Are you an American, or did you just copy and paste this from an American site? Hope you have the permission to do so..... Wouldn't want a copyright issue....
Myth: SUVs are safer than cars.
Reality: SUVs are no safer than cars for their occupants, and pose much greater dangers for other road users. SUV occupants die slightly more often than car occupants in crashes. The occupant death rate in crashes per million SUVs on the road is 6 percent higher than the death rate per million cars. The occupant death rate for the largest SUVs, which tend to be driven by middle-aged families, is 8 percent higher than the occupant death rate for minivans and upper-midsize cars like the Ford Taurus and Toyota Camry, which are typically driven by similar families. SUV occupants are much more likely than car occupants to die in a rollover, which accounts for about 1,000 more deaths a year than if the same people had been in cars. In collisions with other vehicles, however, SUVs are nearly three times as likely as cars to kill other drivers, inflicting another 1,000 unnecessary deaths a year among motorists who would have survived if hit instead by cars of the same weight. SUVs also contribute much more than cars to air pollution, causing up to 1,000 extra deaths a year among people with respiratory ailments.
Myth: SUVs are good choices for young drivers.
Reality: Parents who care about their children should not let them drive SUVs. Compared to older drivers, teens’ involvement in multivehicle crashes is above average but their involvement in single-vehicle crashes is far above average, presumably because of their inexperience. SUVs are the worst vehicles to be driving for anyone concerned about single-vehicle crashes. They have limited crumple zones, providing less protection than a car in an impact with a solid roadside object like a bridge abutment. Worse, SUVs are several times more likely to roll over than a car. Rollovers are the main cause of paralysis in crashes and paralysis can be an especially heavy burden for a young person to bear.
Parents should also discourage their children from riding in SUVs driven by other young people. Not only are SUVs unsafe, but insurance industry statistics show the risk of a fatal crash increases swiftly the more occupants there are in a vehicle driven by a teen, probably because inexperienced drivers are more easily distracted.
Young people should drive midsize or full-size sedans, which are unlikely to flip over, provide ample crumple zones and do not pose nearly the risk of an SUV to other motorists.
Myth: Rollovers happen to people who drive recklessly but are of little concern for responsible drivers.
Reality: While inexperienced drivers are more likely to flip vehicles than experienced drivers, rollovers can happen to anyone. Federal research, accepted by the auto industry, shows that 92 percent of all rollovers begin when a vehicle is "tripped." This can occur when the vehicle strikes a curb, guardrail or another, lower-riding vehicle. Tripping can also occur when the wheels on one side of the vehicle pass over a high-friction surface, like the mud or gravel of a soft road shoulder. While reckless drivers are more likely to trip their vehicles, any motorist can wind up in an emergency situation, such as swerving to avoid a pedestrian, in which tripping is a risk.
Myth: If a drunk driver starts drifting across the centerline toward you, you are better off in an SUV than in a car.
Reality: On a narrow, crowded or slippery road with no shoulder, it may not be possible to swerve out of the drunk’s path. But drunken driving tends to be particularly a problem at night, when roads are less congested. You have a better chance of maneuvering out of a drunk’s path in an agile car than in a tall, lumbering SUV, and you are less likely to roll over in a car than in an SUV if you swerve across the shoulder. If you are in a collision, an SUV will typically provide more protection than a car if it stays upright because of its greater weight and because its height may allow it to override bumpers and crush the softer passenger compartment of the drunk’s vehicle. But SUVs are more likely to roll over in multivehicle collisions as well as single-vehicle crashes.
Myth: Vehicles with all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive have more effective brakes than two-wheel-drive vehicles.
Reality: All-wheel drive or four-wheel drive simply means that the engine is supplying power to turn all four wheels. These systems help a vehicle accelerate. But this has nothing to do with braking effectiveness. Indeed, all vehicles have brakes on all four wheels. Taller, heavier vehicles, including most SUVs, are harder to stop than shorter, lighter vehicles, including most cars. Because SUVs are less likely to slip while accelerating on wet or icy surfaces, their drivers are easily lulled into forgetting that they cannot stop any better than nearby cars. The most important factor in braking and steering is the surface area of contact that the tires have against the road. Many SUV tires actually have less contact with paved roads than car tires because they have deep, macho-looking grooves that are designed to let them sink deep into mud or snow to harder ground below.
Myth: SUVs must be safe vehicles because the overall rate of traffic deaths per 100 million miles driven in the United States has inched down during the last decade even as SUV sales have soared.
