Skewed stats?

Although I'm not sure why they weren't but I think all crashes should have been included.

If a senior driving a pickup in a 'most rural area' gets involved with a middle aged small car driver, which way is it counted, if at all.

The type of crashes should have also been included also.

The Upside

Nobody mentions the advances that have been made in the last 40 years. Multiple air bags, crumple zones, computerized fuel management and variable valve timing have made cars much safer, producing far less pollution and offering much better fuel efficiency, even when safety equipment have made them a lot heavier. Driving today is safer AND easier on the environment.

Like it or not, most vehicles will be propelled by fossil fuels for at least the next 20 years. Non-hybrid electric vehicles may seem like a panacea, but they are NOT non-polluting - they simply transfer the pollution to the place where the electricity is produced.

Depends what 'safer' means

Interesting article. The title is somewhat misleading, though. Nothing in the study refutes the claim that larger SUV's and trucks are safer: indeed, it affirms this. It's only by stretching the term 'safety' beyond personal safety that the claim can be refuted. I don't think most drivers of such beasts are thinking 'safety of others' when they're deciding on the safest ride. And that's the real point here: while it is entirely rational to drive a large SUV in the interests of personal safety, it is a race to the bottom. To themselves be safe, everyone else must choose a similar rig; eventually, the safety gain is offset. In the meantime, though, it's somewhat misleading to infer that driving a smaller car increases one's personal safety.

Collision "Stats" are very Subjective

This is a classic case of filtering the data in order to make a case for a preconceived theory.
Do these "statistics" bear any relation to reality? Sometimes. Like when a small car is involved in a single-vehicle accident, or two small cars have a collision. However, we ALL know there are a VARIETY of sizes of vehicles on our roads. IF they are ALL going in the same direction, no problem. BUT, it is already PROVEN that the most dangerous place on any street or highway is....... wait for it.... AN INTERSECTION. Add that to the myriad of single lane, two direction roads we have in the province of BC and you have a very good chance of collisions between large vehicles and small vehicles. In spite of the carefully engineered crumple(energy reducing) construction of modern small vehicles, larger, higher clearance vehicles still come out ahead when involved with smaller vehicles.

actually toquer...

The writer states, based on the report, that:

Compact SUVs" based on car body designs are actually safer than the larger, heavier fullsize SUVs based on truck designs;

Actually Mr. Beers;

I think the question is what the authors definition of "safety" is.

"For vans, pickups, and full-size SUVs, gains in safety to drivers are typically offset by increased risks to drivers of other vehicles"

He seems to consider the overall safety of both vehcles in a colission, and admits that the larger vehicles are safer to be in, and it is much more un-safe to be in a smaller vehicle.

However, I'd rather be a hammer than a nail if my kid is in the vehicle.

jwstewart...

the author seems (to me) to support my reading, and answer your question, here:

People who chose a big SUV because it seemed "safer" than a car in a collision were often making a bad decision; a smaller CSUV, or even a large car, might have offered a safer ride. Similarly, people who chose a big SUV over a smaller one for "safety" reasons were often just increasing the risks they pose to other drivers.

But, hey, I'll email the author and perhaps he can weigh in on this thread. Thanks!

Mea culpa, but....

Mea culpa, David, though jstewart correctly highlights the sentence at the root of the confusion....Having now read the study, the author does say that mid-size SUV's are safer to drive than larger ones, but the sentence in question still stands out: it would appear that trucks and vans remain safer than other options, unless 'safety' is defined to include others on the road. Which would change the headline to 'smaller SUV or bigger truck, safer ride'.

Less Driving = Less CARnage.

Clark Williams-Derry writes:

"...to drive safely, your best option is to drive less."

Absolutely true. The most effective and lowest-cost way to reduce the amount of CARnage on the roads is to reduce the number of cars on the road by taking the following steps:

1) Offer pay-as-you-drive / per-km auto insurance as an OPTION. This has reduced car use by 10% to 30% where it's available.
2) Get rid of rules that prohibit cabbies who cross municipal boundaries from picking up fares on the way back to their home municipality.
3) Offer an unlimited number of part-time cab licenses to only those drivers with the best driving records.

A pay-as-you-drive insurance OPTION can be guaranteed to NOT increase insurance costs for those who continue to work downtown and live in suburban McMansions provided that the premiums total collected from per-km drivers as a group is always adjusted to equal or exceed the total claims payouts and overheads attributable to per-km drivers as a group.

Municipal rules forcing cabbies to drive back empty after crossing municipal boundaries to drop off fares are intended to prevent suburban cabs from "poaching" fares from downtown cabs. The problem can be dealt with in an efficient and mutually beneficial manner by requiring that suburban cabbies share with downtown cabbies a portion of extra fares earned on the way home. Downtown cabbies could be like listing realtors who get a cut of the commission when another realtor makes the sale. Downtown cabbies shouldn't get too greedy. They should keep in mind that most downtown fares who want to go to the suburbs wouldn't be downtown to begin with if suburban cabbies hadn't brought them there.

Part-time cabbies who pick-up cellphone text-message-dispatched fares on the way to work can charge a much more reasonable rate per km because they're driving in that direction anyway so they don't need to charge for their time. Low-cost, part-time, text-message-dispatched cabbies are far more practical than rigid, fixed-time carpools because:
a) A lot of people work varying hours due to part-time, on-call work.
b) Overtime is often offered to full-time workers on short notice.
c) People often need to do some shopping on the way home from work.
d) People who sleep through their alarm are out of luck with fixed-time carpools, but they can just grab the next part-time cab going in their direction.

Part-time cabs can help to substantially reduce the amount of road CARnage caused by drunk drivers because:
a) Full-time cabbies admit there are nowhere near enough full-time cabs to meet peak demand from drunks at bar closing time.
b) Drunks are more likely to take a lower-cost part-time cab instead of driving to avoid an outrageous and unaffordable cabfare from a full-time cabbie.

Everybody's right!

I can tell from the comments that I didn't explain things as clearly as I could have.

1) In general, for a given vehicle class, a larger vehicle is safer for its occupants than a smaller vehicle of the same vehicle class. So a heavier truck-based SUV is safer for the vehicle's occupants than a lighter truck-based SUV. A larger car is, in general, safer for its occupants than a smaller car.

2) But there are big differences between vehicle classes. So a "small" car-based-SUV is safer for its occupants than a "midsize" truck-based-SUV -- even though the car-based-SUV is smaller and lighter than the truck-based-SUV. (Sorry for all of the dashes -- I'm just trying to be as clear as I can about the different vehicle classes the study analyzed.)

3) This means that vehicle design and/or class can trump vehicle safety in keeping occupants safe.

4) If you're concerned about overall road safety, not just the occupants of your own vehicle, large truck-based vehicles like fullsize-SUVs, vans, and pickup trucks get more dangerous to other road users as they get heavier.

5) Surprisingly, car-based vehicles -- cars and compact-SUVs -- do not get more dangerous for other road users as they get heavier.

6) As I read the figures in the study, it seems like a midsized compact SUV is just about the safest car out there: it has a low risk for its occupants, and also a low risk for occupants of other vehicles. But that kind of vehicle is considerably smaller than, and consumes less gas than, a medium-to-large fullsize SUV or pickup.

7) Finally, I should note: different vehicles have very different safety records, so if you're concerned about safety, you should look at each particular vehicle's record, not at overall statistics for safety by weight. And of course, the best car safety strategy is to drive less.