Madam, - Marian Smith (April 12th) suggested it would be useful if I supplied some statistics regarding accidents and SUVs. The data kept by the Garda Síochána are not detailed enough to separate out different types of cars in fatal accidents, though this may change soon. Articles in the Garda Review of April 3rd suggest that a more forensic approach is to be taken to road homicide in the future.
However, for decades the United States Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database has kept a very sophisticated breakdown of cases. Dr Ciaran Simms, school of engineering, and Prof Desmond O'Neill, school of medicine, both of Trinity College Dublin, published an overview of 12 publications based on FARS figures in the British Medical Journal of November 2nd 2005.
The most important points of these papers is that pedestrians struck by LTVs (light trucks and vans, the category in which compact and large SUVs are classified) are two to three times as likely to be killed as those hit by a passenger car travelling at the same speed.
This, it is suggested, is because the chest, abdomen and head are more likely to be injured than the legs due to the height of the vehicle. The rigidity of the vehicle is considered a contributory factor. An article by Lefler and Gabler in Accident Analysis and Prevention 36 (2004) gives a detailed analysis of the results of different types of crashes and injuries.
Lauren Daly MD, of the department of paediatrics at Dupont Hospital, Wilmington, Delaware, with colleagues from the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatics and TraumaLink in the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia published a paper entitled "Risk of Injury to Child Passengers in Sports Utility Vehicles" in Pediatrics, Vol 117 No 1 (January 2006). The authors undertook the survey because they felt that SUVs, because of their size, were perceived as safer for families than passenger cars.
To quote their conclusions: "Despite the greater vehicle weight in SUVs, the risk of injury for children in SUVs is similar to that for children in passenger cars. The potential advantage offered by heavier SUVs seems to be offset by other factors, including an increased tendency to roll over.
"Age-appropriate child restraint and rear seat positioning are important for children in SUVs, given the very high risk for children restrained inappropriately in rollover crashes".
Unrestrained children are particularly likely to be injured in rollover crashes.
The saddest reports of child fatalities and injuries are of those which take place in the driveway of houses. Holland et al published an article in Medical Journal of Australia (2000:173:192-195) on a survey carried out in New South Wales into such accidents. This showed a link between fatal outcome, age of child, and size and weight of the vehicle involved.
"Four-wheel drives or light commercial vehicles accounted for 42 per cent of the fatalities even though they accounted for less than 30.4 per cent of the registered vehicles in NSW. These vehicles were associated with 2.5 times increased risk of fatality."
The most distressing statistic was that 86 per cent of the drivers involved were family members or someone known to the child. Most accidents involved reversing over a toddler or small child - "the increased height of the vehicles reducing visibility and making identification of a young child much more difficult, even with the use of convex mirrors or a wide-angle lens".
There are many similar FARS surveys showing, for example, that if a passenger car is hit by a light truck the driver of the car is six times as likely to be killed and if struck by an SUV four times as likely than if hit by another passenger car. If it is a side impact, the car driver is 26 times as likely to be killed by a light truck and 16 times as likely by an SUV.
Simms and O'Neill of TCD point out that the Irish Medical Organisation adopted a policy last year calling on motor manufacturers and distributors to display warning notices on SUVs to advise potential purchasers of the increased risk of severe injury and death to pedestrians associated with these vehicles. "Resistance from the industry to such initiatives is likely to be strong", they suggested, "just as it has been from the tobacco industry to warnings on cigarette packaging".
For whom, I wonder, are these cars "safe"? - Yours, etc,
Senator MARY HENRY MD, Seanad Éireann, Kildare Street, Dublin 2.