Doctors concerned at SUV risks

The Irish Medical Council is to write to the Department of Transport recommending that all new SUVs carry a sticker warning that these vehicles carry a "higher risk of death to a pedestrian knocked down".

The recommendation is part of a motion passed at the IMO's agm in April reflecting concern from Irish hospital consultants at research suggesting the fatality rate of pedestrians hit by some SUVs is greater than with standard sized cars.

The IMO is to ask the Department of Transport and the National Roads Authority to gather data from Garda collision reports to allow crash rates, injuries and fatalities associated with SUVs to be studied.

The initiative comes as Irish drivers show an ever increasing appetite for SUVs. In the first five months of 2005 more than 9,550 have been sold, or about 7.8 per cent of all new car sales.

This would be the fifth consecutive year of increased sales for the sector. Last year 9,770 were sold - about 6.3 per cent of all new passenger vehicles and more than 35 per cent of these were registered in Dublin.

Des O'Neill, associate professor at the department of medical gerontology at Tallaght Hospital, who proposed the IMO motion, said new research indicated the risk of death to a pedestrian hit by an SUV was twice as high as those hit by cars.

Research of the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) in the US by Rowan University in New Jersey, said cars passengers, cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians were all at higher risk of serious or fatal injuries in collisions with SUVs.

O'Neill said, while SUVs may be somewhat safer for the occupants, the IMO was concerned at the trends identified in US accident analysis research.

"We need to study the role of SUVs here," he said. "The next big area for road safety, we feel, will be vehicle design and the IMO wants changes to crash report data to allow us study the role of SUVs in crashes. We also want an absolute ban on 'bullbars'. They are deeply anti-social."

He said he had spoken to a number of A&E colleagues about unusually serious injuries or deaths caused by SUVs. "The key factor is the height of the bonnet - if you're hit by a car on the lower leg, you topple onto the bonnet allowing the energy to be dissipated. But, when people are hit by an SUV, you are hit higher up, around the hip or chest. So you are getting the full force of the impact, which is closer to vital organs. Height rather than weight is the issue."

In the US, researchers found that at any speed up to 60km/h "the probability of serious head, chest and lower extremity injury is higher for pedestrians struck by light trucks, vans or SUVs than for persons struck by cars." When struck by a large SUV, 11.5 per cent of collisions with pedestrians result in a pedestrian fatality, compared to 4.5 per cent for cars, according to the researchers.

However, Cyril McHugh, of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) said US research was not relevant in Europe because SUVs sold there were larger, with more powerful engines. Impact with any moving object was likely to injure a pedestrian, he said.

"Increasingly SUVs are scoring well on pedestrian protection in EuroNCAP tests. It's also important to point out that much of the media comment has been misleading and incorrect, based on unhelpful stereotypes rather than understanding the full range of available vehicles, their uses and capabilities."