There's mounting evidence that being in a crash with a bigger vehicle is more dangerous, says a U.S. insurance group, but it's not so widespread a problem as people fear and maybe not so deserving of the efforts to address the issue.
The study also adds evidence to the notion that small vehicles (cars, SUVs or pickups) are simply a riskier place to be.
In a paper presented to the recent Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress, executives at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) claim "mismatches among cars, utility vehicles, and pickups in crashes is not a big problem for a societal perspective."
On the other hand, the IIHS papers adds drily, "if you are riding in a small car that is about to be hit by a big utility vehicle, then the problem looms large."
Anyone's who's ever seen IIHS president Brian O'Neill, one of the authors of this paper, looking grim and concerned about some new safety outrage on TV will appreciate the irony of them blaming the media for inflating the risks of the "crash compatability issue", but there you go.
Now O'Neill and his colleagues note that the designs of the increasingly popular SUVs "pose a threat to people riding in smaller cars." They do, as it has long been known, "But the fact is, two-vehicle collisions between cars (including passenger vans) and utility vehicles and pickups account for only about 15 per cent of all car occupant deaths."