SUVs twice as lethal for child pedestrians in a crash

SUVs are more likely to cause death or injury when hitting a pedestrian than regular passenger cars – that’s according to a recent study by Imperial College London and the London School of Medicine and Tropical Hygiene which analysed a sample of over 600,000 road collisions that occurred over the past 35 years.

Researchers found that being hit by an SUV or a light transport vehicle (LTV), such as a pick-up truck or van, is 44 per cent more likely to result in a fatal injury than being hit by a traditional car. This rises to 82 per cent for children in general and 130 per cent for those aged under 10.

The increase is also apparent, if not by quite as much, when talking about less severe injuries. Researchers found that the chance of a slight injury increased by 24 per cent for adults and 28 per cent for children when they are hit by this type of vehicle.

Nevertheless, the trend is clear, with University investigators pointing towards the dimensions of SUVs as an aggravating factor, namely their “taller, blunter front-end”. Assistant Professor at the LSHTM and senior author of the study, Anna Goodman, described how the explosion in popularity of SUVs “threatens to undermine all the road safety gains being made on other fronts”.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out that the majority of modern SUVs come packed with safety features to reduce impact on pedestrians, as well as avoid impacts altogether; a large number of new cars now come with pedestrian protection systems (PPS) which can raise the bonnet of the car in order to cushion the pedestrian in the event of a collision. The term SUV also covers a very wide range of vehicles on the modern market. Small SUVs like the Ford Puma (the UK’s best selling car) are hardly any larger than superminis and only slightly taller, while the largest SUV models are counted among the highest and heaviest passenger cars on the road.    

The study maintains that SUVs with their higher front ends are more likely to impact higher-up on a pedestrian and thus contact more vulnerable areas of the body, such as the chest or pelvis. Their bluntness, the report says; “means that the pedestrian or cyclist is more likely to be thrown forward onto the road, at which point the striking vehicle may hit them a second time or roll over their body”.

With this in mind Goodman remarked that: “Cities and countries around the world are starting to introduce measures to discourage the use of these large vehicles, and our study strengthens the road safety rationale for this.”

Recently, the ethics of SUVs came into question when two young children were killed after a 4x4 crashed into a school playground in Wimbledon. This led to several anti-SUV campaign groups forming such as the Tyre Extinguishers, who gained notoriety for letting down the tyres of unsuspecting SUV owners in the name of safety and the environment.

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