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SUV driver harrassing cyclists"Increasingly at risk of fatal injuries": Danger to cyclists posed by larger, heavier cars laid bare by new research
New large-scale analysis of more than 300,000 road collisions between 2017 and 2021 has detailed the extent to which heavier, larger vehicles are putting cyclists and pedestrians at an increased risk of suffering serious or fatal injuries in the case of a collision.
The research comes thanks to the Vias institute, formerly known as the Belgian Road Safety Institute, and saw the characteristics of vehicles involved in collisions analysed. Factors such as mass, height and age were noted alongside the severity of injuries sustained by the vehicle's occupants, and those suffered by occupants of any other vehicle involved, or pedestrians and cyclists.
The height of a car's bonnet was seen as one factor that can increase the risk of fatal injuries to vulnerable road users. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car whose bonnet is 90cm high was found to have a 30 per cent greater risk of fatal injuries than if they are hit by a vehicle whose bonnet is 10cm lower.
When the researchers looked at vehicle type there were also implications for cyclists, the risk of serious injury increasing by 90 per cent and the risk of fatal injuries increasing by almost 200 per cent when a pedestrian or cyclist is hit by a pick-up vehicle.
"Two-speed road safety"
Vias concluded that the increase in heavy, tall and powerful cars on the roads meant "two-speed road safety", whereby the risks to the larger vehicle's occupants and other road users is drastically different.
"On the one hand, passengers in these more robust vehicles are increasingly safer; on the other, vulnerable users and occupants of smaller cars (lower mass and power) are increasingly at risk of serious or fatal injuries," the study concludes, saying it is "essential" to slow down the increasing production of heavier cars.
"Of course, the increase in the mass of cars is partly explained by the massive presence of driving aids, but also by increased comfort, greater sound insulation and increasingly thick body pillars. This study clearly shows that it is essential to slow down this increase, to move towards a more homogeneous fleet and to better protect vulnerable users in the event of collision with cars," Vias says.
Disparity in weight leading to disparity in risk was also seen when looking at collisions involving two cars. In the case of a crash between a 1,600kg car and a 1,300kg car, the risk of fatal injuries decreases by 50 per cent for the occupants of the heaviest car, while it increases by almost 80 per cent for the occupants of the lighter car.
The research around taller bonnets posing more danger to cyclists backs up another study published in April of this year. Research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in the United States, found that SUVs' large front ends are more dangerous to cyclists than other cars.
The study found that crashes with SUVs resulted in 55 per cent more trauma and 63 per cent more head injuries than crashes with other cars, owing to taller front-end designs, the lead author suggesting that vehicles with taller front ends run down vulnerable road users, while other cars tend to vault collision victims over.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.
Latest Comments
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5000miles in on my trainer bike with Silca Synergetic and my bottle looks like I can return it without getting any questions😂 I have a very strong...
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Id want my money back if Id paid to read it, the Daily Star used to print better quality storys than that, call that quality journalism ?...
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“it’s only right tiny minority who recklessly disregard others face full weight of the law” Of course. But not the reckless majority.
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Ducati is the wrong comparison, Ducati sell because they have the Italian sports heritage, and their bikes just always look and sound right....
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A bit of an update on this. I'm indirectly involved in a plan as one of my work colleagues runs the local cycling club. I say indirectly as I'm not...
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Some Highways Authorities insist on over engineered designs, and that might have happened here. They should be following Local Transport Note 1/20.
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81 comments
A good driver still makes mistakes.
Even the like of IAM obly claim to reduce collisions by 2/3 .
I've said for some time that a simple solution would be that, as a result of any prosecution for a driving offence, the courts should be able to put a limit on the size of car a driver can use. This would simply take the high risk drivers out of the high risk vehicles whilst not effecting their "right" to be able to drive.
I'm up for imposing some cruel and unusal punishments... (EDIT OK an actual C5 is kind of hanging, drawing and quartering - maybe you get a Reliant Robin for first offenses).
As you say in your other comment - driving is seen as a "good" for multiple reasons by pretty much everyone in politics (and indeed in general). Something we fundamentally "need more of" although we acknowledge it has some "side effects". "Fuelling the economy" / "lifeblood of the city" etc...
I'd say the motor industry is as tightly coupled to the state as e.g. communications or healthcare industries. I think we could (just) hope for an adjustment of the balance here though.
