Arms Race on the Highway

The most dangerous part of almost any outdoor activity is driving there in your car. Car crashes are the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, killing some 43,000 people a year. Many of those deaths are entirely preventable. Automakers could save thousands of lives by, for example, installing side air bags in every car, strengthening frames to withstand side impact, and standardizing bumper heights.

Instead, they build bigger and heavier sport-utility vehicles and market them as safe transportation alternatives. "One of the most common reasons people give for choosing a sport utility vehicle," says Land Rover's Authoritative Guide to Compact Sport-Utility Vehicles, "is the feeling of command and security they get in driving an SUV." Implicit in the pitch is the promise that in an accident, mass rules. When your two tons of four-wheeling fun slams into that little Toyota at window level, someone might die-but at least it won't be you.

This deeply cynical doctrine-you might call it "survival of the fattest"-is abetted by misleading stories such as the one in USA Today on July 2 ("Death by the Gallon" by James R. Healey) that claimed that small cars were the killers. Since the 1975 adoption of corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards to improve fuel efficiency, Healey claimed, "46,000 people have died in crashes they would have survived in bigger, heavier cars."

True, passengers in a vehicle struck by another twice its weight are ten times more likely to die. When an SUV strikes a passenger car on the driver side, the driver of the car is 30 times more likely to die than the SUV driver. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than half of all traffic fatalities in 1996 involved collisions between "light trucks" (SUVs, minivans, and pickups) and passenger cars-and four out of five of those fatalities were car passengers. But blaming the car in this situation is like blaming a shooting victim for getting in the way of a bullet. "Any mass-related protection of a heavier vehicle's occupants," warns John DeCicco of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, "comes only at the brutal expense of greater harm to others."

Gigantism, of course, is a crude approach to automotive safety. The General Accounting Office studied the same basic data as USA Today and declared that "it is not true that cars become more dangerous simply by becoming lighter." Nor is that the main reason they're becoming more fuel efficient; rather, 86 percent of fuel-efficiency improvement is the result of technological innovation."CAFE does not dictate vehicle size, weight, or safety," says Dan Becker, head of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy campaign. "Automakers do." Cars have become twice as fuel efficient since CAFE was instituted, he points out, but automobile death rates have been cut in half.

Crashworthiness is determined "not by size itself, but rather by how well a given vehicle design protects its occupants," says DeCicco. "Many of today's small cars offer better occupant-protection systems than most large cars of the past and much better protection than even many light trucks of today." If you crash a 16-miles-per-gallon Ford Expedition and a 40-mpg Saturn SL1 subcompact into a wall, the Saturn's driver and passengers will have a better chance of surviving because of its superior safety features. And the 31-mpg VW New Beetle, for example, beats the 21-mpg Jeep Grand Cherokee in three out of four NHTSA safety tests.

Then there is the unfortunate tendency of SUVs to flip over. According to the NHTSA, "In fatal crashes, SUVs are twice as likely to have rolled over than other cars." Rollovers cause 22 percent of car fatalities, but 62 percent of SUV fatalities. Of course, Detroit could reduce the risk of rollover death to its customers by lowering the height and therefore the center of gravity in its sport utility vehicles. Instead, the same companies that opposed seatbelts and air bags offer the opportunity to be the biggest thing on the highway.

The dangers caused by SUVs are not just to their own drivers and to others on the road. Half of all cars sold these days are gas-guzzling sport utes, minivans, or pickups, and the more fossil fuel consumed, the more global-warming gas is added to the atmosphere. In its lifetime, a fuel-efficient Honda Civic emits 40 tons of carbon dioxide, a Ford Excursion 134 tons. The reason is the huge loophole in the CAFE law that requires fleets of passenger cars to average 27.5 miles per gallon, but allows light trucks an average of 20.7 mpg.

Currently, CAFE saves 3 million barrels of oil a day. But stopping world climate change, with its droughts, floods, hurricanes, and epidemics, will take much greater savings. At presstime, 40 senators had signaled their support for tougher CAFE standards-and for giving President Clinton the power to order them. It's now up to Clinton to require Detroit to make vehicles that are safe not only for everyone on the road but for the planet.—Paul Rauber

The Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy campaign is currently working for tough fuel-economy standards for all motor vehicles. For information on how you can get involved, visit the campaign's Web site at http://www.toowarm.org/ or call (202) 547-1141.

(C) 1999 Sierra Club. Reproduction of this article is not permitted without permission. Contact sierra.magazine@sierraclub.org for more information.