In a crash, does an SUV subject occupants in a smaller vehicle to greater risk of injury or death?
In a crash, larger, heavier vehicles inflict an inordinate amount of damage on smaller vehicles. The extra weight of heavy vehicles subjects the occupants of other vehicles to greater forces in a crash. Also, vehicles with larger frames often fail to engage the safety protections, such as bumpers, of smaller vehicles. In frontal collisions between a car and a SUV, the car driver is 4.3 times more likely to die than the SUV driver. SUVs are also more than twice as lethal as cars in side-impact crashes with cars. Some may take these statistics as evidence of the safety of SUVs. This is a complete misinterpretation, as it is really evidence of how dangerous they are—to the occupants of the cars they collide with. Follow this link for more information about vehicle aggressivity and incompatibility: http://www.citizen.