Well, I'd like to give up the (e-)car altogether and would do if the ladywife wasn't a bit wary. A C5, though? No. But ....
How about making all cars illegal except for items more like this:
https://aptera.us/
Myself, I'd reduce the size and environmental impact of personal transport even more. Electric bikes and trikes for the great majority with only those genuinely needing even an Aptera allowed one (but with the performance turned right down).
Even the e-bikes would only be for those unable to produce their own 250 watts.
Of course, I must be a-one o' them Deep State nannies, making the infantile subjects behave themselves better for their own good. No freedumbs for you, you bad bairns, maiming, choking and killing your neighbours or even your friends returning with you after the Friday night grog-binge!
If it's just for you and a +1 then perhaps a Fantom. Although possibly given your back-to the future aptera this is far too "classic" (old)?
More practically (and availably) an Armadillo might work. Not as classy, nor as social when used as a twosome but more practical for solo trips or carrying stuff.
What would you say was a bigger risk? An experienced good law abiding driver in a BMW X5 or an inexperienced kid in their teens/early 20s in a souped up Golf GTi driving around like a lunitic?
The manufacturers will argue the bigger cars have a more elevated driving position making them safer since you can see more of the road over sitting a few inches above the tarmac. And these bigger more modern cars come with much more sophisticated anti-collision sensors. If driven by a competent driver they should be very safe. Stick a knobhead behind the wheel then they become dangerous. But so would any car.
EDIT - well "young" is certainly a massive risk factor as the insurers agree. However choice of vehicle may not be as neutral as you suggest. For one - look at the people expensively finding out that their driving skills were not as ace as they thought once they'd reduced the margin for error with a performance vehicle.
Leaving aside there isn't a knobhead test when buying a car* I believe there are actually some numbers on this. For the "SUV" / light truck class turns out it is actually harder to see in some directions out of the bigger higher vehicles. And they're actually an elevated risk to their occupants also, not just those outside. And apparently they may be marketed towards worse drivers.
* Other than an assumption that more money means more success in life and that correlates with sensible OR that expensive things will get better treatment.
EDIT
"They're actually an elevated risk to their occupants also, not just those outside"
And you have solid evidence for this?
But if you want some research and not just baseless opinion here is something to read
https://advancedmotoring.co.uk/new-research-reveals-the-cars-involved-in-the-most-crashes-in-the-uk/
The Ranger Rover aside there seems to be a trend to smaller cars in crashes, and larger cars appear in fewer.
Apologies - don't have numbers for the last couple of years.
The main problem when they crash appears to be rollover - and to be fair that has been improved (because it was clearly bad) and some of the reports haven't caught up with that. An example of that from this article (2019):
Now - that was reporting on an article which itself was citing 2003 US traffic collision data. Again: SUVs have been getting better (for their occupants) e.g. see paper here, 2008 and data here (light truck class).
As for those outside:
It was also discovered that they caused problems when in collision with normal cars - but again this is improving (I don't know if that is perhaps in part because on average other vehicles have got higher?)
Worse for pedestrians studies e.g. here, 2022.
Worse for cyclists (2023 - summary here, it's a small numbers study though).
They don't go into the detail of their methodology, just say where the data is from (STATS19 I think) - so I'm not 100% on who was injured. But we'll go with that.
However - you are quite correct in you skepticism and saying they're more dangerous to their occupants *now* is incorrect. Because of the poor record of SUV / light truck vehicles in the early days by the mid 2010s the numbers seem to show that they were safer for their occupants overall. I don't think that was necessarily because they crashed less. But it seems that some of the safety issues for the occupants were fixed (possibly partly by making the roof pillars more chunky - not good for vision...)
The consensus (as the road.cc article study shows) is that they're still bad news for those on the outside though. Aside from just taking up more space, being less fuel-efficient etc.
Firstly, even taking the "research" at face value, I'm not convinced by your argument. There's not just the Range Rover - the Defender is also in the list, alongside several other large MPV type vehicles. If you scroll down to the US list, you'll see it is topped two whopping great vehicles - the Chevrolet Silverado and Ford F150.
More importantly, as "research" goes it's pretty crap.
