SUVs and pickups pose less risk to people in crashes - IIHS news

IIHS news release • September 28, 2011

Effort to make SUVs, pickups less deadly to car occupants in crashes is paying off

ARLINGTON, VA - Today's SUVs and pickups pose far less risk to people in cars and minivans than previous generations, a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows. Until recently, SUVs and pickups were more likely than cars or minivans of the same weight to be involved in crashes that killed occupants of other cars or minivans. That's no longer the case for SUVs, and for pickups the higher risk is much less pronounced than it had been.

[jamesstuart]

If truck manufacturers could lower the headlights so they don't blind car drivers that would be nice too

[trillmixin]

Your lifted truck can be someones death sentence in instances such as this. sure you might be fine on the inside but anyone on the outside of the vehicle has a much higher chance of dying.

[yizjlvt]

12 years later: pedestrian related accidents and accident severity in general have gone up due to an over-proliferation of SUVs and oversize pickups.

[w.e.s.]

Should be a law to lower them and put the head lights at sedan level. If i put fogs on top of my sedan id get a ticket but there is no difference

[AmazingBallz]

The automakers have also agreed to drain our wallets really good.

[account]

Force equals mass times acceleration. In car crashes, lower force is better. Now if the mass on the road increases but the acceleration stays the same, is that BETTER or is that WORSE for car crashes?

Stunned at how this question is answered by lawmakers and the average consumer.

[Dynamic_Entry]

This wouldn't be a problem if everyone drove cars. Most don't even use trucks or suvs for their intended purposes.

[eurosonly]

Let's not forget the local neighborhood bro dozers with lifted suspension and 7 inch exhausts. They weren't as common back then. What happened? Did it become legal to have a monster truck in the suburbs all of a sudden?

[jmr]

Ok, so drivers/passengers in larger vehicles are safe from crashes. But what about people in smaller vehicles or pedestrians. How are we safe from these tanks?

[WheresTheAnyKey]

manufacturers lower frames to make it more compatible - 6 inch lifts = back where we started?

[hawkeye]

Good news and such a basic change to make sure big higher vehicles didn't have big gaps underneath them where smaller cars can drive under them and miss their own crumple zones, well done IIHS.
Personally I think this could be taken a bit further, some big pickups and suv's still look like they could be made safer by having more structure closer to the ground at the front.

[farmoboy]

The best is for everyone to drive a semi truck. Seems the safest in case of a collision...

[PlasticBagStatus]

They made SUV's and pickups safer than the older stuff, sure, but since 2011, when this video was made, the amount of SUV's and pickup trucks on the road has also nearly doubled, while sedan sales have stagnated, and the traffic fatality and pedestrian fatality rates are steadily climbing.

[djdoomy]

If you inoculate the idea that having a elevated car is safer, people will start buying more and more elevated cars that at some point it will become absurd.
There should be regulations against selling pickups or suv above a certain height.

[alexander-malafeev]

If we consider a crash of a heavy sedan like Merscedes S-class or VW Phaeton with an SUV of more or less weight, how much disadvantage would passangers of the sedan have comparing to passengers of SUV?

[water]

why are there 2 million+ views and 7.6k likes and there are only a couple of comments?

[ETR-Eurostar]

An SUV is much larger than a sedan and heavier which means that an occupant of an SUV/pickup would be 52% more likely to suffer serious injuries also given that Driving the SUV is in a higher position then the head the most sensitive part together with the chest are more protected In Italy a q7 and a sedan crashed head-on at almost 180km! The driver of the Q7 was drunk. The guys in the sedan died, the one in the SUV survived with some injuries This is why the various euroncap and iihs tests are not reliable the car crashes into a wall or a barrier that is not in the least comparable to a car have a good day bye (they should Increase speed too)

[cptchuff]

I want to see this test with the 97-03 F150

[HCkev]

Not a word about the big elephant in the room: pedestrians.

[AKNigel]

This video is deceptive. The DOT keeps statistics on deaths per mile in SUVs/Pickups vs other passenger vehicles. Occupants of pickups / SUVs die at 2.5X the rate as other vehicles per mile.