Despite the public perception that SUVs
are safer than passenger cars for family driving, a new
report shows the bigger vehicles are no better at preventing
children's injuries in accidents.
"Many people just assume that the extra weight and size
of an SUV makes them safer, but what we found was that
the potential benefits were canceled by the SUVs' increased
likelihood of rolling over," said study co-author Dr.
Dennis Durbin, an emergency room doctor at Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia.
"The message for parents is that SUVs are no safer, and
that they should know the importance of ensuring that
their children are properly restrained for their age on
every trip in the car."
The study results appear in the January issue of Pediatrics.
Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers, told the Associated Press that he
had not seen the study but cited government research released
last summer that found SUVs have become less top-heavy
since 2000 and made improvements in rollover resistance.
"SUVs have an exceptional safety record and are safer
than or as safe as cars in the vast majority of crashes,"
Shosteck said.
In their review of car crashes involving nearly 4,000
children from infancy to the age of 15, Durbin and his
colleagues found that rollovers occurred twice as frequently
in SUVs as passenger cars, and that children involved
in rollover crashes were three times more likely to be
injured than children in crashes not involving rollovers.
Further, the children who weren't appropriately restrained
in SUVs in rollover accidents were at a 25-fold greater
risk for injury compared to appropriately restrained children
in the SUVs. And nearly half of these unrestrained children
suffered serious injuries, compared to only 3 percent
of the children who were properly restrained.
This information is important, Durbin said, because although
passenger cars are still the vehicle of choice for most
families -- 61.8 percent of the children in the study
were in passenger cars compared to 38.2 percent who were
riding in SUVs -- SUVs are becoming increasingly popular.
The number of SUV registrations rose by 250 percent between
1995 and 2002, and part of their popularity is due to
the perception that they are safer, he noted.
Second, he said, "most previous research on SUV safety
was focused on adults, and this demonstrates the burden
that rollovers impart to children."
Durbin's study is part of an ongoing research collaboration
between Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and State
Farm Insurance Co.'s program called Partners for Child
Passenger Safety, begun in 1997 to create a database on
children in motor vehicle crashes. With information on
more than 557,000 children involved in car crashes, it
is the world's largest study of children in motor vehicle
crashes, the researchers said.
Durbin said motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause
of death of children, and with 1.5 million children in
car crashes every year, "it is a significant public health
problem."
Bella Dinh-Zarr, national director of Traffic Safety
Policy for AAA, said this study contains new and interesting
information: "We've all been curious whether the size
and weight of SUVs overcame the rollover risk."
By showing that SUVs are no safer than passenger cars,
she said, the focus of child safety in cars should be
on safe seating in the car.
"No matter what vehicle you transport your children in,
keep them in the back seat and properly restrain them
in age-appropriate seatbelts," she said.
Among the recommendations Dinh-Zarr gave for safe seating:
- Children under 1 who weigh 20 pounds or less should
be in a backward-facing car seat in the back seat;
- Older children should be in a forward-facing car seat
in the back, and can graduate to a booster seat as they
grow (they can sit safely without a booster seat when
they are tall enough to sit on the regular car seat
with their back flush with the back of the seat and
their knees bent naturally at the front of the seat);
- The seatbelt should cross children at the shoulder,
not the neck;
- Children should ride in the back seat until they are
13, as the back seat is much safer than the front seat.
Aware of the problem of rollovers in SUVs, Congress last
summer passed a transportation bill that requires the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to establish
standards that will reduce vehicle rollover crashes for
SUVs and other passenger cars.
