[dsfyu404ed]

It's not the bumpers. Bumpers haven't moved much since the 90s. If anything they've moved up a little on cars and stayed static on everything smaller than a 3/4 ton truck. It's the hood/grill styling that's changed. Every SUV these days has a tall grill and hood. Even cars have become taller. It's because of the safety and fuel economy arms race. The front bodywork is one of the few things the manufacturers can sculpt however they want. The cabin needs to be deep for the crash test rating (reducing visibility in general) and the hood/windshield transition needs to be shallow for fuel economy (which has a side effect of increasing the A pillar blind spot). This is why we get vehicles with massive bulbous front bodywork. That then becomes a styling trend all in itself. Look at how the 4Runner has progressed over the years if you want a particularly ugly example.

I'd rather get hit by a 90s F-series or Miata (with the "pedestrian unsafe" folding headlights) than the modern equivalents (though the modern Miata would still be pretty tolerable).

[magduf]

Actually, what I've read is that modern cars are much better for getting hit as a pedestrian than those 90s small cars. Remember, Europe has very different safety regulations than the US, and manufacturers aren't going to make different cars for both markets, so because of Europe's pedestrian-safety regulations, modern cars are designed to do less damage to pedestrians when they hit them. They look worse because of the big grill (talking about cars here, not big pickups; they don't sell pickups in Europe), but it's all plastic and crumples, and it prevents the pedestrian from being picked up and slammed into the windshield, which is what would happen with that 90s Miata.