America's SUV Love Affair Has Led To A Big Rise In Deaths
Us petrolheads like to bemoan the SUV takeover of the modern car landscape, don’t we? We’ll whinge endlessly about more interesting cars being discontinued due to lack of interest from SUV-obsessed car buyers, but there’s a far more serious consequence of these high-riding road hulks populating the world in ever greater numbers.
An extensive investigation from the Detroit Free Press and USA Today has found that the rising popularity of SUVs is the “leading cause” in a shocking 46 per cent increase in pedestrian deaths in the country. There were nearly 6000 pedestrian fatalities in 2016 alone, the publications noted.
So, why SUVs in particular? It’s all down to the shape: they’re tall and generally slab-fronted, making potentially fatal contact with someone’s chest or head more common. According to a 2015 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report, pedestrians are two to three times “more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an SUV or pickup than when struck by a passenger car.”
After analysing federal data, Detroit Free Press and USA Today concluded that there was a 69 per cent increase in SUV involvement when it came to pedestrian fatalities from 2009 to 2016, while also noting that the proportion involving SUVs had increased each year.
At the time of the NHTSA report, the organisation said that its vehicle safety rating system would be dramatically modified, but this is yet to happen.
Many of those killed were jaywalking and/or under the influence of alcohol, although as “long-standing common factors,” it’s not thought these account for the rise. Something that might have contributed is growing distractions from smartphones, for both the pedestrians themselves and the drivers, but it’s difficult to know how big the problem is as “data is lacking to quantify distraction,” the publications explained.
Make sure you check out the full report here.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Ahhh Americans
Valuing their own lives over others……..
Hey, were not all bad!
Just buy a wagon way more good looking
The thing is we don’t get wagons in the US. We get sedans, hatches, and SUVs, but only a couple wagons.
A wagon wont tow anything worth jack or go very far offroad. Normally those are my criteria for SUVs. I dont think wagons and SUVs interlope as much as people think for the people who have a reason for buying them. Great for soccer moms though
Technically an suv is more easily visible to pedestrian. So if we are running over people who can’t see an SUV towards them/ cant cross roads properly because their faces are in their phones is it such a bad thing?
Actually, a lot of young people just don’t look while crossing the road, they just say “I’m on the crosswalk, the driver has to stop to let me pass, if he hits me he will be jailed, it’s not my responsibility to look left and right, it’s his to stop”
At that point, it’s just natural selection
I think part of the crash test should involve pedestrian safety. The car has to hit a dummy at a certain speed and if the dummy “dies” then the car fails.
This is already a thing
Don’t ban suvs that means no more Land Rover or Jeep
I doubt this will affect SUV sales. People already know that SUV’s are prone to rolling over, but people are still buying the things. SUV sales will only fall once it stops being seen as fashionable.
Mustang did it before it was cool
Modern suvs are just high riding wagons pretty much.
Personally I wouldn’t be sad to see every SUV replaced with a wagon
Who would have thought that spreading minivan size passeneger vehicles to regular unattentive drivers would result in a more dangerous environment for pedestrians, bikers or those poor sobs looking for a cheap compact vehicle that will make efficient use of the fuel you put in it to take you from point A-B with sub 130kmh top speeds? Who oh who could have forseen this?