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British Medical Journal says SUVs should come with health warnings
October 7, 2005
An editorial in next week's British Medical Journal says more needs to be done to raise awareness of risks sport utility vehicles (SUVs) pose to pedestrians.
Researchers Dr. Ciaran Simms and Professor Desmond O'Neil from Trinity College Dublin said the risk of fatality when an SUV collides with a pedestrian is nearly twice that of a similar event involving a passenger car because of its higher hood, not because of its larger size and mass.
When a passenger car hits a pedestrian, the bumper will normally cause the injured to suffer leg and knee fractures from the impact and secondary impact with the hood or windshield when falling downward. Therefore, key organs in the upper body are not as likely to be injured.
An SUV does not allow a folding movement to occur because of its height, causing the front end to hit vital organs directly and doubling injuries to vulnerable regions, including the head, thorax and abdomen.
A recent U.S. study also found that for the same collision speed, the likelihood of a pedestrian dying was nearly doubled in a crash with a large SUV compared with a normal passenger car.
SUVs are very popular vehicles in the U.S., and according to Global Insight Inc., the number of SUVs sold each year in the U.S. has tripled in the past decade from 1.56 million in 1994 to 4.7 million in 2004.
For more information on crashworthiness, contact us to confer with an attorney.
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