Without any doubt, people want to achieve the highest possible safety when they drive. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Having the utmost control over your vehicle doesn’t guarantee safety if other drivers are not careful. Therefore, you need to do everything to ensure your safety as much as possible.
One of the biggest misconceptions people have about this aspect is that heavyweight vehicles can add a layer of protection. Sure, you can count on some elements that can help enhance it, but you shouldn’t rely on them completely. Instead, try to add some extra features to make it happen.
The first sort of vehicle that comes to mind when we are talking about heavyweight vehicles is SUVs. If you want to learn more about the safety features these can provide you with, click here. Now, we want to provide you with a couple of crucial points you should understand about SUVs in a traffic accident.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at them in this guide of ours.
Is it Possible to Measure Safety?
Before we are ready to make any sort of conclusion on this topic, we need to know how to measure safety. At first, this may sound like a strange thing to say, but it is, in fact, possible. One of the ways this is done is by consulting the test results done by NCAP, which is an institution that specializes in this subject.
These tests are exceptionally detailed. People who work on them make sure that all possibilities are covered. It means that they include all the possibilities into them. For instance, they conduct real-life tests of the performance of the vehicles in an accident. By doing that they have an insight into the protection of the people inside it.
What needs to be said is these are done both for adults and children. Furthermore, they also focus on making sure that pedestrians are as safe as possible. You will admit this is not something that’s easy to achieve, especially since the circumstances cannot be always predicted due to the nature of traffic accidents.
Sedan vs SUV
One of the most obvious things that the more metal is between the driver and the road. Therefore, SUV owners can expect higher security than those who own sedans. By adding some extra features to your SUV, you can get even better results. However, it all depends on the perspective you have.
For instance, we can see those official statistics show that the percentage of traffic accidents with fatal outcomes has risen significantly in the last three decades. Without scratching the surface, you will not have a proper understanding of these figures. The number has risen due to the popularity of SUVs.
That’s why you will see, when you compare this statistic to the one that covers only sedans, that this percentage is higher. Overall, the equipment we have in our cars has become much safer than before. But if we were to make the verdict whether SUVs are safer than sedans, we would say yes.
However, there’s more to this story. Another study has shown that the accident where two sedans crash, the people inside them have higher chances of survival. Still, that doesn’t seem to be the case when two SUVs are in a collision. Because of their weight, the chances of them crushing each other are rather high.
At the same time, that particular study has shown SUVs can protect children more than adults. How is this possible? Well, they are higher up than the vast majority of vehicles. Plus, they are reinforced with a couple of layers, which help them to sustain any sort of impact. When you know that the percentage of accidents where SUVs are involved is bigger, you understand how important this is.
What About Rollovers?
Another thing we want to point out is that the rollover is possible to happen after an SUV is in an accident. The reason why this can happen easily is that they have a higher center of gravity. Due to their center of gravity, they are prone to other influences like weather or wind.
Luckily, rollovers are nowhere near as common as other sorts of accidents. In a test conducted a decade ago, the results were that less than 3% of accidents have rollover as a result. In the case of SUVs, this percentage is somewhat higher, but it is practically nothing that should be taken into consideration.
But when they do occur, the driver is way more protected than those who own sedans. Once again, we want to point out the importance of additional layers of metal that make sure drivers are as safe as they can be. We believe this is something that you should have in mind.
The Best Protection
When we are talking about the best way for you to protect yourself while driving is to do it safely. We can all agree that, no matter how protected the vehicle is, it is certainly not immune to operator error. Therefore, you should always do the things you can, like wearing a seatbelt and not consuming alcohol.
Besides that, it is important to remove all the things that can disrupt your focus, like mobile devices or tablets. Of course, being a quality driver is something that requires time and constant practice. Still, we believe that the elements you can use are the best way to protect yourself.
While it may doesn’t look like that, conducting these simple measures of protection whenever you sit in the vehicle can mean the line between fatal outcomes and light injuries. We are certain that all the experienced drivers out there will comply with this statement of ours.
The Verdict
As is the case with any vehicle of the newest generation, SUVs are safe. Of course, you cannot control all the things that are happening around you. But that doesn’t mean that you cannot feel safe while driving one of these. Here, you can find the most important points about this sort of vehicle being involved in a traffic accident.
