page_title: Criticism of sport utility vehicles
section_title: Risk to other road users
hierarchical_section_title: Criticism of sport utility vehicles / Safety / Risk to other road users
caption_attribution_description: English: A wrecked Ford Escort. I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original. This licensing tag was added to this file as part of the GFDL licensing update.
context_page_description: Sport utility vehicles have been criticized for a variety of environmental and safety-related reasons. They generally have poorer fuel efficiency and require more resources to manufacture than smaller vehicles, thus contributing more to climate change and environmental degradation. Their higher center of gravity increases their risk of rollovers. Their larger mass increases their braking radius, reduces visibility, and increases damage to other road users in collisions. Their higher front-end profile makes them at least twice as likely to kill pedestrians they hit. Additionally, the psychological sense of security they provide influences drivers to drive less cautiously.
context_section_description: Because of greater height and weight and rigid frames, it is contended by Malcolm Gladwell, writing in The New Yorker magazine, that SUVs can affect traffic safety. This height and weight, while potentially giving an advantage to occupants of the vehicle, may pose a risk to drivers of smaller vehicles in multi-vehicle accidents, particularly side impacts.
  The initial tests of the Ford Excursion were "horrifying" for its ability to vault over the hood of a Ford Taurus. The big SUV was modified to include a type of blocker bar suggested by the French transportation ministry in 1971, a kind of under-vehicle roll bar designed to keep the large Ford Excursion from rolling over cars that were hit by it. The problem is "impact incompatibility", where the "hard points" of the end of chassis rails of SUVs are higher than the "hard points" of cars, causing the SUV to override the engine compartment and crumple zone of the car. There have been few regulations covering designs of SUVs to address the safety issue. The heavy weight is a risk factor with very large passenger cars, not only with SUVs. The typically higher SUV bumper heights and those built using stiff truck-based frames, also increases risks in crashes with passenger cars. The Mercedes ML320 was designed with bumpers at the same height as required for passenger cars.
  In parts of Europe, effective 2006, the fitting of metal bullbars, also known as grille guards, brush guards, and push bars, to vehicles such as 4x4s and SUVs is only legal if pedestrian-safe plastic bars and grilles are used. Bullbars are often used in Australia, South Africa and parts of the United States to protect the vehicle from being disabled should it collide with wildlife.
caption: Ford Escort (North America) after a head-on collision with a SUV, showing the raised point of impact
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