Book I'd like to find

[m_cobweb]

baphometsangel, take note! ;-)

High and Mighty: SUVs--The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way, by Keith Bradsher.

The New Republic ran a lengthy review of this book last week that included a lot of the facts therein. Such as, how the auto industry got around a lot of mileage and pollution requirements by making SUVs higher and heavier until they qualified as "light trucks" (although they could meet those requirements easily if they wanted to spend the money to do so). And how studies repeatedly show that rollover risks are much higher than for other vehicles, yet SUVs still have a false reputation for being safe. And how perfectly nice people (as well as aggressive drivers who want to appear intimidating on the road) are buying SUVs without being aware of the facts behind their manufacture and marketing.

Comments

[sarmonster.livejournal.com]

*snort* There's probably a few books out on how smoking is bad for you, too. Any on the danger of Motorcycles? Haha.
I rolled my last jeep: Hit black ice, went off the road, hit a hillside -almost ended up in the river. We had to crawl out the back window & walked away with no injuries. Maybe wouldn't have rolled in a car, but maybe would've ended up in the river. If we HAD been in a car & rolled, I can assure you the situation would've been a lot worse.
Got creamed by a guy running a red at an intersection, cherokee took bumber damage, his front end was toast. Had we been in a car it would've been totalled.
You HIT an SUV in a car, yeah, car loses.

If you know anything about me, safety is not one of my major concerns, I drive the Jeep for clearence, I take it off road, I've high-centered it in the snow (wee!). A car doesn't carry multiple kayaks too well.
How often has a Geo driver heard "lets take your car?" Hmmf.

[rwx.livejournal.com]

The jeeps have one part of the rollover risk mentioned in the book, but they don't generally suffer from the second. The first risk is, of course, the increased risk of rollover.

The second risk is that the larger SUVs (and some of the smaller ones) can't support their own weight after they've rolled over, so the weight of the vehicle collapses the passenger compartment, killing/gravely injuring everyone inside. This collapse is apparently much worse than the similar collapse for non light trucks -- if you'd been driving a ford excursion, you'd have a lesser chance of walking away from that rollover.