It will come as little surprise to most cyclists that the risk posed to us by SUVs is much greater than regular cars. However, the sheer extent of the additional crash injuries suffered by cyclists involved in crashes with SUV drivers is quite shocking.
New research carried out in the US - which closely studied 71 incidents in which cyclists were injured in crashes involving drivers - concluded the front end of SUVs, because of their size, caused much greater injury to cyclists on impact.
The new report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a non-profit organisation, shows head injuries suffered by cyclists in crashes with drivers in SUVs at a rate 63 percent higher than regular cars. Overall, the rate of trauma to the body suffered by cyclists was 55 percent higher when the crash involved an SUV.
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When crashes involving the drivers of cars and SUVs were compared, it was found cyclists at times ended up on the bonnet or roof of a regular car, or hit the windscreen. The fact the front of regular cars was lower meant cyclists were struck below their centre of gravity and were much more likely to be shunted up onto the lower vehicle, meaning only the initial impact caused injuries.
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In contrast, because the fronts of SUVs were higher, cyclists were more often knocked down by those drivers and remained in the path of the vehicle, rather than being vaulted into the air. It meant cyclists were much more often injured by the wheels or undercarriage of SUVs and so the weight and speed of the vehicle became a higher risk than that posed by regular cars.
“SUVs tend to knock riders down, where they can also be run over, rather than vaulting them onto the hood of the vehicle,” says IIHS researcher Sam Monfort. “That’s probably because the higher front end of an SUV strikes the cyclist above their center of gravity.”
In 44 of the 71 incidents Monfort examined, and which had information about how the cyclist moved after the initial impact, only SUVs were found to have further injured a cyclist by running over them after the initial impact. In a smaller number of crashes surveyed, information was available about what part of the vehicle caused the injuries to the cyclists. In 82 per cent of cases, the wheels or undercarriage of an SUV was found to be the cause of injury.
The researchers studied medical reports, police reports and crash reconstruction, among other data, from 71 crashes in Michigan involving cyclists aged 16 years or older.
