- Jan 7, 2002
- 12,755
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WASHINGTON--The story didn't make many front pages. Few corrections ever do, especially if they contradict media biases.
And ``media'' here refers to more than just the traditional lineup of newspapers and evening news programs, takes in more than magazines and newsletters. It includes television cop shows and situation comedies, radio and TV talk shows, and even sermons from the Sunday pulpit.
The truth, according to a report late last month by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, is that sport-utility vehicles are not the marauding, murderous vehicles that many in the media have portrayed them to be.
In fact, the statistical opposite is true. In a two-vehicle crash with a smaller car, the occupants of the SUV are more likely to be killed than are the people in the car, according to the IIHS report, which is based on a study of U.S. highway traffic fatalities during years 2002 and 2003 involving vehicles made from 1999 through 2002.
Seven percent of the people who were killed in those two-vehicle SUV-car crashes died in cars; but 10 percent of the fatalities occurred in the SUVs. One possible reason is that more people tend to ride in the bigger SUVs, thereby putting more of them at risk in a vehicle crash. Another possibility is that SUVs, with their higher centers of gravity, are more prone to tipping and rolling over in a destabilizing event, such as a crash. http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0506/04/autos-203586.htm
And ``media'' here refers to more than just the traditional lineup of newspapers and evening news programs, takes in more than magazines and newsletters. It includes television cop shows and situation comedies, radio and TV talk shows, and even sermons from the Sunday pulpit.
The truth, according to a report late last month by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, is that sport-utility vehicles are not the marauding, murderous vehicles that many in the media have portrayed them to be.
In fact, the statistical opposite is true. In a two-vehicle crash with a smaller car, the occupants of the SUV are more likely to be killed than are the people in the car, according to the IIHS report, which is based on a study of U.S. highway traffic fatalities during years 2002 and 2003 involving vehicles made from 1999 through 2002.
Seven percent of the people who were killed in those two-vehicle SUV-car crashes died in cars; but 10 percent of the fatalities occurred in the SUVs. One possible reason is that more people tend to ride in the bigger SUVs, thereby putting more of them at risk in a vehicle crash. Another possibility is that SUVs, with their higher centers of gravity, are more prone to tipping and rolling over in a destabilizing event, such as a crash. http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0506/04/autos-203586.htm
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