SUVs Safer in Head-on Crashes with Cars Regardless of Safety Ratings

When a car and an SUV collide head-on, the occupants of the car are more than four times as likely to die as those in the SUV, according to a new analysis of government crash data.

Results are being presented on Thursday by a team led by Dr. Dietrich Jehle at a meeting of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine in Atlanta.

Dr. Jehle, a professor of emergency medicine with the State University of New York's University at Buffalo, says the odds of a car's occupants dying range from about four times as high when the car has a better safety rating than the SUV to 10 times as high if the reverse is true.

The UB research indicates that occupants of the car also suffer more than those in an SUV if both vehicles weigh about the same. That is because SUVs tend to ride over the lower bumpers of cars and inflict more damage to the car's passenger compartment, Dr. Jehle says.

The report cautions that cars with high safety ratings may give buyers a false sense of security because the scores ignore the effect of vehicle mismatches. Overall, larger SUVs are among the safest vehicles on the road today, according to Dr. Jehle.