So far we've only done a limited investigation, into property damage losses. We don't at this point have hard data on the injury side, although one would unfortunately have to come to the conclusion that the likelihood of injuries is greater. But there has been some comparative crash testing done in Europe. The crash test dummy in the Golf got head injuries measured at nearly 3,200, on a scale where 1,000 is fatal. A British study indicated that SUVs and pickups are especially dangerous when they hit an ordinary car side on.
Many people buy SUVs because they look safer.
But really it's safety at someone else's expense. The data are pretty clear that SUVs do a good job of protecting their own from death and injury, and a pretty good job of not suffering much vehicle damage in collisions. The downside is, the other vehicle in the crash is not going to fare as well. The marketing data the car companies share with us shows that one of the aspects people really like about SUVs is the feeling of invulnerability. You can see over other traffic.