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
It’s not what you drive, but how you drive it.
Plus it’s another reason why you shouldn’t jawyalk.
Sooooo…. Ban crossovers and lifestyle SUVs?
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!
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.
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.
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!