Americans' love affair with big cars is killing them

[Anonymous]

Disturbing article in The Economist which analyzed 7.2 million road accidents involving two vehicles and found that heavier vehicles provide more protection to their occupants at the expense of those they hit. It found:

The fatality rate is roughly seven times higher when colliding with a heavy pickup truck than with a compact car. As the weight of your car increases, the risk of killing others increases substantially. For every life that the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks save (ie its own driver or passengers), more than a dozen lives are lost in the other vehicles.

The probability of suffering a fatality in a two-vehicle crash with a vehicle that is 1,000lb heavier (roughly the difference between a Toyota Camry and a Ford Explorer) boosts the likelihood of death by 66%. A rough calculation is that if the 10% of vehicles which are the heaviest (ie more than 5000lb) were downsized to the next heaviest category (ie 4500-5000lb) then fatalities in multi-car crashes (which totaled 19,081 last year) might be reduced by 12%.

The safety benefits of vehicle weight suffer from diminishing returns. Once a vehicle reaches a certain weight, making it heavier provides little additional safety but will inflict substantially more damage on another car.

In the US, the average new car weighs more than 4400lb and vehicles more than 5000lb accounted for 31% of new cars in 2023 (up from 22% five years earlier). A Ford Focus weighs about 3200lbs, a Toyota Rav4 weighs about 3500lbs. A Ford Explorer weighs 4500lbs, Jeep Wagoneer weighs about 6000lbs, a Yukon weighs about 5700lbs and a Chevrolet Suburban weighs about 5800lbs.

It is worth noting that the crash performance rating system used by the top auto-safety agency only takes into account the safety of the occupants of the vehicle in question, not the other driver or passengers.

This study doesn't take into account the increased fatality for pedestrians, cyclists, or other road users posed by heavier vehicles.

[Anonymous]

So, Chevy Suburban for the "win"...

[Anonymous]

I never understood why they do studies to reach obvious conclusions. Hopefully this one didn’t cost much.

[Anonymous]

I don't want to live in a carless 15 minute city so the government and all of neighbors can keep an eye on me for the sake of "community". Cars and trucks are not inherently dangerous.

If I could get rid of any vehicle it would be the motorcycle. Motorcycles are loud and dangerous.

See how easy it is to have opinions on how others live and to gathers pretenses for it?

Next you are going to ask a series of questions so I will finally begin to think and realize that I have been so stupid after all and will then come to an agreement with your point of view. So go ahead, what is the first one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never understood why they do studies to reach obvious conclusions. Hopefully this one didn’t cost much.

Because the studies are pretenses for societal changes they want to implement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to live in a carless 15 minute city so the government and all of neighbors can keep an eye on me for the sake of "community". Cars and trucks are not inherently dangerous.

If I could get rid of any vehicle it would be the motorcycle. Motorcycles are loud and dangerous.

See how easy it is to have opinions on how others live and to gathers pretenses for it?

Next you are going to ask a series of questions so I will finally begin to think and realize that I have been so stupid after all and will then come to an agreement with your point of view. So go ahead, what is the first one?

How many people not including the driver or passenger do motorcycles kill each year? The point of an analysis is to look at actual data rather than pure opinion.

[Anonymous]

This made me think of poor old Johnny Gaudreau and his brother. Killed by a drunk driver while biking last Thursday, and supposed to attend their sister’s wedding the next day. Dude was driving an SUV.

[Anonymous]

In other news, water is wet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In other news, water is wet.

I take it you drive a large SUV?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This made me think of poor old Johnny Gaudreau and his brother. Killed by a drunk driver while biking last Thursday, and supposed to attend their sister’s wedding the next day. Dude was driving an SUV.

The driver was also drunk. So he easily could have killed them no matter what he was driving. He had no business driving. The vehicle was not the problem. The drunk driving was.

[Anonymous]

Electric cars are heavier than their gas equivalent, BTW.

Which is a bummer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This made me think of poor old Johnny Gaudreau and his brother. Killed by a drunk driver while biking last Thursday, and supposed to attend their sister’s wedding the next day. Dude was driving an SUV.

The driver was also drunk. So he easily could have killed them no matter what he was driving. He had no business driving. The vehicle was not the problem. The drunk driving was.

Yeah I said drunk driver. You never know though, maybe a smaller vehicle would be less lethal. Well, not maybe, it’s obvious it would be. No way of knowing if it would have mattered in this particular instance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Electric cars are heavier than their gas equivalent, BTW.

Which is a bummer.

Which is exactly why we got DD a RAV4 rather than a Corolla. All cars are getting heavier.

Toyota Corolla: The curb weight typically ranges between 2,850 and 3,150 pounds (1,293 to 1,429 kg), depending on the trim level and options.
Toyota RAV4: The curb weight usually falls between 3,370 and 3,755 pounds (1,528 to 1,704 kg), depending on the trim level and whether it is a front-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive model.
Tesla Model Y: The curb weight typically ranges between 4,363 and 4,416 pounds (1,979 to 2,003 kg).

Teslas running around weigh twice as much as a Corolla.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't want to live in a carless 15 minute city so the government and all of neighbors can keep an eye on me for the sake of "community". Cars and trucks are not inherently dangerous.

If I could get rid of any vehicle it would be the motorcycle. Motorcycles are loud and dangerous.

See how easy it is to have opinions on how others live and to gathers pretenses for it?

Next you are going to ask a series of questions so I will finally begin to think and realize that I have been so stupid after all and will then come to an agreement with your point of view. So go ahead, what is the first one?

How many people not including the driver or passenger do motorcycles kill each year? The point of an analysis is to look at actual data rather than pure opinion.

The questions begin! Inform me, what is the answer and what shall I think? That is the point of the exercise, right?

[Anonymous]

Think of it this way. If two small cars collided, occupants of both cars would have died. Lesson to learn: drive a big car.