The Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security (IIHS) crunched the numbers. It seems larger, heavier autos do not at all times preserve you safer in a crash. They’ll, nevertheless, make you extra lethal to different drivers on the street. All of it relies on whether or not a automobile is heavier or lighter than the common automotive.
Within the IIHS examine, researchers averaged the load of their pattern 2017-2022 autos, which got here out to 4,000 kilos. For each further 500 kilos of curb weight above that, crashes between an SUV or truck and a automotive resulted in a single fewer demise per million registered automobile years in heavier fashions—or, hardly any change. Nonetheless, the additional weight accounted for as much as seven further deaths in automobiles.
The examine additionally discovered that automobiles and SUVs weighing lower than 4,000 kilos would profit from some further poundage. Getting as shut as doable to the common weight can lead to 17 fewer deaths in car-to-car crashes and 13 fewer in SUV-to-car crashes. However for something over 4,000 kilos, there’s “hardly any” lower in threat for occupants, in line with the IIHS. So mainly: the nearer to the common weight, the higher.
“There’s nothing magical about 4,000 kilos besides that it’s the common weight,” Sam Monfort, lead creator of the examine, mentioned in a press release. “Automobiles which are heavier than common usually tend to crash into autos lighter than themselves, whereas the reverse is true for autos which are lighter than common. What this evaluation exhibits is that selecting an extra-heavy automobile doesn’t make you any safer, but it surely makes you a much bigger hazard to different folks.”
The demise disparity between automobiles, vehicles, and SUVs is falling. In 2011-2016, occupants in a automotive had been 90 p.c extra prone to die in a crash with an SUV weighing greater than 5,000 kilos. That dropped to twenty p.c from 2017-2022 after the IIHS and automakers labored collectively to align the crash buildings of bigger vehicles, SUVs, and smaller coupes and sedans.
“For American drivers, the standard knowledge is that if larger is safer, even larger have to be safer nonetheless,” IIHS President David Harkey mentioned in a press release. “These outcomes present that is not true as we speak. Not for folks in different automobiles. And—that is necessary—not for the occupants of the massive autos themselves.”
