The conventional wisdom that children are safer in big four wheel drive vehicles – or Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) as the Americans call them – may not be based on any solid fact.
A recent study in the United States has found that bigger does not equal safer when it comes to being safe inside a vehicle. The study reached the conclusion that any safety imparted to the occupants by the size of the vehicle were cancelled out by the fact that SUVs have double the risk of rolling over in an accident.
While size does enhance the safety of people within a vehicle, children in vehicles that rolled over were three times more likely to be seriously injured than those in non-rollover accidents.
Are Your Children Safer in a 4WD?