Cyclists and pedestrians who are hit by “supersized” cars known as sports utility vehicles (SUV) are 44 per cent more likely to be killed than if they were run over by a conventional car, London researchers have revealed.
The risk is even greater for children, who are 82 per cent more likely to suffer fatal injuries in a SUV collision than one involving a car. In children under 10, the risk of death was 130 per cent higher.
The supersized vehicles present a greater risk to “vulnerable road users” because their front end is likely to be taller and blunter.
This means that pedestrians and cyclists will be struck higher up on their body (e.g. the pelvis not the knees for an adult, or the head not the pelvis for a child).
It also means that a pedestrian or cyclist is more likely to be thrown forward onto the road and be hit a second time by the SUV driver or be run over by the vehicle.
The results are concerning as SUVs account for about 60 per cent of new car sales in the UK and are especially popular in London.
Anna Goodman, assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and senior author of the study, said: “Around the world, we have seen a huge increase in the sale of ever-larger cars.
“Previous research has found that this trend is substantially undermining progress towards net zero goals.
“Similarly, our findings indicate that this proliferation of larger vehicles threatens to undermine all the road safety gains being made on other fronts.
“Cities and countries around the world are starting to introduce measures to discourage the use of these large vehicles, and our study strengthens the road safety rationale for this.”
The Clean Cities campaign group has been calling for “supersized SUV” owners to pay higher vehicle taxes and parking charges to reflect the additional danger to children, greater damage to roads and space requirements.
Oliver Lord, UK head of Clean Cities, said: "It’s alarming to see fresh evidence confirming SUVs are linked to more fatal crashes. No-one buying a car would want to put children at greater risk.
“We urgently need government to take action on carspreading. Councils could introduce fairer parking charges that reflect the size and weight of these vehicles, while government reviews taxes to address the real harm caused by supersized SUVs. That would provide more opportunity to invest in priorities like fixing potholes and better public transport.”
In his time as London mayor, Ken Livingstone proposed a £25-a-day congestion charge for so-called “Chelsea tractors”, more than three times the £8 standard rate at the time.
But he was ousted from City Hall in the 2008 elections, before he had the chance to implement to policy, and failed to secure re-election in 2012, when he again proposed the levy.
The study involved researchers at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London gathering” real-world” collision data from more than 680,000 collisions around the world in the last 35 years.
They compared the severity of injuries suffered by pedestrians or cyclists struck by SUVs or LTVs (light truck vehicles such as SUVs, smaller vans and pick-up trucks) with the injuries of pedestrians or cyclists struck by cars.
SUVs and LTVs are typically taller, wider and heavier than traditional cars.
Cyclists and pedestrians were at similar risk of being killed by a SUV driver. The research is published in the journal Injury Prevention.
A number of cities across the world have recently introduced, or are considering, policies to discourage the use of SUVs and LTVs.
The researchers estimated that the proportion of car crashes involving an SUV to be around 45 per cent in the USA and 20 per cent in Europe.
They said that all SUVs were replaced with passenger cars, the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed in road crashes would decrease by an estimated 17 per cent in the USA and by eight per cent in Europe.
The number of child pedestrians and cyclists killed in car crashes would decrease by 27 per cent in the USA and by 14 per cent in Europe.
Annual data published by Transport for London reported 95 road deaths in the capital in 2023, from all types of collisions – down from 102 in 2022.
However this increased to 110 in 2024 – or 130 if a wider definition of road death is used.
The TfL data does not record how many fatalities involved a SUV.
Elsa Robinson, who worked on the study as an MSc public health student at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "Analysing over half a million crashes from countries from across the world tells us that SUVs and other similarly large vehicles are much more likely than traditional passenger cars to cause serious harm if they strike a pedestrian or cyclist.
“Our findings also highlight that these larger vehicles are particularly dangerous for children, especially young children. This could be because children are shorter in height, and are therefore more vulnerable to the risks of being hit by vehicles with a tall front end.”
