Your SUV Just Might Kill Me

I drive a Ford Fusion.

It is a sensibly sized car. It can fit four people comfortably and five people not so comfortably. The trunk can fit multiple large suitcases and duffle bags for a week-long trip.

It’s fairly safe, but if I were to get into a wreck with a modern SUV or truck . . . I am seven times more likely to die than the other driver.

The demand for trucks and sport utility vehicles has grown significantly since the 90s. Year by year, these vehicles keep getting bigger, taller and heavier. According to Kelly Blue Book, “Today’s midsize trucks are often as large as the full-size trucks of a generation ago. Today, full-size trucks are the size of heavy-duty models from the late 1990s.”

According to an article by The Economist titled “American’s Love Affair With Big Cars, “Between 1990 and 2005, the market share of [SUVs] in America grew from 6% to 26%, pushing up the weight of an average new car from 3,400lb to nearly 4,100lb.”

Part of the push for bigger cars came from a concern for safety. This concern is only applied to the driver within the SUV and not to anyone else outside of it.

SUVs and pickup trucks are more likely to hit pedestrians and cyclists and are more likely to kill them as well. Their height causes more blind spots, which causes drivers to not see what is in front of them or behind properly. I found a shocking graphic from Kids and Car Safety where 62 children were sat behind an SUV and could not be seen from the driver’s mirrors.

Besides being deadly, these vehicles are very impractical. They don’t properly fit in parking spots and home garages. They have fewer miles per gallon. Truck beds have shrunk, and they are higher off the ground. It’s not even easy to load things into them anymore. Trucks used to be designed for hauling cargo, and now they’re designed to be a status symbol.

As someone from a rural area, it confuses me when I see people driving shiny trucks around in the city. I think to myself, “I know good and well you’re not hauling anything in that bed besides your groceries from Target.” It’s also confusing for me when I see moms choosing SUVs over vans. SUVs are actually less spacious inside than minivans. SUVs are also higher off the ground, making it harder for kids to get into the vehicle.

Car companies keep pushing these huge cars, and Americans keep buying them in a distressing cycle. According to the Economist, “if the heaviest tenth of vehicles in America’s fleet were downsized to this lighter weight class, road fatalities in multi-car crashes — which totaled 19,081 in 2023 — could be reduced by 12%, or 2,300, without sacrificing the safety of any cars involved.”

If regulations could be placed on the weight and size of cars, it would save so many lives from ending in car crashes.

Cars are an expensive necessity in America. Many people don’t get to go to a lot and pick the exact make and model of car they want brand new. Many of us just get what we get and make do. I understand if a truck or an SUV is what you’ve ended up with. There is nothing wrong with that. There is plenty wrong, though, with car companies making and advertising cars that are known to be deadly for everyone around them, all for the sake of their bottom line.   

It’s time for America to pump the brakes on its production of big cars.