In the UK, the results are ordered by reported collisions per 100,000 registered vehicles of that make. However, this means that the extremes of the list are dominated by relatively uncommon vehicles, as small variations in the number of crashes leads to extremely large or low rates per 100,000. The Range Rover is the most common model that makes it into the top/bottom 20, with 118,484 licenced vehicles. That is actually a relatively rare car - using the same data (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/vehicle-licensing-st...), that wouldn't even make it into the top 50 car models. The most common car in 2020 was the Ford Fiesta, with over 1,500,000 registered vehicles. I can't find the source for the collision data (make/model doesn't seem to be reported on any of the tables I have found here https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/road-accidents-and-safety-stat...) but it is almost certain that the vast majority of collisions will involve the far more common cars. Any kind of sensible analysis would consider this the "meat" of the data, rather than focusing solely on the extremes.
Another issue is that the number of licenced vehicles is used as a proxy for exposure, taking no account of different use patterns or mileage. A quick calculation on MOT data suggests this could explain the Prius' position at the top of the list - the average Prius is driven approximately 17,000 miles per year, among the highest of any model (presumably as a result of the Prius' popularity as a PHV). By contrast, the "safest" Grand Scenic is driven less than half than that per year on average (8,300 miles/year). The average 911 even less (<4,000miles/year). Using the number of licensed vehicles as a proxy for exposure doesn't work when some of those vehicles spend a lot more of their time sat on driveways than others.
The US data is "analysed" in a completely different way (not taking into account model-specific exposure at all, and also only considering fatalities) - but there is zero discussion on how this could be expected to influence the results and the intepretation, so that is of course a massive red flag for anyone considering whether this "research" was carried out with any sort of rigour.
Drivers see less as they can't see what is immediately in front of them.
With an increased frontage and greater height, the unfortunate ped is subjected to more injuries and of a more serious type due to the part of their body which hits the vehicle.
"It may not be the weight, but the really bad thing is the line of impact which is at the height of the hip or higher (and of the head with a child). With a normal car, the impact line is at the height of the knee or below, which means that the victim lands on the bonnet and gets lifted up over the windshield. Damage is there, for sure, but heals much better than when the victim is flattened at abdomen and chest, as with an UAV… "
But the consequences of said knobhead acting out his nobheadedness behind the wheel of a wankpanzer can only be worse than with say a Honda Jazz.
Is there also a chicken/egg issue: knobhead man/ knobhead car - which came first? I sometimes wonder.
Sorry I wasn't clear. I would would actually adminster the limitations based on engine size (or even bhp) NOT overall car size so we really don't disagree. EVs do cause some problems with this as the acceleration on even a basic model is much more than anybody can justify on our roads.
Completely agree. Drivers need to be treated like children when they show that they can't be trusted as adults. If you are banned you should have to take an extended retest, have 6 points instead of 12 for a few years and be limited to vehicles under a certain power and size until you show that you aren't still a selfish **** who doesn't care about anyone but themselves.
That reduced threhold for 5 years before a further ban is interesting.
All of us who drive are at times bad drivers, perhaps those that deny it to themselves the worst!
My motorcycle instructor used to say that the best riders were the ones who didn't think they were best, the ones who approach a bend and say to themselves you know what, I'm not the best at cornering in the world so I'd better wind it off a bit here...
In the same way that sometimes not wearing a helmet is used in court to attribute responsibility for their injuries to cyclists, and thus reduce compensation, I wonder if there is a case for saying that chosing to drive a SUV or pickup over a 'normal' car would be seen as increasing liability for those drivers?
This seems to have it right.
AFAIK while "I had to drive" seems to be accepted, only Jeremy Clarkson and the salesmen (good band BTW) are saying that you have to drive some upscaled motor vehicle. Or one with "off-road" or "load carrying" features which are unnecessary for the vast majority of people*.
To improve road safety** we have to look at both personal responsibility / policing AND "human nature" / engineering. Yes - police driving. But don't just give a pass to sell vehicles (or design roads) which increase danger compared to the standard.
* It's not just "what people want" - it really is a scam. BTW the "off-road" and "load carrying" features of many of these vehicles are objectively poor designs if you actually need something for those purposes.
** Or probably more pertinantly having nicer places and more suitable, sustainable means of getting around them.
If you at the sentencing guidelines for Causing serious injury by dangerous driving, the jail time you'd get for that would depend in part on the injuries caused to the victim. So driving a larger car does potentially leave you open to greater legal consequences.
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