Reality: The SUV problem has snuck up on America because the percentage of all registered vehicles in the nation that are SUVs has been rising by less than a percentage point a year. Drunk driving has plunged, seat-belt use has soared and air bags have become widespread over the last decade, three changes that should have produced big improvements in American traffic safety. Yet the deadliness of the nation’s roads has barely changed. Nearly 42,000 Americans still die on the nation’s roads each year and 3 million are injured, making traffic accidents one of the nation’s biggest public health problems.
Myth: Riding up high improves visibility and allows the driver to anticipate trouble ahead.
Reality: Like sitting on a thick phone directory at a theater, driving a tall vehicle does improve a motorist’s view, but at the expense of those driving behind. Drivers of tall vehicles are able to avoid some crashes by seeing dangerous situations in advance. But they also increase their odds of rolling over, with all the risks of death or paralysis that this implies. Tall vehicles are no safer than short vehicles while putting others in danger.
Myth: The safety problems of SUVs are "growing pains" that will diminish as safer models come on the market in the next few years.
Reality: Small steps are being taken, like installing hollow steel bars below the front bumpers of SUVs to reduce the danger they pose to lower-riding cars. But even the newest SUVs are likely to prove less stable than cars and more dangerous to other road users. The biggest problems still lie ahead. The majority of the SUVs on the road today, including three-quarters of the full-sized SUVs, were built in the last five years and are still being driven mainly by middle-aged families. As these vehicles age, their mechanical parts will begin to deteriorate and they will become more affordable for young drivers and for drunks, who tend to choose inexpensive vehicles
Myth: SUV air pollution does not matter because they are less dirty than the cars of a generation ago.
Reality: Big SUVs are allowed to emit up to 1.1 grams per mile of smog-causing nitrogen oxides, which is less than the 3 to 4 grams a mile from cars of the early 1960s but still a lot worse than today’s cars, which are only allowed to emit up to 0.2 grams per mile. The air quality in most American cities has been improving, but further improvements require constant effort. Before leaving office in 2001, President Clinton issued regulations requiring that cars and SUVs emit no more than 0.07 grams per mile by 2009, a rule that ought not to be relaxed.
Myth (version 1): The rise of SUVs is a principal cause of global warming.
Myth (version 2): SUVs are unimportant to global warming.
Reality: The truth lies somewhere in between. Most scientists say that human activity is helping to tip the balance of nature toward a warming of the Earth’s climate, the so-called greenhouse effect, but the extent of the human contribution is uncertain. Automobiles emit 19.5 pounds of carbon dioxide, a global-warming gas, for each gallon of gasoline they burn, as carbon from the gasoline is combined with oxygen from the air passing through the grille. SUVs, with their gas-guzzling ways, account for far less than 1 percent of all human emissions of global-warming gases. But SUVs are nevertheless an especially wasteful contributor to global warming. Switching from a midsize car to a large SUV for a year consumes as much energy as leaving a refrigerator door open for six years. Americans’ attachment to their SUVs has helped make it very hard for presidents to commit the United States to steep reductions in total emissions of global-warming gases, and this has crippled international efforts to address global warming.
Myth: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Reality: For the truly self-centered person who cares nothing about hurting other people in crashes, obscuring other drivers’ views of the road, making smog worse and contributing to global warming, this might seem a viable option. But such drivers need to be aware that they are not improving their own safety, and must endure the aggravation of driving a vehicle that is harder to drive and harder to park than a car.
This is only a small fraction of information for the ill-informed.
cheers ronnie
Are you an American, or did you just copy and paste this from an American site? Hope you have the permission to do so..... Wouldn't want a copyright issue....
cut and paste
Ian
Alcohol doesn't agree with me, but i sure do enjoy the argument!!!
typical response from abbott and costello.
cheers ronnie
Information?
The bibliography for the above piece of drivel would read like a who's who of sensationalising (sensationalizing if you are a wanna be seppo which I suspect might be true) journalists.
If you'd ever read a 'paper' which was commissioned it would have references to proven facts, rather than the droll soliloqy you've served me here.
Sir, you claim to be taking the high moral ground here with regards suv vs pedestrian incidents, yet the above diatribe presents me with not one skerrick of creditable information related to the topic.
I am here to be converted by your insight, and alas it would appear you cannot substantiate your own argument?
Please come up with something concrete to pique my interest again, as your monologue of quips about other members here is lowering my estimation of your ability to present and argue a case.
Please start with your substantiation of the 2wd/4wd braking analysis, or how single vehicle accidents have any relevance to running over children. I do not think too many people would argue that 'SUV's' are more dangerous in this type of incident, but that was not your point.
C.J.
nil carborundum illegitimi
Finding Time/Fishing Dan, forgive me if I don’t respond to you again, you are simply too easy and boring now. Your inability to debate or comprehend anything that’s obviously above your narrow minded educated level leaves me in awe. Any negative information directed towards these vehicles by myself or the press immediately is rebuffed by the enthusiasts, that’s natural, even thought deep down they surely must acknowledge the facts.
