You Dont Say?: Passenger Car Drivers Are More Likely to Die in Crashes With SUVs - Polidicks

[quote] Most consumers who are shopping for a new car depend on good crash safety ratings as an indicator of how well the car will perform in a crash. But a new University at Buffalo study of crashes involving cars and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) has found those crash ratings are a lot less relevant than vehicle type. In head-on collisions between passenger cars and SUVs, the UB researchers found that drivers in passenger cars were nearly 10 times more likely to die if the SUV involved had a better crash rating. Drivers of passenger cars were more than four times more likely to die even if the passenger car had a better crash rating than the SUV. "When two vehicles are involved in a crash, the overwhelming majority of fatalities occur in the smaller and lighter of the two vehicles," says Dietrich Jehle, MD, UB professor of emergency medicine at Erie County Medical Center and first author. "But even when the two vehicles are of similar weights, outcomes are still better in the SUVs," he says, "because in frontal crashes, SUVs tend to ride over shorter passenger vehicles, due to bumper mismatch, crushing the occupant of the passenger car."[/quote] [url]http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130514135417.htm[/url]

Good, just in time for my research on who's more likely to survive: A man falling from the 7th floor of a building and a slab of concrete.

this isn't surprising, SUVs carry far more kinetic energy than any reasonable car - of course they're a greater threat to everyone else ban them just to clarify the point of this article isn't that "SUVs are safer to be in" (you're just as fucked in an SUV-wall collision or the ever more likely SUV-SUV collision) but rather "SUVs make other drivers less safe"

No surprise here.

Blue sky etc...

[QUOTE=i-am-teh-sex;40644018]Blue sky etc...[/QUOTE] Wait, I'm not familiar with this one, please elaborate

Solution, buy a bigger car and crash them back

That's why cars with bigger engines (and I think bigger weight, too), at least here, are required to pay higher obligatory insurance.

[QUOTE=The DooD;40644107]Solution, buy a bigger car and crash them back[/QUOTE] Thirty years from now, everyone will be rolling around in Abraham MBT's Do note that I'm not saying that'd be a bad thing

[QUOTE=deltasquid;40644130]Thirty years from now, everyone will be rolling around in [B]Abraham[/B] MBT's Do note that I'm not saying that'd be a bad thing[/QUOTE] [img]http://www.civilwar.com//media/alincoln.gif[/img] ??

[QUOTE=Andokool12;40644088]Wait, I'm not familiar with this one, please elaborate[/QUOTE] A joke on stating the obvious, i.e. "The sky is blue"

Just impose a weight tax on vehicles, or if there already is, toughen it up for anything going over the 1500-to-1750 kilo range. Should get soccermoms to fuck back into minivans instead of [I]castles-on-wheels[/I]

[QUOTE=W0w00t;40644774][img]http://www.civilwar.com//media/alincoln.gif[/img] ??[/QUOTE] [img]http://i.imgur.com/HJJThB0.jpg[/img] !!

I've been talking to people about the bumper mismatch for years. Took my dad's Chevy Aveo into the US a few months ago and immediately got worried: every vehicle was a truck or SUV. I know it's northern New York state but jesus what the fuck does everyone and their dog need with that many huge vehicles?

[QUOTE=Van-man;40644978]Just impose a weight tax on vehicles, or if there already is, toughen it up for anything going over the 1500-to-1750 kilo range. Should get soccermoms to fuck back into minivans instead of [I]castles-on-wheels[/I][/QUOTE] haha when I see a literal soccer mom drive a H2 around I want to cry a little. such a waste of everything and it's not even safe to boot me, I'm pretty happy with my little 2 door Honda

What a surprise, high-riding tanks that get 12 miles a gallon tend to drive over and crush people who drive smaller, more efficient cars. Pretty much sums up America: Greedy self-centered wasteful people willfully endanger others to protect their own habits.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;40645065]What a surprise, high-riding tanks that get 12 miles a gallon tend to drive over and crush people who drive smaller, more efficient cars. Pretty much sums up America: Greedy self-centered wasteful people willfully endanger others to protect their own habits.[/QUOTE] I donate money to cancer research, volunteer for community service and have a fuel efficient vehicle :C

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_Rover#Criticism[/url] [QUOTE=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_Rover#Criticism]In 2004, Spen King criticised SUV owners who drove their vehicles in urban areas, saying that vehicles like the Range Rover he created were "never intended as a status symbol but later incarnations of my design seem to be intended for that purpose."[/QUOTE] Copy of full article: [url]http://www.thefreelibrary.com/4x4+DRIVERS+ARE+STUPID+AND+POMPOUS%3B+Mini-driving+Range+Rover+designer...-a0118661112[/url]

My car is larger than an SUV (18ft long, 6.5ft wide) but it's also at normal car height(1970 Impala). Does this make me good or bad?

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;40645065]What a surprise, high-riding tanks that get 12 miles a gallon tend to drive over and crush people who drive smaller, more efficient cars. Pretty much sums up America: Greedy self-centered wasteful people willfully endanger others to protect their own habits.[/QUOTE] Yeah, willfully, because when someone buys an SUV, it's based on how much danger they put others and not on how much safer it makes them feel.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;40645065]What a surprise, high-riding tanks that get 12 miles a gallon tend to drive over and crush people who drive smaller, more efficient cars. Pretty much sums up America: Greedy self-centered wasteful people willfully endanger others to protect their own habits.[/QUOTE] I have a huge gas guzzling truck because i need it to haul hundreds of pounds worth of shit back and forth around town every day in order to make a living. Guess i'm self-centered, greedy, wasteful and endanger others willfully. I should definitely get a prius to make you happy, right?

