Impact of SUVs in a crash

[MassiveCars]

Recently there was a terrible accident involving a 2 ton car
What stood out was the mention of the weight of the vehicle
So I did a couple of calcs
An SUV of 1972kg doing 30mph has the same Kinetic Energy of a small car of 1221kg doing 38mph
A larger SUV of 2598kg has the same Kinetic Energy of a small car of 1221kg doing 44mph
All these large SUVs doing 30mph create the same damage as a smaller car doing 38mph to 44mph
There must be enough maths & physics teachers on here to check this out
I did think of mentioning the small car and the big car types ?

But large SUVs (=large weight) are a much more serious danger to kids at 30mph than your small cars at 30mph

There is great emphasis on 30mph, perhaps we should enforce slower speeds for heavier vehicles if safety is the objective

Typical lazy thinking. Ban everything. Lucky that there are far smarter people out there in industry than the hard of thinking on this thread who invent their way out of problems.

It's not the cars that are the issue, it's the drivers. And the people most likely to have/cause a fatal car accident are young men who don't tend to drive suvs. The Wimbledon accident has been widely reported because its an outlier. There are lots of 20mph limits around here in villages but as they are not enforced (bugger all police in rural areas) there is little point in them.

Hard to properly evaluate without knowing the model you drive, but there are extra points awarded by Euro NCAP for things like automatic emergency braking. This might be the explanation for the better rating. Of course, it’s an optional feature that many people turn off. I assume you keep it on, which is great - but until it’s mandatory and cannot be disabled, it doesn’t supersede the dangers of size & shape.

Cars are very wasteful, they take up lots of room for each largely unnecessary journey, sit around be under utilised for hours at a time. Then people frequently replace them before the end of their usable life.

Volvos are heavier because of their additional safety features, which include pedestrian safety features and external airbags.

Though I did once see a specialist stating if we all drove small cars with a spike in the middle of the steering wheel, road safety would dramatically improve!

I find this comment unbelievably crass given what has just happened to those poor girls.

How should they have 'planned accordingly' for being hit by essentially a small tank?

The issue isn't just collisions with other vehicles.

It’s a BMW EV so lots of bells and whistles.

I’ve never understood why people turn off the drive assist options. We also have a mk 8 Golf so VAG’s first gen attempt at driver assist and despite that, it’s never been an annoyance. People seem to be affronted that their driving is being questioned by their car!

I do a lot of miles up and down motorways and you see a lot of poor lane discipline, both keeping centred in their lane and leaving adequate space in front. The sooner drive assist is compulsory the better.

I've always thought that speeding fines should be relative to car size. 35 in a 30 in an i10 slap on the wrist in a Range Rover 6points instantly.

Slightly unfair of you to compare a £15k basic hatchback with your £70k SUV regarding safety, but I agree with everything you say about driver assist.

Or we could just look at cities like Amsterdam and Ghent where they have completely deprioritised car traffic for a better experience for everyone?

It will never happen here, as evidenced by all the selfish twats bleating about their rights to drive whatever they like, wherever they want and hang the consequences.

I wouldn't have thought it was a concern before moving to central london (westminster/victoria). With badly laid out tiny pavements (due to history) packed with commuters and tourists and these massive land/
range rovers ramming through all the other cars and crowds, yes you do feel their size and how stupidly inappropriate they are for city based people.

And there are just so, so many. I didn't think so many people felt the need to compensate.

I think you are missing the point of the post. If you drive a tank you are going to survive. It is everyone else on the road that should be concerned.

The crumpling is designed in though. That's what's meant to happen - the car body crumpling absorbs the impact so the passengers don't.

The problem with safety systems is that they are not suitable in all situations. Our vehicles both have an "emergency lane keeping" system. (Most modern cars do.) I live rurally and it regularly mistakes the side of the lane for the edge of a lane and tries to steer the car away from the side of the road. This has the effect of trying to steer me into the path of the milk tanker or tractor coming the other way... It has to be switched off EVERY time I start the car.

How bloody callous after the death of those young girls! What a vile person you are. It doesn't matter if people are killed or maimed as long as I'm alright.

Exactly so the only way is to heavily discourage or control them.

Lower speed limits for heavier vehicles sound sensible. And maybe exclusion zones around schools for vehicles over a certain size unless it’s a delivery vehicle.

Farmers who drive SUVs for work won’t mind any of that as they are used to driving slower vehicles anyway.

Well thank goodness my DH was driving our SUV when a deer ran out in the road last year and hit the car. If he’d been in our smaller car, the deer would most likely have gone through the windscreen and DH and DS would have been seriously hurt or worse.

This thread, though, is about the shitty prospects of anyone you, protected inside your SUV, might hit.

Don't think she is missing the point she understands it completely but doesn't care, as long as she is safer in her SUV to hell with the rest of the road users including pedestrians, cyclists and so on it is their fault if they are injured or killed in a crash for not driving the "safer" SUV. I find it an absolutely disgusting attitude and it explains why so many SUV drivers are absolutely appalling drivers because they feel safe and superior and don't care if they crash 🙄

I don't think weight of vehicle is the only issue it is also the height of them which means they are far more likely to kill a pedestrian/ cyclist if they hit them

Do you mean 4x4? To me an SUV means car styled to be higher off the ground but essentially a normal car without any 4x4 etc capabilities. I also agree that EV are a particular risk because they’re heavy and silent which is a big issue to pedestrians. Also older cars are less safe generally. So not sure it’s fair to target one group over another. I’d definitely support legislation to enforce safety standards for pedestrians

What is the definition of an SUV for your purposes? In most of these threads its "any car a bit bigger than mine". I'm not seeing an "explosion" of 4*4s, just marketing, a bit of restyling and rebadging a lot of pretty standard cars as SUVs.

A lot of the extra weight in modern cars (all types) is due to safety features - which safety features do you want removed? Then of course EVs are even heavier still and without the warning sound.

4*4s with the higher seating position are a lot more accessible for anyone with mobility problems which is why they dominate the options list on motobility and similar schemes and are popular with people who have a range of disabilities.

Or we could address the actual drivers instead of demonising random vehicles by marketing categories and require every driver to do a refresher class every five years as part of keeping a licence. Part of which would be looking at vehicle and rule changes.

As someone else mentioned, it’s not just the weight, it’s the size, ie more likely to go over a car, more likely to hit a pedestrian in the chest/head etc,

There really should have to be a business case to have an SUV eg a farmer. There’s no need for them on urban roads.

They're a nightmare round here. I don’t live far from a manufacturer so we have loads CV here, they affect car parks as they squeeze into spaces, the impact viewing esp at junctions, need bigger engines than smaller cars.

They’re always getting stolen too, they seem to have zero security features, therefore we often see them being driven away at high speeds.

I agree about EV, our hybrid weighs twice as much as the equivalent petrol.maybe speed limits etc need looking at overall. As an aside I think EVs are not the best environmentally. Whilst helping local pollution, we need to factor in the environmental costs of sourcing materials, disposal of cars, added wear and tear on the roads - impact re accidents (impact, stopping distances etc).

The kerb weight of a 2023 MINI COUNTRYMAN Cooper S E Untamed Edition ALL4 is 1760 kg; the kerb weight of a Range Rover Evoque is 1787 kg. Nobody would moan about the Mini and there is very little difference in weight; but gees they never stop moaning about the RR and SUVs. I drive a 5 seater saloon that has a kerb weight of 1695 kg.