Originally posted by Dros
If you really care about your kids, don't drive a jacked up Suburban. They are thought to be safer in that one instance (two cars colliding), but are actually very unsafe due to rollovers during and away from accidents. People confuse "demolish the other car" with "I'm safe". And because SUVs are called trucks, they don't need to meet other safety requirements of cars. So SUV does not equal safety. Of course, most people think, "I'm not a crazy driver... others will roll but not me", but of course, they are wrong. And please, remember to give a buck to a car driver once in a while since they are paying to keep your insurance rates low.
Copied material below:
SUVs are heavier and ride higher than regular cars. The high ride contributes to a propensity of SUVs to roll over in accidents. According to NHTSA, SUVs rollover in 37 percent of fatal crashes, compared to a 15 percent rollover rate for passenger cars._ Rollover crashes accounted for 53 percent of all SUV occupant deaths in single vehicle crashes in 1996. Only 19 percent of occupant fatalities in passenger cars occurred in similar crashes.
In examining deaths per million passengers, SUVs had nearly the same death rates in accidents as small cars, but substantially more fatalities than mid-sized or large cars.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has recently examined head restraint designs for cars and SUVs._ Proper head restraints can lower the severity of whiplash injuries in an accident._ In a May 1999 study, the Institute found only two models of SUVs - the Mitsubishi Montero and certain models of the Chevy Blazer - had head restraints that merited a "good" rating. Most were listed as "marginal" or "poor."
