Is Bigger Safer? It Ain’t Necessarily So:
Those who think that driving big is driving safe, or that lightweight, fuel-efficient vehicles are inherently more dangerous than their heavyweight counterparts, need to think again. A researcher with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) has teamed with a researcher from the University of Michigan in a unique risk analysis study which shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, vehicle quality is a much more important safety factor than weight for the drivers of vehicles involved in a crash.“Most cars are safer than the average sports utility vehicle [SUV], while pickup trucks are much less safe than all other types. Minivans and import luxury cars have the safest records,” states the report, “An Analysis of Traffic Deaths by Vehicle Type and Model,” which was prepared by Tom Wenzel, an energy analyst with Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, and Marc Ross, a professor in Michigan’s Applied Physics Department.
A large pickup truck, like a Ford F-series, is no safer than a Toyota Corolla — and it’s five times as dangerous to other drivers in a crash.