SPORT-UTES
am an old-fashioned journalist, the kind who
I
By Warren Brown
believes in balance and using analysis - tools 1
find useful in getting at the truth. But I’ve seen
verv little balance or analysis in the recent spate
------------- of media stories about the harm light trucks
can do to passenger car occupants in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes.
The media hype on the issue is this: light trucks are big.
Passenger cars are small. Light trucks cream passenger cars
and their occupants in crashes. The light truck population is
growing and, thus, the potential harm to people in passenger
cars is growing.
Except, of course, the general media has difficulty grasp­
ing the notion of “light truck.” For their own purposes, the
media has reduced "light trucks” to something instantly un­
derstandable — sport-utility vehicles, but not just any sport-
utility vehicle. Big ones are preferred, presumably because
they have as much of an impact in the telling of a story as
they do in a vehicle-to-vehicle crash.
Never m ind that light trucks include full-size vans,
minivans, pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles; and never
mind that there are widely varying vehicle sizes, weights and
types within these sub-segments.
So, what are the facts? Do light trucks smash smaller cars
in crashes? You betcha. And 18-wheel tractor-trailers can
smash light trucks. Also, almost any small passenger car or
large motorcycle can smash a pedestrian unfortunate enough
to cross its path at the wrong moment.
1 do not wish to make light of light-truck aggressivity in
crashes. Nor would 1 argue here, or anywhere, that some­
thing can’t be done to make some light trucks more friendly
in smashups. My passion here is perspective.
It is one thing to predict the obvious — big smashes small.
It is quite another to determine how often the obvious oc­
curs, and whether that occurrence constitutes a crisis. Ac­
cording to numbers culled from the government’s Fatal Analy­
sis Reporting System, and research done by the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety and the University of Michigans
Transportation Research Institute, there is no crisis involv­
ing crashes between light trucks and cars.
Light trucks account for 34 percent of all vehicles in op­
eration on U.S. roads and 45.3 percent o f all new vehicles
sold annually. Yet, in 1996, the last full year of U.S. traffic
28
fatality reports, light trucks were involved in two percent of
all traffic fatalities and four percent of all fatal vehicle-to-
vehicle crashes.
In all, 41,907 people died on the nation’s roads in 1996.
O f that number, 5,259 died in crashes between cars and
light trucks, and 4,013 died in car-to-car crashes - numbers
that the media says proves that light trucks are becoming
more dangerous as their vehicle population increases.
But the media often overlooks a host of other mitigat­
ing numbers, including the tremendous national increase
in vehicle miles traveled and the continued growth of all
vehicles on U.S. highways. When those numbers are con­
sidered, the picture looks quite different. I he overall rate
of highway deaths is down and continues to tall, they show.
But even more is this: traffic fatalities in 1996 included
5,441 people who were killed just trying to cross the street
and 5,126 who died in car crashes with medium and heavy-
duty trucks — those weighing over 10,000 pounds.
That means your chances of dying as a pedestrian were
greater than vour chances of being smashed by, say, a Ford
Explorer; and your chances o f being wasted bv a Peterbilt
18-wheeler were just as good as being knocked into eter­
nity bv a Toyota Land Cruiser.
More stunning is the number of people who died in
single-vehicle crashes — running into a wall or tree or tele­
phone pole, or rolling over into
a ditch — 16,663 deaths!
Yet the media thinks that
the biggest problem is light
trucks; and the politicians
and government regulators,
despite their own assessment
that the light truck-car prob­
lem is statistically small, are
rushing before the news cam­
eras and microphones offer­
ing solutions.
But, ask yourself: is this re­
ally a crisis?
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