SUVs and pickups not good in U.S. 2006 crash stats

By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2007-10-24

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The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report on traffic fatalities and estimates of injuries for 2006 shows some interesting trends.

The figure of 42,642 people killed may be staggering but it's 2% down from 2005. The figure of 2,575,000 injured is even more staggering, but it's not far off the normal - and it's down 4.6% from 2005.

Interestingly, while fatalities have not changed a lot since 2,000, injuries have shown a statistically significant decline, as shown by a graph on page 8 of the report

Also, although exposure rates (Vehicle Miles Traveled) increased slightly (0.2%), both fatalities per VMT and injuries per VMT declined. However, worthy of note is that while occupants killed and injured in passenger vehicles declined for just about every type of vehicle, the exception was SUVs. Also worthy of note is that SUVs had the largest increase in registrations.

While "occupants killed" figures declined by 3.3% overall, and by 3.8% for passenger cars, the SUV rate increased by 1.6%

Passenger vehicle occupants killed in rollover crashes went down 1.6%, but for vans the figure dropped 24%. On the other hand, the figure for pickups went up by 1.6%

More than half of all passenger vehicle occupants killed were NOT wearing seatbelts!

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