Size Matters
In crashes involving teen drivers that have recently been the focus of national news stories, SUVs are frequently blamed for rollover crashes in which the teen drivers were either inexperienced, impaired by alcohol, speeding, not wearing seatbelts, and/or were distracted by other teens who were in the vehicle, often in violation of state law. Under these circumstances, serious injuries or fatalities are likely regardless of the type of vehicle the teen is driving. SUVOA does not believe that vehicles should be demonized for crash circumstances that often are influenced less by vehicle type and more by the behavior of the driver, or other drivers.
While a small car may be less likely to roll over than an SUV, small cars do roll over in significant numbers. They also offer less structural "crush space" in rollovers, as well as in frontal and side crashes, which are the most prevalent. In rollover crashes, it is ejection, or partial ejection, that causes most of the fatalities. Most rollovers are survivable if safety belts are used.
You can't choose the kind of crash you might have, but you can choose the best kind of vehicle to prevent injury or death in a crash. Again, size matters in crashes. Newer model SUVs have lower centers of gravity, less rollover risk, and bumpers that better match with those of cars. Overall, SUVs, especially larger ones, are some of the safest vehicles on the road.
In fact, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, since the early 1990s the vehicle type with the lowest fatality rates is the large SUV. The IIHS charts below illustrate this:
Driver Death Rates
Computing driver death rates per million registered passenger vehicles allows for comparisons of fatal crash risk across vehicle groups. The computed rates reflect the influence of vehicle designs plus their patterns of use and the demographics of their drivers. Driver death rates are based on 1-3 year old vehicles only so as to minimize the effects of vehicle aging. Rates based on fewer than 120,000 vehicle registrations are considered unreliable, and are not included.
Occupant deaths per million registered passenger vehicles 1-3 years old, 1978 -2003
Source: IIHS Website
IIHS fatality data above uses data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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