Lets all monitor over Christmas the fatalities not only on our roads, but Moreton, Fraser, Straddy and Double Island, speaks volumes.
Certainly hope you have a Merry Christmas.
ps. Odds on that both these parties travel to Double Island Point, love to witness that.
cheers
Ronnie
Finding_Time :- What date where we meeting the narrow minded other at Double Island Point to do burn outs on the beach with our big SUV's trying to cause havoc (Oh wait - Stupid people don't know the work havoc), drinking beer all day and night and driving DUI, running over pedestrians, speeding, blah blah blah...
Ronnie - I may be easy, but not in the way you're suggesting (In the Jay vs Momma way!!! ). You do have to remember though that some people do simplify their language when they talk to people less intelligent/informed... Maybe that's why I'm coming across as "boring"
You do realise of course that people have a thing called "Choice". Humans are given the ability to work things out for themselves, and not just take everything people tell them for granted. That's what "sheep" do - They follow blindly!
Ronnie - Give us some actual scientific evidence, and then we will have a proper debate. A debate does not go "You're dumb", "But you're stupid", "No you are", "No you are"!!!
danOriginally Posted by Fishin_Dan
you forgot to mention swerving out of the way of vehicles on the gympie- rainbow beach road and rolling our suv's!!! you know it's not a proper trip until we have rolled our suv's twenty or thirty times, after all they are VERY unstable !!
Ian
pS. I've just discovered ct-18 truck wash its great!! No more long hours scrubing blood and entrails of the bull bar!!!
Alcohol doesn't agree with me, but i sure do enjoy the argument!!!
ah ronnie ronnie ronnie,
I see you have been searching and searching for facts to show those terrible big boys that you're right.
But alas all you've come back to show & tell with is more fairy tales with no verifiable facts to back them up.
Run along back with the other kiddies now it's nearly kindy nap time.
But don't worry. One day the sky probably will fall!
Owen
Cheers,
Owen
The whole world's mad save thee & me (but I'm not too sure about thee)
yeah right ronnie..of course the crach incident rate will be high for 4WD on the islands..bugger all 2WD vehicles there...the post you put up is full of unsupported items...even down to SUV causing global warming..give me a break..I have never read so much drivel for a long time. So tell me ronnie..I drive a 4WD ute...when will I roll it? The only car I have ever rolled was a 2WD Gemini at about 150kmh...that was a hoot. Will my 4WD cause death and destruction due to the increaded heat it is causing? (That is if you believe in global warming anyway)..keep going ronnie..if nothing else I get a good laugh that someone could be so gullible and narrow minded to believe that tripe.Originally Posted by ronnie12
same old boring dribble from the same blind few but keep going its so amusing.
ronnie
bye bye ronnie...just another internet troll
Originally Posted by ronnie12
and the last 4WD fatality on Straddie was .....
a population dominated by 4WD owership of questionable standard at times
grams per mile - i just love ya science ronnie, it tends to confirm figures that without reference i can only assume are .... invented... because a researcher wouldn't do that.
SINGLE CAUSE - do you know what it is yet?
merry xmas ronnie,
chris
Owen, Owen, Owen, I had perfectly sumed you up the first time. Thats it ignore the obvious, just put your head in the sand. Once you start with the kindergarden talk you have already displayed your personally and lost out the argument.
If you choose to believe the dribble you have written ignoring the obvious you are then a fool.
Like I have already stated any negative talk towards these vehicles produces biast, temper tantrums, personal attacks and flaring of the nostrels by some enthusiasts. If you choose to ignore and dispute any bad media, thats your choice, but I find it amusing how narrow minded some people can be.
cheers ronnie
I studied science at uni, no biggie, was a means to an end - Anyway one of the problems in submitting articles to lecturers/professors was I actually needed to know what I was talking about - Even if I didn't! because those I submitted to were very knowledgeable in each area involved both educated in... and with hope a bunch of real world experience. This meant I had to reference each and every claim etc with a verifiable document and or author. Those authors would have done the same this will lead right back to the original test/research regardless of how many steps that would take.
Your document would have been refused a mark -true!!! and I would have been hauled up in front of someone and probably got a warning as it was in no way my work etc in short dis-credible.
Ronnie I understand there is an underclass of mentality around today that can be found on any google search on just about any topic but really!!!.... You may have just as easily clicked on one of the other links at the site you plagiarized from and become enthralled reading about sea-monsters and the Bermuda triangle Now there is a topic where you can make a difference [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]
Not that I really care but you need to cite a verifiable reference, if only to reclaim the previous standing you had in this thread.
cheers fnq