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Weight and Ground Clearance of Light Trucks And Vans Play Role in Vehicle-to-Vehicle Crashes, Reports SAE

26 February 1998

Weight and Ground Clearance of Light Trucks And Vans Play Role in Vehicle-to-Vehicle Crashes, Reports SAE

    WARRENDALE, Pa., Feb. 26 -- A new study by researchers at the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) looks at the "apparent
incompatibility" between cars and light trucks and vans (LTVs) in traffic
crashes.  The findings will be presented in a paper by Hampton C. Gabler and
William T. Hollowell at the 1998 SAE International Congress and Exposition at
Cobo Center in Detroit.
    LTVs comprise just over one-third of registered passenger vehicles in the
U.S.  Yet, they are involved in over one-half of all fatalities in light
vehicle-to-vehicle crashes.  Moreover, 60 percent of all fatalities in light
vehicle side impacts occur when the striking vehicle is an LTV.
    During the past decade, a profound shift in the composition of the
passenger vehicle fleet has occurred in the U.S.  Fueled by the growing
popularity of pickup trucks, minivans, and more recently, by sport-utility
vehicles, the U.S. fleet is characterized by a growing population of LTVs.  As
a group, LTVs are heavier, of more rugged construction, and have higher ground
clearance than the passenger cars with which they share the road.  The concern
is that these design features, introduced to allow specialized functions such
as off-road driving, may make LTVs "fundamentally incompatible" with cars in
highway crashes, and in some cases, dangerous to the occupants of cars struck
by LTVs.
    The goal of the researchers' paper is to examine LTV aggressivity in
vehicle-to-vehicle crashes (where aggressivity is defined as the number of
driver fatalities from vehicle-to-vehicle collisions divided by the number of
collisions involving LTVs).  The specific objectives are to define the nature
of the problem through examination of crash statistics, and to explore the
relationships between crash aggressivity and vehicle design characteristics.
Gabler and Hollowell's report (SAE Paper No. 980908) will be available at the
SAE '98 Bookstore during the event.
    For information on attending the SAE International Congress and
Exposition, the world's largest event dedicated to automotive engineering,
contact SAE at 724-772-7131, e-mail: meetings@sae.org, or visit the SAE
website at http://www.sae.org.

SOURCE  Society of Automotive Engineers