For safety, my wife drives an SUV,
which I think keeps my daughters safer than driving
a small vehicle on the Interstate. Our Interstates
are absolutely clogged with big trucks, buses, semis
etc. I wouldn't want my kids driven around in a golf
cart, that is for damn sure.
SUV vs. semi or bus. Sorry, you still lose.
Problems With Trucks & SUVs - Representing the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, consumer activist Joan Claybrook presented the following information to the House of Representatives in 1996 and 1997: "Each year nearly 5,000 Americans die in truck crashes. According to the IIHS, in 1995, 98 percent of the people killed in two-vehicle crashes involving passenger cars and big trucks were occupants of the passenger vehicles. Since 1992, there have been more fatalities in collisions involving SUVs and cars than in car-to- car crashes, largely as a result of the disparity in vehicle weight (mass), height, and front-end aggressivity between SUVs and passenger cars. Of those persons fatally injured in SUV-car collisions, the vast majority, eighty per cent, were car occupants (see NHTSA report, 'Relationships Between Vehicle Size and Fatality Risk')."
Four-wheel-drive pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are designed to be driven for work, hauling, and off-road purposes. They were not designed to be people movers, and don't handle nearly as well as passenger cars or minivans. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that SUVs are four times more likely to roll over than passenger cars in high-speed maneuvers. In addition, some smaller top-heavy SUVs have rolled over in NHTSA side impact collision testing. SUV-to-car collisions are six times more likely to kill the occupants of the smaller vehicle when compared to a normal car-to-car collision. You may be safer inside an SUV, but you're at greater risk of killing others in the event of an accident.
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