This month's assault on SUVs was prompted by studies from Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the federal government which showed that in crashes between SUVs and cars, those in cars were much more likely to die than those in SUVs. For the networks, the problem was with the SUVs, not the cars. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, when a car and a light truck collide, passengers in the car are four times more likely to die than those in the light truck. With many rates now under review, the report is strong ammunition for those who claim SUV and pickup owners are not paying their fair share of the risk. Only Brokaw, on the February 9 Nightly News , pointed out that the problem might be with the smaller cars, and not the SUVs.
Insurers say design changes, especially to strengthen the size of cars, are now needed.
But even he did not mention that federal fuel-efficiency regulations, by mandating smaller cars, stack the deck against car drivers. Decades of research have made it clear that large cars are more crashworthy than similarly equipped small cars in all collision modes. CAFE, however, restricts large-car availability. Reporting about auto safety without mentioning CAFE standards is a bit like running a story about the Titanic without bringing up the iceberg.