Group Says Danger From Sport Utilities Is Overstated

A respected insurance industry research group reported Monday that although heavy sport-utility vehicles pose a greater risk to occupants of lighter cars, the dangers of these popular highway hulks have been overstated by highway safety advocates.

The report by the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety will add to the growing debate over the safety of light trucks, which include the sport utilities. Some auto safety advocates are asking the government to make light trucks less of a threat to passenger cars in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes.

Institute spokesman Julie Rochman said her organization’s latest report is meant to bring perspective to the light-truck debate. While endorsing the auto safety camp’s concern that heavy vehicles can crunch smaller passenger cars, the report suggested that the problem lies as much with the lack of protective features in small cars as with the size of sport-utilities.

The study of 1990 to 1995 vehicle crashes reaffirms that when a sport-utility vehicle--or any heavy car or truck--slams into a small car, the chances of death are far greater for the occupants of the smaller vehicle. People in cars are four times more likely to die in such crashes than the occupants in sport utilities; people in small cars weighing less than 2,500 pounds struck in the side by such vehicles are 47 times more likely to die.

But only one out of 25 car deaths occurs in crashes with sport-utility vehicles, the institute noted, meaning that the best way to improve safety is to improve the safety of occupants in cars.