Changes in driver fatality rates and vehicle incompatibility concurrent with changes in the passenger vehicle fleet

With more sport utility vehicles (SUVs) on the road, public concern has been expressed about their influence on traffic safety. The present study examined changes in the mix of passenger vehicles between 1988 and 2004 and concurrent changes in driver fatality rates and vehicle incompatibility.

Vehicle registrations and driver deaths per registered vehicle were examined using data from R.L. Polk and Company and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

Between 1988 and 2004, SUVs comprised an increasingly larger proportion of registered passenger vehicles (5% of one- to three-year-old vehicles in 1988 vs. 22% in 2004), yet driver deaths per registered vehicle decreased 43% to 47% for all passenger vehicle types. Reductions in driver fatality rates were greater for two-vehicle crashes than for single-vehicle crashes and greater for two-vehicle frontal crashes than for two-vehicle side-impact crashes. Driver death rates declined more on rural roads than on urban roads, and this difference was most pronounced for SUVs. Among cars struck by other vehicles, driver death rates in front-to-front and front-to-side impacts decreased more when the striking vehicle was an SUV than a pickup or car.

Factors likely contributing to the overall reductions in fatality rates include advances in occupant protection, increases in average vehicle weight, increased availability of SUVs with car-based designs, and reductions in alcohol-impaired driving. Reductions of driver death rates in two-vehicle collisions between 1988 and 2004 are encouraging, but SUVs and pickups continue to pose a substantially higher risk to drivers of cars than when the striking vehicle is another car.