And the little one said "Roll over"!

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finally thought about testing the safety of SUVs against side impact from... SUVs. And surprise only 2 out of the 12 tested ranked as good. I wonder if this will do anything to dispell the myth that SUVs are safer than cars? Probably not because most SUV owners will agrue "but most vehicles on the road are cars so I'm less likely to get injured".

Well even if that's true, its an arguement that can't stay true forever. Eventually if we all behave like Mr or Mrs "I like to be up high" SUV driver all vehicles on the road will be SUVs then we'll be back to square one. Your only opportunity to be safe will be buying a Hummer or Escolade sized vehicle. Well I really don't need to go there, because I've been down that road before.

More interesting in the IIHS were their historical records of how deaths on the roads have decreased. In the early 80s to 2000 driver deaths per million car registered decreased by 47% from 164 to 87 per million, and that's ignoring any increase in the average number of miles driven (no statistics there). However during the same time frame deaths from side impacts only declined by 23% from 42 to 32 million and most of the blame can be laid fairly and squarely on the increase of deaths caused by SUVs striking vehicles. The percentage of deaths caused by trucks and SUvs in side impacts increased from 29% to 57%, that's almost double and it includes all the SUV-SUV collisions. In an SUV-car collisions alone you're six times as likely to die in the collision.

It doesn't really matter which way you slice it, more SUVs on our roads are causing more deaths per vehicle per collision. Its a simple consequence of basic physics. SUV owners will tell me I should sell my dangerous small car and drive something as big as them to protect myself from their iilk. Doesn't that strike you as somewhat selfish? Its like the NRA telling me I should carry a gun and load up on a bullet proof vest to protect myself from gun carriers. Or for someone to tell me they have a right to the freedom to rob me, and I should buy a lock, bars, alarm and had better fund a well paid police force to protect myself.

Bushit! Bushit I say! If you're worried about car safety you go to the car manufacturers and you jolly well tell them to make safer cars which they can and have. But they haven't even made a scratch on the surface compared to what be could done. But you know what, were all expendable, expensable assets. As a consumer theirs a price on our head and they've pretty much reached the point where safety improvements, so they say, cost more than our lives. That's the argument by Ford and many others when obvious safety issues such as rollover deaths, and exploding fuel tanks came to light.

But even that is a lame argument. Most improvements to technology are expensive to start with when manufactured in small numbers. By the time they reach the mass market they cost peanuts. Do you really think an airbag costs $1000 to replace? Of course not, that's just their way of recouping some of their original investment. The part certainly cost less than $100 to produce, quite likely more like $20. Likewise does it really cost a few thousand extra to add some extra steel impact bars in your doors? Of course not - extra steel $1, time spent welding (by robots) $.50, lives saved in side impact with SUV - priceless.

Perhaps, in a militant and somewhat medieval stand of defiance, car owners should strap a large, sharp, forward and rearward pointing pole on the roof of their cars. At SUV level that is. Of course we'll do it for "safety reasons" because there will be a camera on it so we can see what the road looks like when "we are up high". I'm sure it must be a nice view up there... And if you've forgotten how it feels "down there" remind yourself what its like to be driving on the freeway surrounded by eighteen wheeler trucks. Maybe that will be just enough intimidation for people up high to keep their eyes on the road and off their cellphones...