Large-Sized SUVs and Trucks Offer Minimal Safety Benefits: IIHS

As the size of SUVs and pickups continues to increase, researchers have found that larger, heavier vehicles do not improve occupant safety.

A new report suggests that larger vehicles do little to reduce occupants’ risks of being injured in an auto accident, while increasing the danger to pedestrians and those in other vehicles.

Market trends indicate a significant rise in the popularity of SUVs on U.S. roads, increasing from 30% to 57% between 2010 and 2023. During this period, the average pickup truck in the U.S. also grew 13% heavier and 7% larger.

Research suggests that SUVs and pickup trucks, with their elevated front ends, are two to three times more likely than smaller cars to cause fatal pedestrian injuries in a crash, with studies indicating that the severity of injuries increases with vehicle height.

In a new report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) this month, the organization now indicates that increased vehicle weight also poses a greater risk of injury or death to occupants during a crash.

In the new study, researchers examined driver death rates in two-vehicle crashes involving 1 to 4 year old cars, SUVs and pickup trucks during the periods from 2011 to 2016 and from 2017 to 2022.

Researchers have observed that injury rates among different vehicle types have become more comparable in recent years. This trend may stem from a voluntary agreement by automakers in 2009 to redesign the front ends of SUVs and pickups. The modifications aim for better alignment with cars’ energy-absorbing structures and overall enhancements in car design to improve safety.

Before these changes were put in place, SUV and pickup occupants from the 2011 to 2016 sample were 90% more likely to die in crashes with vehicles weighing more than 5,000 pounds compared to crashes with other cars. In contrast, after the changes were made in the 2017 to 2022 sample, heavy vehicles were only 20% more likely than cars to result in occupant fatalities.

For cars that weigh less than average, adding an extra 500 pounds reduces the number of driver deaths by 17 for every million vehicles. However, this weight increase only raises the death rate by one per million for the vehicles they collide with.

However, for pickups above the average weight, every additional 500 pounds reduced the driver death rate by only one and increased the death rate for other vehicles by seven.

The study indicates that as advancements in force-absorbing structures and occupant protection technologies have progressed, the safety advantages of being in a larger vehicle have diminished. Consequently, the increased weight of these vehicles now presents a greater risk to occupants in the event of a crash.

“For American drivers, the conventional wisdom is that if bigger is safer, even bigger must be safer still,” IIHS President David Harkey said. “These results show that isn’t true today. Not for people in other cars. And — this is important — not for the occupants of the large vehicles themselves.”