True, but these vehicles pose a greater risk to pedestrians:
All 4x4s should come with a health warning to alert buyers to the deadly threat these cars pose to pedestrians.
That's the conclusion of a report in the influential
British Medical Journal (BMJ).
Off-roaders - 4x4s - are more likely to kill or seriously injure pedestrians than ordinary cars, say researchers writing in the journal. However, our own research shows that some 4x4s are more pedestrian-friendly than others.
The BMJ report's authors argue that the car's design makes it more dangerous because the bonnet rather than the bumper is the first thing to hit pedestrians. This first strike hits the critical central body regions of the upper leg and pelvis, and topples the victim with such force that the cars cause double the normal number of injuries to vulnerable areas such as the head, chest, and stomach.
Pedestrian injuries from ordinary cars are less serious leg fractures and knee injuries caused by the bumper; head injuries come from secondary impact with the bonnet or windscreen.
New safety risk
The authors point to US studies which found that, for the same collision speed, the likelihood of a pedestrian fatality is nearly doubled in a collision with a large 4x4 compared with a passenger car. Other studies report as much as four times the risk of severe injury and death.
4x4s are not only seen as a danger to pedestrians, but also to people travelling in other cars. With the increase in large vehicles and the super-mini in recent years, medium cars have become less popular. A recent study by Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), shows many crashes now involve a collision between a large car and a small one. In such a crash the person in the smaller car is 12 times more likely to be killed than the person in the 4x4 [6].
[6&7] Transport Research Laboratory, in ‘Little and large a lethal combination’, Times Online, March 21, 2005