For each vehicle type and crash configuration, relationships between vehicle weights and death rates were reviewed to explore the role of incompatibility in passenger vehicle occupant deaths. The basic findings reinforce what's long been known about vehicle size and occupant death rates. As vehicle weight decreases, the number of occupants killed in crashes increases. There also are differences among vehicle types. The lightest utility vehicles have by far the highest death rates, but in the other weight classes, pickups have the highest occupant death rates, and cars have the lowest.
Utility vehicles have somewhat lower death rates.
This percentage ranges from 48 percent for the lightest cars to 40 percent for the heaviest. Medium and heavy trucks are the other vehicles in 17 percent of the deaths in the lightest cars and 26 percent in the heaviest ones. For pickups and utility vehicles with occupant deaths, the other vehicles are less likely to be cars and more likely to be medium and heavy trucks. Here, however, there are large differences among vehicle types. In every weight class, pickups have the highest other-vehicle death rates and cars the lowest.