Cayan Library
Cayan Library
In April of 2003, The New York Times published the story "S.U.V.s take a hit, as traffic deaths rise."
That story included this quote from Jay Cooney, Director of Safety Communications at General Motors:
"S.U.V.'s are two to three times more protective of their occupants in frontal, rear and side-impact crashes that make up 97.5% of all crashes."
That figure -- 97.5% of all crashes -- seems very useful to any discussion about the safety of S.U.V.s, but there's another statistic that is more important and relates to the S.U.V. more directly:
Rollovers account for a staggering 32 percent of automobile fatalities, more than 10,000 [people] annually.
Which statistic is more important: the number from the car company that tells you how few roll-overs there are or the chance of a fatality being the result of a roll-over, regardless of how few or many there are?