, a freshly washed and detailed, white F150 was being squeezed into a parking spot by a man who looked to be your average suburban dad. He pulled forward into the roadway, then tried again as he maneuvered the colossal rig between two sedans. Drivers trying to exit the lot waited patiently as he struggled to fit in. Meanwhile, parents with kids in tow and shopping bags balanced, waited to cross into the lot as the scene unfolded. Finally, the F150 was backed in as far as it could go and things seemed to be ready to flow again. Except they weren’t.
The sheer length of the truck meant the tall hood stuck out a good two or three feet into the main access lane, leaving only a space the width of a single car to squeeze past at a time. And before anyone could make it through, around the corner rolled a clown-sized Hummer, piloted by a single driver looking impatient and rushed. The Hummer came to a dead stop as drivers staked their claim to passage and made their way past the F150. The shoppers looking to cross to or from the lot across the road scurried through while they could, hauling kids and strollers along the way. As the lot and the road came to a complete crawl, the horns started blaring and people looked frustrated and miffed that their otherwise glorious day had be shattered by a pair of oversized trucks. The best part? The driver of the F150 didn’t even get out of his rig. He was there to pick someone up.
The problem is this new breed of vehicles is deadly
While this sequence of events was nothing more than an inconvenience, the players in the story are increasingly common; oversized pickup trucks with excessively bloated hoods, restyled military transports, out of scale sport untility vehicles (SUV’s), and what seems to be an increase in jacked-up adventure machines designed for a spontaneous safari or bone-rattling off-road rip down a decommissioned service trail.
The problem is this new breed of vehicles is deadly. Deadly for our kids, our brothers and sisters, our moms and dads, cousins, friends, and neighbours. It’s this super-sizing of trucks, SUV’s, and even your average car that’s threatening our very life on our streets - even if we’re just grabbing a coffee at Lynn Valley Mall.
Local municipal governments are proposing solutions to this new threat to our community, however, the proposals we found focus on factors outside of how these bloated vehicles affect our safety.
What’s the danger?
Let’s start with some facts. Let’s say you and your child are crossing the road on a green light along Mount Seymour Parkway. A driver in a pickup fails to see you (for whatever reason) but is driving the speed limit. While this grimacing scenario is hard to imagine, what’s more tragic to consider is that your child would be twice as likely to suffer fatal injuries according to NHTSA Review of Literature Addressing Pedestrian Injury Risk and Motor Vehicle Characteristics. A car usually “knocks a child down.” A pickup often strikes their vital organs and head directly, which is why the risk of fatal or severe injury is so much higher. Here’s a chart to help detail how smaller cars are less dangerous to those being run over by drivers in trucks.
How did these massive trucks become so popular?
It all started with the light truck fuel economy exemption in the USA, which imposed looser requirements on light trucks (including pickups and SUVs) than on passenger cars. Then, dating to 1964, the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on imported light trucks in that shielded domestic automakers from foreign competition in the truck market, encouraging U.S. brands to dominate and expand the pickup segment. But more importantly, trucks were more profitable, so marketing teams got busy convincing your average mom or dad they needed a four-door pickup with heated seats and 12 speakers over some old sedan. Cue the size matters war, and pretty much everything in front of the windshield is designed to show an aggressive stance. Over the past 30 years, U.S. vehicles have grown significantly - on average, they are now 4 inches wider, 10 inches longer, 8 inches taller, and 1,000 pounds heavier than they were three decades ago. Did you know that in 2017, the hood height of a heavy-duty Ford F‑250 was measured at 55 inches, a level comparable to the roof height of many cars and taller than most average 9-year-old children. Meanwhile, the hood heights of passenger trucks have increased by at least 11% since 2000.
A comparison of the front view of a white Honda City sedan (2014–2019) next to a white GMC Yukon 5 SUV (2020–present). The Honda is shorter at 1.477 m tall and 1.694 m wide, while the GMC stands much taller at 1.943 m and is wider at 2.057 m. Source: Carsized
How is our government keeping us safe?
The reality is, all three levels struggle with keeping our communities safe from these monstrosities and “traffic” in general. The most obvious reason is the power of the car lobby. The most recent and glaring example of this came when the US-Canada tariff war began. Car makers were some of the first of the affected groups to bang on the desks of lawmakers, and didn’t have to wait long to get their costs reduced. While determining the size of the lobby in Canada, a review of the Global Automakers of Canada reveals no mention of vehicle size or weight.
The hood height on this truck is close to 5 feet. Photo: Heather Drugge
City of North Vancouver
Looking at local efforts, the City of North Vancouver’s (CNV) Safe Mobility Strategy considers people on or around streets to be a priority, there is no specific mention of seeking ways to reduce the dangers posed by these bloated trucks and SUV’s. While “Design Safe Streets” is one of their self-titled ‘Big Moves’, the details relating to this objective do not directly address the fact that Canada’s most popular selling vehicle has been demonstrated to be the most dangerous on the road. There is no acknowledgment in the city’s strategy that the danger these trucks pose needs to be addressed and dealt with.
District of North Vancouver
The District of North Vancouver (DNV) has a similar proposed solution in the district’s Transportation Plan. The bottom line? The plan does talk about making streets safer for vulnerable users (pedestrians, cyclists, seniors, children), but it does not single out oversized personal vehicles as a distinct hazard, nor does it propose targeted remedies for them.
District of West Vancouver
Over at the District of West Vancouver road safety framework includes traffic calming, 30 km/h speed reductions, and school zone safety assessments. Despite robust traffic-safety and active-transportation initiatives, none of West Vancouver’s documents explicitly target the unique risks posed by oversized consumer vehicles. There are no regulations or design standards that address issues like sight-line obstruction, hood height impacts, or collision point severity for pedestrians.
How do our three municipalities compare?
While the City of North Vancouver’s Safe Mobility Strategy takes a Vision Zero–inspired approach to road safety, explicitly focusing on how street design can protect the most vulnerable, both the District of North Vancouver and the District of West Vancouver fall short in one important respect. Their transportation plans emphasize traffic calming, emissions reduction, and improved options for walking, cycling, and transit. West Vancouver has also introduced targeted measures like speed reductions and stricter permitting rules for oversized commercial vehicles. These are all positive steps, but neither municipality addresses the unique dangers posed by oversized consumer vehicles such as high-hooded pickup trucks and large SUVs.
With oversized vehicles now dominating Canadian sales—and their designs linked to higher rates of pedestrian deaths, especially among children—this omission is significant. Without acknowledging how vehicle size and design contribute to risk, local safety strategies risk overlooking one of the fastest-growing threats on our streets.
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