Driver death rates on the rise despite better vehicle designs, safety tech

Automobiles all round had the optimum dying level of the main classes, at forty eight. They had been followed by pickups (29), SUVs (twenty five) and minivans (22).

The level for little cars was 61.

“Smaller sized vehicles offer a lot less defense for the driver in crashes, and their lighter mass suggests that they get the brunt of collisions with much larger vehicles,” said Joe Nolan, senior vice president of automobile analysis at the institute, a nonprofit group funded by auto insurance organizations.

Damaged down into subcategories, four-doorway minicars (108), huge two-doorway cars (sixty seven), mini station wagons (sixty five) and little four-doorway cars (sixty two) had the optimum rates. The least expensive rates had been between midsize station wagons (four), huge four-wheel-generate luxury SUVs (five), pretty huge four wheel drive SUVs (7) and midsize four wheel drive luxury SUVs (nine).

Tiny cars — e.g., the Kia Rio, Hyundai Accent, Nissan Versa, Chevrolet Cruze and Ford Fiesta — accounted for fifteen of the 20 versions with the optimum dying rates for the 2017 product yr, the report said.

The four-doorway Fiesta — a person of the cars minimize from Ford’s North American automobile lineup — was the “worst performer,” according to the IIHS report. It had 141 driver fatalities for each million registered automobile yrs, the report said. The Fiesta hatchback had a driver dying level of sixty five.

“Security is a elementary priority in the style and design of our vehicles. Ford is fully commited to advancing protection technologies and crash performance to assist prospects remain protected on the street,” a Ford spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Automotive Information. “We glimpse ahead to studying what we can from the examine to assist do that, even as we proceed investing in and acquiring critical new technologies.”

Two little cars — the Volkswagen Golf and the electric powered Nissan Leaf — had been outliers in the knowledge: The Golf posted a dying level of for each million registered automobile yrs, and the Leaf’s level was five.

Other than the Golf, 6 vehicles of the 2017 product yr or equivalent previously versions had driver dying rates of : the GMC Yukon XL 1500 4 wheel drive, Infiniti QX60 2WD, Land Rover Selection Rover Evoque 4 wheel drive, Lexus NX 200t 4 wheel drive, Mercedes-Benz C-Course sedan 4 wheel drive and Porsche Cayenne 4 wheel drive.

Approximately 50 percent of the 20 versions with the least expensive dying rates had been luxury crossovers and SUVs, such as the BMW X3 4 wheel drive, Infiniti QX60 4 wheel drive, Cadillac Escalade 4 wheel drive and Land Rover Selection Rover 4 wheel drive, according to the report.

“Luxurious versions are generally the 1st to profit from new technologies like automatic unexpected emergency braking or improved technologies like greater headlights,” Youthful said.

For case in point, lane-departure warnings are involved with a 21 p.c reduction in solitary-automobile, sideswipe and head-on crashes with injuries, but the technology “isn’t — and wasn’t in 2017 — as widely mounted on a lot less high-priced vehicles,” he said.

The institute compiled the dying rates by getting counts from NHTSA’s Fatality Evaluation Reporting Technique and registration knowledge from IHS Markit. It also as opposed the driver dying rates for each 10 billion miles traveled — 26 all round — making use of VINs from the Highway Decline Data Institute database and odometer readings from Carfax and other sources.

Motor vehicles bundled in the examine had to have at minimum 100,000 registered automobile yrs of publicity in 2015-18, or at minimum 20 fatalities.