And if we add the lives lost in wars over oil, the environmental problems caused by burning more fuel and the effects of climate change, do the death stats still say driving honking big fuel guzzlers is less life-threatening?
Here’s the relevant column: “Have federal automobile fuel safety standards increased the number of automobile deaths?” (Badly phrased question; he meant fuel efficiency, not “fuel safety”.)
What the Hell is an “automobile fuel safety standard”?
There was an interesting article in the New Yorker somewhat related to this a few years ago. The full archives aren’t available online, but here’s the abstract: Big and Bad | The New Yorker
One of the points was that while larger cars are safer in an accident, smaller cars are less likely to get into accidents. That is, when people are driving smaller cars they are more aware of their surroundings. SUV drivers tend to feel insulated and drive less cautiously. Also, small cars generally have a shorter braking distance and handle better.
I think they had some evidence to back some of this stuff up, but I guess a lot of it was opinion.
That’s the one that required gasoline to be non-flammable. It didn’t make it out of committee. 
I just want to say that, once again, Uncle Cecil has run a very good line between the extremes on the issue: Honest, informed, and informative.
Thumbs up.
As a follow-up question though, wouldn’t it be possible to claim that because of airbags, and improved crumple-zones, and other large-scale safety features in cars, the smaller, but still crippling injuries are becoming more common: Especially things like foot/leg damage and amputation?
Even if this is true, my guess would be that it’s an effect of the injuries becoming signifigant as what would have been formerly fatal accidents have left survivors because of the improved safety devices. Not what I’d call a problem, then, just time to increase the focus to protecting the whole body - not just the torso/head.
The reason I bring that up is that I’m wondering whether any of the studies mentioned in Cecil’s article corrected for increasing traffic on the roads, or other factors outside of the study question.
Seriously, Cecil, did you take a hard knock to the head recently? All those studies prove that lighter vehicles have been responsible for more deaths?
Each of those studies also ‘proves’’ that SUV’s killed more people because of their increased weight.
If one wants to use the safety factor as the justification for heavier vehicles, the only logical conclusion is that we should all be driving 25 ton tanks with a governor limiting the top speed to 8 mph.
Here’s the full version.
Yeah, but biggers cars are heavier. The more mass, the more energy has to be expended in the crushing. More crushing means there’s more chance that at the end of the crush phase the passenger space will distort with predictable results. So all in all, it’s pretty much the same.
True, a greater mass means the vehicle is traveling with higher kinetic energy that a smaller vehicle going the same speed. But since most of that extra weight is placed in the crumple zones around the cab, it also takes more energy to crush these heavier crumple zones. This, in fact, is what offsets the higher kinetic energy prior to the crash.
But even with this balance, Cecil’s main point is that the larger crumple zone also gives the passengers a longer distance/more time over which they decelerate in a crash. This larger size (not necessarily the weight) is what provides an additional safety benefit.
Personally, I also believe the height of the vehicle and the cab gives an additional benefit to the SUV driver in an accident; these factors make it far less likely the SUV cab will be penetrated in a car-SUV accident. Of course, the car in that type of accident is in far more danger (I’ve read the car driver is 12 times more likely than the SUV driver to die in such an accident), and SUV size also increases the likelihood of a rollover accident. I really don’t know if/how these factors offset, and clearly things like concern for the environment and safety for others should also be weighed. I’m just mentioning them as another possible cause for the demonstrated safety (for the driver and passengers at least) of driving an SUV.
I think Cecil answer didn’t allow enough for the added risk of rollover in SUVs. I know that many SUVs are banned from use in my kids’ school for class trips because of the low safety ratings and high death rates for rollovers. Not sure where they get their data to make those judgements, though.
As many have pointed out, larger cars survive better in crashes due to their heavier weight and larger crumple zones, and as one person pointed out, they are often also higher. I would love to see statistics on how many fatalities in smaller cars are due to collisions with larger, heavier vehicles. One way to reduce fatalities may be to ban the heavier, higher vehicles from non-commercial use, making collisions that do occur between passenger vehicles more ‘equal’. I recently returned from a trip to Europe and the vast majority of passenger cars are compact or sub-compact (and, increasingly, the even smaller Smart cars and their competitors). Traffic fatalities don’t seem to be a big issue and fuel consumption is far below ours. I don’t think that people drive any better or worse there than here, but they don’t have anywhere near the number of SUVs and other large vehicles on the roads.