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
Just waiting for America to ban SUV now
[Congress Intensifies]
SUVs are huge cash cows though, so manufacturers will lobby to keep them around for sure
Trump admin is reintroducing coal….. Do you really think they’d ban large impractical gas guzzling vehicles?
It’s not what you drive, but how you drive it.
Plus it’s another reason why you shouldn’t jawyalk.
Yeah but SUVs generally do worse in tests like the moose test, where they can’t swerve as quickly, safely, or as accurately as a lower riding car. They are also heavier and as the article says, they are slab sided and higher, making them more of a threat. Did you actually read the article?
It’s not what you drive, but how you drive it.
Bullshit. A Lada 4x4 is less safe for the passengers and pedestrians than a Mercedes S-Class.
never quite understood jaywalking? we don’t have that law here you can cross where ever you want just need to check it is safe to do so.
Sooooo…. Ban crossovers and lifestyle SUVs?
I think there should be a way to get rid of the idea that SUVs are safer because the are bigger, I just have to figure out how
Or from the other side of things…
People are getting blinder since 2009
These reports once led to pop-up headlights being banned…
So either ban SUVs or bring back pop-up headlights!
I like this comment!
You do realize SUV’s have very large profit margins for manufacturers right? If they are banned, the auto industry is going to suffer greatly and could force manufacturers to cut less profitable lines in order to cut costs. This could lead to many fun enthuists cars being on the chopping block for discontinuation. I know it is easy to just hate these cars for whatever reason but enthusists need to remember that the payroll that these cars bring in allow manufacturers to produce less profitable and fun cars for enthusists like us.
comment of the year!
Why not both?
PLEASE let it happen PLEASE let it happen PLEASE let it happen PLEASE let it happen!
-My head, July 2018
SO, is this based on the overall number of cars in the road?
Because if there are more SUVs than other cars, then they would cause more accidents.
Also there are more cars in the roads, so the increase in accident numbers is nowhere near impossible.
The problem is they’re more likely to kill the people they hit (2-3 times more likely, according to the 2015 NHTSA report), so a bigger share of SUVs on the road will mean more fatalities
SUV drivers just drive more carelessly because they have a big car and they feel safer to crash in other cars. With that mentality in mind while driving ofc it comes to this.
This does have some truth to it. I think they did an experiment once where people were asked to hold a certain speed with the dashboard covered, and the taller the car’s seating position, the faster people went.
Another reason to hate SUVs.
Well, I don’t hate them, it’s the fact that everybody is buying them that’s annoying me
Bit petty, but I noticed that the first word is grammatically incorrect, it should be ‘we’, not ‘us’. Would be like saying ‘us the people’.
Oh come on, guys. SUVs themselves don’t need to be banned, what needs to happen is more campaigns for safety for both the drivers and pedestrians. You may mock about the huge slab that hits people, but America has been driving big f*ck-off trucks since my grandparents were sperm cells. Pedestrians need to be more careful, and drivers should stop using their bloody mobile phones!
Agreed. Also it’s probably possible to engineer an SUV to be less dangerous to pedestrians.
Grandparents as sperm cells? Back then cars and trucks were the same size.