Amy Mendelsohn remembers the "blinding smack ... the taste of asphalt on my face and mouth, and the back tire rolling over me."It’s been 11 years since an SUV driver crashed into her, flinging her into the air from a crosswalk at Western and Augusta avenues in 2013.But the memories are always with her.Mendelsohn said the large size of the vehicle — a 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe — made her injuries worse: a broken arm and half a year of physical therapy.She thinks the large vehicle made her 5-foot-2 frame less visible to the SUV driver, who claimed she didn't see her."It feels like cars are sometimes idealized to protect the people inside but create a dangerous environment for the people outside them," said Mendelsohn, 48, who later became an advocate for pedestrian safety.The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has now taken steps to address that issue, stunning safety advocates with proposed vehicle design rules that the regulatory agency says will help reduce pedestrian deaths.For the first time ever, manufacturers would be required to study the impact of test dummies hit outside of vehicles. The rules would likely change the design of what America drives permanently.“We have a crisis of roadway deaths, and it’s even worse among vulnerable road users like pedestrians," Sophie Shulman, the agency's deputy administrator, said in a statement announcing the proposed rule last week.The rule appears aimed at the increasingly popular large SUVs and trucks that have been linked to an increase in pedestrian deaths. The large, high hoods of the vehicles are more likely to strike someone's head and kill them than smaller vehicles, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.The proposed rules will likely require carmakers to build vehicles with lower, more sloping hoods, experts said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it expects the new rule to save 67 lives a year. "This is good news," said Micheál Podgers, policy director of the advocacy group Better Streets Chicago. "There's only so much federal regulators can do, and this is one of the best things they can do in their power right now."Cars, trucks have grown biggerResearchers have known for years that heavier vehicles with taller hoods are more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists. An SUV's high hood will hit a pedestrian in the chest and head, while a smaller car will first strike someone in the legs, Podgers said.Vehicles are more likely to kill people when their hoods measure 40 inches off the ground, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Sloping hoods on smaller cars were less deadly than more vertical hoods on larger trucks. SUVs have also been getting heavier, making them harder to stop as quickly. This graphic shows the comparative risk of pedestrian fatality by hood height and shape.Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Pedestrian fatalities rose 57% — from 4,779 to 7,522 a year — between 2013 and 2022 according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Nearly half of fatalities were caused by SUVs and trucks versus about 37% by passenger cars. SUVs have taken over streets in that time. They climbed from 24% of registered vehicles in 2013 to 36% in 2023, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety."For years, car design has changed with virtually no consideration of pedestrian impacts," said veteran transportation researcher Joseph Schwieterman, head of DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development."It's created a terrible situation. And not only are newer designs, particularly trucks, more deadly during accidents, but [they] offer poor visibility to drivers," he said.The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing several automakers, said they provided input to the the federal regulators early in the process of developing the new rules."Safety is a top priority," the group said in a statement. "Automakers have voluntarily developed and introduced many crash avoidance technologies to help make roads safer for pedestrians and road users."U.S. now playing catch-up on auto safetyAngie Schmitt, author of the 2020 book, Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America, quotes late consumer advocate Clarence Ditlow: “Pedestrian protection is one of the last frontiers of vehicle safety.”The European Union has regulated car design and pedestrian protection since 2009. But American regulators "were hesitant to regulate this because it had to do with vehicle styling," Schmitt told the Chicago Sun-Times.It's surprising, she said, given that in the 1970s the U.S. was a leader in car safety. After Ralph Nader's ground-breaking 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed shook up the industry, seat belts were made mandatory and airbags proliferated, she said. But the country has lagged in the last decade as American vehicles got bigger and started killing more pedestrians.Now, in less than a year, U.S. regulators have issued two rules to make vehicles safer for people outside them. In April, the federal regulatory agency proposed rules requiring automatic emergency braking in new cars to keep them from crashing.It will likely be a couple of years before benefits of the proposed regulations become apparent, Schmitt said. The rule has to undergo a six-month public comment period, then car manufacturers must consider the rules and perform tests on future models.National rule avoids patchwork of local regsIn Chicago, the proposed rules on car design could help the city achieve its Vision Zero goal of eliminating vehicle and pedestrian fatalities — though likely not before its 2026 deadline. At least 22 pedestrians and 41 drivers or passengers were killed in traffic crashes this year through July. Related Race to zero? Chicago saw just one bicyclist killed this year — but activists say that’s one too many Podgers, of Better Streets Chicago, said one of the biggest benefits is the rule applies to all cars in the U.S. and frees up local political energy spent on addressing pedestrian deaths.Federal regulators have "basically released a bit of the pressure on local and state governments to enact changes," he said.Some Chicago City Council members had been considering other ways to steer residents to less dangerous vehicles, such as taxes or fees on larger vehicles, he said."Those are good ideas," he said, but emphasized that the city is better to focus on building safer infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. A national mandate is also stronger than any local rules, he said, which wouldn't apply to neighboring towns and states. Amy Mendelsohn stands at the corner of West Augusta Boulevard and North Western Avenue where she was hit by an SUV while crossing the street.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times Mendelsohn, the woman hit by the SUV in 2013, became a pedestrian safety advocate after the accident. It was the second time she was hit by an SUV in a crosswalk in five years.The experiences changed the way she views pedestrian safety.After her first collision in 2008, "I felt like my life had zero value compared to cars," she said. The driver was slapped with a $100 fine. She felt it was unfair penalty for nearly killing her."I admit the first time it happened, I felt, 'That's just life in the big city,'" she said. "I understand now that's not an acceptable mentality."