nabasa ko to sa local paper namin. BTW, I have nothing against SUVs, I own one.


SUVs not safer for children, study saysTendency to flip over undercuts their size advantage, experts find.
By Lisa Zagaroli -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Story appeared in Business section, Page D1
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WASHINGTON - Despite their heft, sport-utility vehicles aren't any safer for children because of their propensity to flip over, a new study shows.
"Despite the larger size of SUVs and the consequent perception of improved safety, children riding in SUVs have a similar risk of injury compared with children riding in passenger cars," says the report, to be published today in the medical journal Pediatrics. "The protective effect of increased vehicle weight offered by SUVs is tempered by their higher risk of rollover crashes."


About 17 out of every 1,000 children suffered serious injuries - concussions, internal organ damage and fractures, for example - in all types of vehicle accidents.
A child who was properly restrained in a seat belt or child seat during an SUV rollover had twice the chance of serious injury compared to a child in a car, and a child who was completely unrestrained in an SUV rollover had 25 times the likelihood of being harmed, the report said.

The study was based on crashes involving 3,922 children between newborn and 15 years old that occurred between March 1, 2000, and Dec. 31, 2003. All the subjects were in model year 1998 or newer vehicles insured by State Farm.

The sample was taken from 49,742 crashes in California and 15 other states that are part of a multiyear child passenger safety study by researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.

Sport-utility vehicles have come under fire in recent years for their tendency to roll over; for their height and weight compared with smaller vehicles, which make them more likely to harm occupants of other vehicles in a crash; and for their fuel consumption.

There are about 28 million SUVs on America's highways, according to the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington trade group that represents car companies. A report last year by the U.S. Census Bureau said California had the most registered SUVs, with 2.8 million.

The child safety researchers said they think some parents choose SUVs because they mistakenly believe their children will be safer in them.

"SUVs are becoming more popular as family vehicles because they can accommodate multiple child safety seats and their larger size may lead parents to believe SUVs are safer than passenger cars," said the study's co-author, Dr. Dennis Durbin, an emergency physician and epidemiologist at Children's Hospital.

"When families are choosing a vehicle to be used as a family car, they should not make assumptions that an SUV's larger size will automatically result in lower risk," he said.

This study and previous analyses did confirm that bigger tends to be safer. For example, large sedans tend to be safer than midsized cars, and large SUVs safer than smaller SUVs.

"How we square that is the potential safety advantage of the added size and weight appears to be offset by the rollover risk," Durbin said. "There's no net advantage for kids in SUVs than kids in passenger cars.

"I suspect that will run counter to most people's assumptions," he said. "We were somewhat surprised by our findings."

Heightened risk with rollover crashes is a well-documented problem.

SUVs are about four times as likely to roll over as passenger cars, according to federal traffic statistics cited by the researchers.

Though rollovers represent only 3 percent of accidents, they account for more than a third of annual highway deaths, according to the federal agency that regulates cars, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

A vehicle's stability is based on a number of factors, including its height, its width between tires and weight distribution, as well as the way it is driven.

"Automakers have engineered numerous new safety technologies into SUVs over the past several model years to prevent rollovers," said Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers.

The automakers' voluntary efforts soon will be nudged along by the government.

Congress passed a major transportation bill in August that mandates the NHTSA to reduce rollovers through a variety of measures that could include requiring electronic stability control features that allow drivers to maintain better control in turns; ejection protection, such as improved door locks; and improved roof strength.

"SUVs pound for pound are safer in most crashes," said Barry McCahill, president of Sport Utility Vehicle Owners of America.

"Rollovers are still only 3 or 4 percent of crashes, and an SUV gives you pretty darn good protection. Do you pay more for gas? Yes, but I think of it as life insurance."

The NHTSA has said that 72 percent of people killed in rollover crashes aren't wearing their seat belts.

"If every SUV occupant wore their safety belt, it would save a thousand lives a year without doing anything to change technology, just using the existing technology," Shosteck said.

The new study said that a rollover increased the risk of injury to children in both SUVs and passenger cars, but rollovers occurred more often with SUVs.

Children were more likely to be properly seated in the rear of a sport-utility vehicle than in passenger cars, making them less likely to be exposed to dangerous air bag deployments, the study said.



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TRAFFIC ACCIDENT FACTS
More than 10,000 people die in rollover crashes each year.
• Fifty-nine percent of fatalities in SUVs occurred in rollover crashes, compared with 23 percent for passenger car accidents in 2003.

• There are about 10 deaths per 100,000 registered SUVs, compared to seven for pickups, and less than four for vans and passenger cars.

• SUV registrations increased 250 percent between 1995 and 2002.

• The average SUV is about 1,300 pounds heavier than the average passenger car.

• Information on vehicle safety ratings: www.safercar. gov and www.hwysafety. org.

Sources: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Partners for Child Passenger Safety.