Safety Concerns? Trade Your SUV for a Toyota

Given the media coverage you would think there is a Toyota wrapped around a telephone pole on every street corner. 

Certainly, any avoidable automotive accident, injury or death is a terrible loss. But let's put this in perspective. If all the typical, large American SUVs on the road today were replaced with Toyota Avalons (a six-passenger family sedan), without fixing the Toyota gas pedals, over 10,000 fewer people would die every year in crashes. 

The numbers are straight-forward: If you drive a typical, American-made SUV, then you, your family and your other passengers are 30% more likely to die in an automotive crash than if you drove an average, family-sized sedan because cars are safer than trucks (Yes, SUVs are trucks). 

If you drive an SUV you are four-times as likely to kill a pedestrian than a car driver. 

If you drive an SUV you are twice as likely to kill another driver. 

SUVs pose many safety threats: SUV brakes are inferior to cars; SUVs are inherently less stable than cars; SUVs are less maneuverable than cars; and when an SUV is in an accident it does more damage than a car. There is no excuse for SUVs being used as substitutes for family-sedans, other than Detroit manufacturers wanting to increase profits by avoiding the more stringent safety-, emission-, and CAFE-standards placed on cars, than on trucks (SUVs). 

Of course, Toyota must fix its problem immediately. But if the real issue is safety, then SUVs pose a much greater threat to all our lives than stuck pedals.