Do Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) Cause More Severe Injuries to Pedestrians and Cyclists than Passenger Cars, in the Case of a Crash? Findings from Great Britain, 2004-2023

2025/07/07 by Anna Goodman, Phil Edwards, Anthony A Laverty · 1 voice
Engineering · Medicine · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Traffic and Road Safety #Injury Epidemiology and Prevention #Agriculture and Farm Safety

paper · pdf · doi:10.32866/001c.141647

Abstract

We used police-reported road crash data from Great Britain, 2004-2023, to examine whether being hit by a sports utility vehicle (SUV) is more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists than being hit by a passenger car. In adjusted analyses, being hit by an SUV increased the odds of fatality by a modest amount in adults (odds ratio 1.14 (95% confidence interval 1.02, 1.28)). In children the odds of fatality increased considerably (odds ratio 1.77 (1.33, 2.35) in children aged 0-18 years), with particularly large effects in young children (odds ratio 3.09 (1.92, 4.97) in children aged 0-9 years). Vehicle weight and height showed strong, dose-response associations with injury severity, but vehicle length showed little association.

Discussions

• Interesting-looking new study from the UK finding that being hit by an SUV (as compared to a regular car) "considerably" increases the risk of death for children, and even more so for young children d [bsky, 77 points, 6 comments]

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