About SUVs
SUV accidents preventable with adjustments
Proving rollover risk
Rollover deaths predictable

Families love them. Environmentalists hate them. Oil companies cheer them. Advocates claim they support terrorism. Drivers say they are safe. The evidence proves otherwise. The SUV market still grows, and is the most profitable automobile type to manufacturers. Automakers the world over eagerly enter the market.

Users, primarily families, love the SUV because they offer room and comfort. They also believe the size of the vehicle offers safety, but accident and fatality statistics prove otherwise.

The government, with allegiances to oil companies and automobile manufacturers, does little to regulate and improve the shortcomings of these vehicles.

SUV Owners Support Terrorism?
That is what many protesters say. Their logic? SUVs guzzle gas and make Arab oil princes richer. Many of these princes do fund terrorist organizations. But, is it fair to lay blame when the US Government and automakers refuse to make and enforce design improvements that would improve SUVs fuel efficiency?

In March 2002, Senators John Kerry and John McCain could only summon 38 votes for a bill that would have raised fuel efficiency standards for light trucks from 21 mpg to 36 mpg by 2015. Later, the Bush administration pushed a bill that raised the standard a paltry 1.5 mpg. With the enormous number of automobiles held to the light truck standard (minivans, SUVs, and pickups), overall fuel efficiency in the US is lower than 1980. Technological advances in design are kept out of the marketplace by oil, auto, and union agendas.

Safer? Not Really
Car owners believe that SUVs are safer because of their size. However, the true picture is much different. SUV accidents result in fatalities more often than accidents in passenger cars.

In 2001, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stated that there were 162 deaths per million SUVs as compared to 157 deaths per million passenger cars. But, if cars are bigger and heavier, they are safer, right?

Rollover accidents result in fatalities very often because victims are thrown violently from the vehicles or crushed inside when the roof collapses. Sometimes, blood loss kills potential survivors when they cannot escape overturned vehicles. Evidence shows that SUVs rollover much more often than passenger cars.

SUVs are built higher than passenger cars and thus have higher center of gravity, but the track width (distance between right and left tires) of SUVs is the same as passenger cars. Thus SUVs become unstable more easily and flip over in tight turns or multiple vehicle accidents.

Owners that claim that SUVs are tougher and therefore safer are only half right. In two car collisions, SUVs tend to protect the people inside, provided there is no rollover incident, but the passengers in the other car may not be as lucky. In side impact collisions between passenger cars, the vehicle hit broadside is six times as likely to suffer fatalities. If the vehicle happens to be an SUV, then the passengers in the smaller vehicle have almost no chance. The passenger car occupants are 30 times more likely to die.

Environmental Concerns
In an era where emissions standards are regulated and passenger cars are environmentally safer than at any other point in history, SUVs emissions remain at toxic levels.

SUVs fall into the category of light trucks, which enjoy greater regulatory leniency than do passenger cars. This policy requires review, because now most SUV owners are individuals and families. SUVs are rarely used for business, commerce, or hauling.

The EPA rated eleven vehicle models an 0 out of 10 for emissions. Many of these were SUVs. Among them:

• Chevrolet Suburban
• Chevrolet Avalanche
• GMC Yukon
• Toyota Sequoia

Though many feel that the demonization of SUVs is unfair, the facts show that these cars are built and regulated less-than-responsibly. The auto industry could do something to clear up some of the myths that help sell SUVs, but their silence helps sell more cars.