Have you ever heard the saying 鈥淚 felt like I鈥檇 been hit by a bus鈥�?

Sure. It鈥檚 a nice simile. Buses have heft. That鈥檚 why you never hear anyone say 鈥淚 felt like I鈥檇 been hit by a two-door Fiat.鈥�

Obviously, it鈥檚 better not to be hit by any motorized vehicle 鈥� even a Vespa can ruin your day and send you home on crutches. But if you had to pick, you鈥檇 choose the compact hatchback over the bus, right?

The thing is, we鈥檙e actually choosing some bad options for cars when it comes to pedestrian safety in North America. Too many drivers are trying to get as close to 鈥渂us鈥� as they can when it comes to their personal vehicle choices 鈥� and it鈥檚 literally killing people.

A study last year by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that deaths from crashes were going in the opposite directions in the United States. The number of people killed in vehicular crashes had dropped from 50,000 a year in 1980 to 35,560 in 2018.

That鈥檚 great news! All those seatbelt laws and Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaigns, all those crumple zones and crash-test dummy impact studies are actually paying off! Despite there being more cars on the roads, fewer people are dying in them!

Unfortunately, there鈥檚 a flip side to that. If people inside cars are safer than ever, people outside cars are dying at increasing rates.

The number of pedestrians killed by cars and trucks rose by a shocking 53 per cent between 2009 and 2018. Pedestrians now make up one fifth of fatalities in the U.S. when it comes to crashes.

The problem, or at least a big part of it, seems to be larger vehicles.

There鈥檚 been a steady move towards more SUVs and pickup trucks since the 1990s across North America.

The trends aren鈥檛 going entirely in the wrong direction. Another IIHS study, in 2019, found that SUVs were becoming less dangerous, largely because more and more of them are crossovers, which have lower bumpers and smaller front grills in general.

READ ALSO: Painful Truth 鈥� Exhaustion is the mood as pandemic approaches two years old

But when it comes to pickup trucks, well, things are bad. If you remember what a mid-sized pickup truck looked like around 1980 to 1990, then you know that the modern version of the same makes and models are ridiculously large.

And those big front bumpers and high front grills hit pedestrians right at the centre of mass, damaging hips and torsos.

So here鈥檚 the question 鈥� should we deploy legislation to cut down on the number of pedestrians being killed and injured by ever-larger personal vehicles?

We regulate a tremendous number of other things about cars and trucks, from safety standards to how they鈥檙e driven. We require the drivers of large commercial vehicles to get special training and pass more stringent requirements, to get Class 1 and 2 licences.

So, should we require similar training for people who want to drive the very largest pickup trucks and SUVs? Should we up the cost of their insurance, on the grounds that they鈥檙e a bigger threat to pedestrians? Should we limit their sale in some way?

If not, why not? Is there a good argument for letting more pedestrians die?