There are renewed calls to ban large SUVs from city centres and other pedestrian areas following Thursday’s tragic accident at a Wimbledon school.
Researchers have claimed that children are eight times more likely to die if they are hit by an SUV compared to a normal passenger car.
With three quarters of new SUV sales going to owners who live in urban homes, there are calls for curbs on their use.
The European Transport Safety Council called Thursday’s crash a “terrible and avoidable tragedy” and wants a ban on SUVs in towns and cities in a bid to cut cyclist and pedestrian fatalities.
Dudley Curtis, ETSC spokesman, said: “When this type of vehicle crashes, it causes more damage. That’s just physics. The bigger mass will cause more destruction.
“Do people need two and a half tonne vehicles to take their children to school?
“We don’t know much about this particular crash. But is it appropriate to drive these types of vehicles around a primary school in London?
“We think that in areas where there are a lot of pedestrians and cyclists present you need the right infrastructure. You need to separate them.”
He also called for “independent crash investigations” and for better monitoring of the causes of accidents, “especially now cars have a lot more technology on them”.
Large SUVs, weighing on average 2.1 tonnes, accounted for 16% of worldwide vehicle sales in 2021, with the biggest market shares being in the US and Canada.
In 2019, there were nearly 1 million SUVs registered in the UK, up from 200,000 in 2010.
More than 40% of annual car sales in the UK today are SUVs, compared with less than 20% a decade ago.
Mr Curtis added: “We can talk about banning them but banning is not that simple. There is a lot we can do to discourage these types of vehicles.
“France is already taxing heavier vehicles.
“London has done a great job on restricting the movement of freight vehicles. There is no reason why you could not look at restrictions on these types of vehicles too.
“You could also look at phasing them out over time.”
In France, a new weight-based registration tax could see the owner of a new Land Rover Defender paying an extra one-off registration fee of €5,610 (£4,790).
The lightest Defender weighs 2361 kg and in France every kg above 1800 kg costs €10 (£8.50) to register.
A study published in the Journal for Safety Research last year found that children are eight times more likely to die when struck by a SUV compared to those struck by a passenger car.
Researchers looking at crash and hospital records in the US state of Illinois from 2016 to 2019 found that SUVs collided with pedestrians and cyclists in 14.7% of the cases investigated but were involved in 25.4% of the fatalities.
Three quarters of SUVs sold in the UK were registered to urban households in 2019/20 according to think tank New Weather Institute and climate charity Possible.
The report found that the top three districts for biggest vehicles are all inner London boroughs - Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Westminster - where one in three new private cars bought is a large SUV compared with one in ten nationally.
According to a recent survey of 1,000 UK drivers by digital garage Regit, more than half - 55% - would support a ban on larger vehicles like 4x4s and SUVs from entering populated areas like towns and city centres.
There have been calls to ban them on environmental grounds. SUVs were the second-largest contributor to the increase in global CO2 emissions since 2010 after the power sector, according to the International Energy Agency.
The average emissions of new cars stopped falling in 2017 and started rising.
Land Rover declined to comment.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders did not respond to a request for comment.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “For all the ability of SUV-style cars to glide comfortably over our potholed roads, there’s no getting away from the fact that bigger and heavier the vehicle, whether it’s an SUV or a van delivering groceries, the more harm it will do in a crash.
“Whatever the vehicle, drivers must always remember the duty of care they have to others when they get behind the wheel.”
