That said, the rate hasn't gone up if you look at a 30-year timeframe, but it's a worrying trend nonetheless. It's a bit confusing though because I think you'd want to look at this per-capita. The absolute numbers show a 10-year upward trend, and the per-capita numbers are only split out by age group and show that same 10-year upward trend except it hasn't gone up at all for people under 20, which seems surprising.
But I remain confused because the 10-year weight increase is very small, less than 10% or so, so it is not clear to me that increasing vehicle weight is the most important factor. IIHS mentions road design and front-end design, but not weight as key factors.
In this source, the increase in car weight seems quite minor over the last 10 years:
https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-... (fig ES-3)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/660493/us-light-duty-veh...
Your link does not support your claim of a 77% increase, but this better source pegs it at 80%, so I suppose that's about right: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes...
That said, the rate hasn't gone up if you look at a 30-year timeframe, but it's a worrying trend nonetheless. It's a bit confusing though because I think you'd want to look at this per-capita. The absolute numbers show a 10-year upward trend, and the per-capita numbers are only split out by age group and show that same 10-year upward trend except it hasn't gone up at all for people under 20, which seems surprising.
But I remain confused because the 10-year weight increase is very small, less than 10% or so, so it is not clear to me that increasing vehicle weight is the most important factor. IIHS mentions road design and front-end design, but not weight as key factors.