It's funny, I see more safe drivers in SUVs than anything else around here.. It's just for some reason they're bad driver magnets to everyone else on the road. And I also speak from personal experience, my mom owns a Ford Explorer and she's an extremely safe driver, but ever since she got it, there's been a lot more near accident incidents by other drivers. Either the population around here is getting dumber or SUVs really ARE idiot magnets. Also saddening because even if we were forced to switch to smaller vehicles, we'd never survive. We're all long legged/tall people, and we travel a lot, none of us would last very long in anything less than a truck, SUV, or minivan. Requiring towing capacity too, we have a boat and a camper that no small car can ever hope of towing without shitting all over the place.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;40645506]Yeah, willfully, because when someone buys an SUV, it's based on how much danger they put others and not on how much safer it makes them feel.[/QUOTE] Two sides of the same coin, they buy a massive 6000lb vehicle so they can feel safe by putting other people in danger as they drive their kids to the mall. Similar to my stance on guns, as far as I'm concerned people have every right to have them, but that's not going to stop me from calling SUV owners out as inconsiderate assholes. I might feel differently if I actually saw Yukon XLs hauling shit around on the farm, but I don't, I see 100% of them being used to drive kids around in town, something that could be accomplished with a Focus that costs half as much and gets twice the fuel economy, without excessively endangering other people's lives. We don't need laws or restrictions to keep people from driving SUVs. I think we can accomplish that with good old-fasioned public shaming of the assholes who drive them. It's already working, I hardly ever see H2s and H3s anymore people people have clued in to the fact that driving one makes you a colossal douche. [editline]14th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Pandamox;40645527]I have a huge gas guzzling truck because i need it to haul hundreds of pounds worth of shit back and forth around town every day in order to make a living. Guess i'm self-centered, greedy, wasteful and endanger others willfully. I should definitely get a prius to make you happy, right?[/QUOTE] I absolutely think that's different. What pisses me off is people using those vehicles for extremely light duty stuff that a Smart car could do. I have a gas-guzzling hot rod for fun driving, I share a truck with my neighbors for hauling stuff, and I have a little SL2 for every day driving. It's awesome, I don't have to pay for getting 12 miles a gallon unless I deliberately want to. I can't imagine what it's like to have so much disposable income you can drive a Yukon everywhere.

Utterly flabbergasted.

[QUOTE=ratman_122;40645492]My car is larger than an SUV (18ft long, 6.5ft wide) but it's also at normal car height(1970 Impala). Does this make me good or bad?[/QUOTE] Strap some pontoons on the side of it, tie a sail to the radio antenna and call it a yact.

[QUOTE=SuperDuperScoot;40645559]It's funny, I see more safe drivers in SUVs than anything else around here.. It's just for some reason they're bad driver magnets to everyone else on the road. [/QUOTE] Man, maybe it's just personal experience but it seems like the absolute opposite around here. Nobody is more guaranteed to do shitty things behind the wheel than somebody driving an Infiniti/Acura/BMW SUV or Porche Cayenne. Attrition has killed a lot of the seriously big SUVs where I live (Suburban-class stuff), but the suburb-dwellers who used to drive those seem to have migrated into the upscale Japanese or European SUVs. This is probably unique to where I live, but as bad as the SUV drivers are, the shitty Prius drivers are by far the worst frustration on the road. Maybe it's because everyone thinks that driving 10 under the limit keeps the gas motor from turning on or something.

Why risk both of you being severely injured when you can save yourself and give the other people zero chance of survival?! It seems like a lot of people have this logic, i know around here loads of mothers get them to keep their kids safe but if they got better at driving and didn't drive a huge car where they can barely see the road then they'd actually probably been safer. The amount of stories i've heard as well of people being hit by SUVs because the drivers can't see below the bonnet is crazy.

How do you make cars meet the higher fuel economy regs? You make them lighter. How do you make them light? You use softer metals and less of it. Result: flimsier cars.

[QUOTE=Ridge;40645907]How do you make cars meet the higher fuel economy regs? You make them lighter. How do you make them light? You use softer metals and less of it. Result: flimsier cars.[/QUOTE] No, you make the overall design smaller, more aerodynamic and closer to the ground. Less air resistance & drag = better fuel economy. Smart up bro.

[QUOTE=Ridge;40645907]How do you make cars meet the higher fuel economy regs? You make them lighter. How do you make them light? You use softer metals and less of it. Result: flimsier cars.[/QUOTE] Not entirely true, cars are safer now than they've ever been. The raw number of traffic fatalities every year has been essentially flat for the last 40 or 50 years, despite massive growth in population and number of drivers on the road. It may seem like cars aren't as sturdy now, but you are far more likely to survive a given crash in a modern car than something from the 1960s. Most Facepunchers (including me) are too young to remember what things were like in the 60s and 70s, where shitloads of people used to die in car wrecks all the time. I'd rather be in my Chrysler if I bump someone in a parking lot, but if I hit a wall at 40 mph, I really want to be in a new car. The problem with SUVs is they're entirely disproportional, and will miss the engineered crumple zones of most cars. You can engineer a car to dissipate energy all you want, but it doesn't really matter if the thing that you're hitting is at windshield level. [editline]14th May 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Van-man;40645936]No, you make the overall design smaller, more aerodynamic and closer to the ground. Less air resistance & drag = better fuel economy. Smart up bro.[/QUOTE] Well, weight is a big factor as well. I dunno if carmakers have figured that out, because modern cars are by and large just as heavy as older cars. I think my dad's Taurus has a curb weight of 5000+ pounds.