SUVs and vans have outnumbered vehicles in each state since 2018, in keeping with the Federal Freeway Administration. That’s a hazard to cyclists. A brand new report from the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security (IIHS) says that SUVs trigger extra extreme accidents than vehicles after they hit cyclists.

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Is This a Authorities Research?

The IIHS just isn’t a authorities company. It’s a security analysis lab and examine group funded by a consortium of automotive insurance coverage corporations.

Insurers have a monetary curiosity in making accidents uncommon and making certain that accidents don’t trigger extreme accidents.

So the institute conducts its personal set of crash checks, typically thought-about extra rigorous than authorities testing. It additionally employs information scientists to check accidents so insurance coverage corporations can decide what makes them much less frequent and fewer extreme.

Research Examined Crash Information

For this examine, IIHS Statistician Sam Monfort checked out detailed crash and damage information from 71 crashes in Michigan involving automobiles and bicyclists. Every crash concerned a single bicycle owner age 16 or older and a car. Information included “police stories, medical data, crash reconstructions and different info,” the institute says.

Accidents to bicycle riders’ decrease extremities had been frequent in all forms of crashes. However, on a scale measuring severity, “scores for head accidents inflicted by SUVs had been 63 p.c increased than for these attributable to vehicles.”

Automobiles Throw Cyclists. SUVs Run Them Over

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Automobiles had been extra more likely to vault the bicycle owner over the car, however “solely SUVs triggered accidents by working bicyclists over.”

The distinction, Monfort says, comes as a result of “the upper entrance finish of an SUV strikes the bicycle owner above their middle of gravity.”

One other IIHS examine final 12 months discovered that SUVs and pickups had been extra possible than vehicles to hit pedestrians when turning and extra more likely to kill them. Researchers additionally attributed that discovering to the taller hoods of SUVs.