When It Comes To Crash Survival, Size Matters

SEATTLE - We’ve all seen pictures of crash tests used to rate vehicle safety. But how do these cars and minivans and SUV’s perform on the road? What sort of protection do you get in real life crashes?

A new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety looked at that.

"If you are in a smaller, lighter vehicle and you are in a collision with a heavier one, you usually come out on the short end of the stick,” says the Institute’s Russ Rader.

But consider this: When the Institute studied fatal accidents from 2000 through 2003, it found that pound per pound, cars have lower death rates than SUVs.

Here's why: The added protection you get from an SUV in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions is more than offset by the risk of a rollover. These rollover accidents have a high fatality rate.

New technology, what's called Electronic Stability Control, can reduce the rollover risk.

“Electronic Stability Control is like an automatic co-pilot that only kicks in, in an extreme situation where you are about to lose control,” Rader explains. “It helps you steer and keep the vehicle under control."

The Institute’s study of real life crashes clearly shows that electronic stability control works. Two of the SUVs with the lowest death rates, the Toyota 4Runner and the Lexus RX 300, are equipped with electronic stability control, and they had very low rollover rates.

HIGHEST DEATH RATES PER MILLION MILES

The Chevrolet Blazer, a 2-door, 2-wheel drive SUV had the highest driver death rate per 1 million registered vehicles, well ahead of any other vehicle on the road. The Mitsubishi Mirage, (a small car) was next, followed by the Pontiac Firebird (a mid-size car), the Kia Rio minivan, and the Kia Sportage (a 2-wheel drive SUV).

LOWEST DEATH RATES PER MILLION MILES

The vehicles with the lowest drive death rates in real life crashes were the Mercedes E-Class (large car), the Toyota 4Runner SUV, the Volkswagen Passat (mid-size car), the Lexus RX 300 SUV, and the 4-wheel drive Toyota RAV4 (a small SUV). According to this study “not one driver death occurred in a rollover of the RX 300 or the RAV 4.”

For More Information:

Driver Death Rates: Model by Model