The argument that big vehicles are safer than small ones has been floating around since imports first made inroads in the U.S. during the late-1950s.
For example, in 1958 Road & Track magazine quoted the Big End Journal, which asked: “Seriously, we wonder how long it will be before the U.S. manufacturers start playing dirty pool? Along about next fall there should be an article in a prominent national magazine entitled, ‘Are Small Cars Dangerous?'” (Bond, 1958).
In a subsequent issue, Road & Track pointed to three articles on this topic. “Popular Science’s article in July was titled ‘How Dangerous Are Those Small Cars?’ Cavalier got even closer with ‘Small Cars Are Death Traps,’ while Life merely said ‘Volkswagen, Go Home'” (Bond, 1958).
Road & Track Publisher John R. Bond (1958) called the Cavalier story “pure yellow journalism” but described the other two as “calmly and sensibly written.”
The Popular Science article concluded by noting that “researchers are quick to warn that they cannot now prove any safety differences between small and big cars. (To them, proof means 100-to-one odds against being wrong.) But they are confident that the trend they see is a reasonable one: Heavy cars may be very slightly safer overall (because they offer greater protection against the most likely danger — collisions)” (Mann, 1958; original italics).
More recent research has given big vehicles a greater safety edge. For example, in 2023 a 30-year study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that larger vehicles had lower death rates. However, a spokesperson for the Institute told Automotive News, “If you’re in the larger vehicle, you’re more protected, but the physics would say that the other guy is going to be worse off” (Ham, 2023).
We now know size isn’t the only thing that matters
That doesn’t mean that size was the only factor in vehicle safety. The Institute found that six of the 21 vehicles with the highest death rates for the model year 2020 were “muscle cars” such as the Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Challenger and Ford Mustang. In addition, three Dodge cars had among the highest other-driver death rates (IIHS, 2023).
Also see ‘NHTSA and automakers drag their feet on pedestrian safety’
The Challenger had the third-highest driver death rate behind a pair of Mitsubishi minicars; the Dodge Charger Hemi was in seventh place. Meanwhile, the Charger Hemi had the second-highest death rate for other drivers — behind only the Ram 3500 — while the Challenger was the 14th highest. Both had a far higher death rate for other drivers than smaller cars such as a Honda Civic, Chevrolet Bolt or a Subaru Forester (IIHS, 2023).
The moral to this story? Aggressive driving can be dangerous regardless of your vehicle’s size.
RE:SOURCES
- Bond, John R.; 1958. “How Dangerous? . . .” Road & Track. August issue: p. 15.
- Ham, Abigail; 2023. “Bigger isn’t always better, IIHS says.” Automotive News. Posted July 13.
- IIHS; 2023. “Latest driver death rates highlight dangers of muscle cars.” Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Posted July 13.
- Mann, Martin; 1958. “How Dangerous Are Those Small Cars?” Popular Science. July issue: pp. 76-78, 210-212.
Back a long time ago, I was driving a Geo Metro, and doing a small business deal with someone who wasn’t a nice person.
He mentioned he had a friend who works at a Chevrolet dealership, and he refuses to sell the Metro because its so dangerous.
A Metro was a very low profit car, while the Corvette is a very high profit car.
I didn’t say a word, but there was an article in the local newspaper that week that stated that the car you were most likely to die in was a Corvette.
I bet his friend would bend over backwards to sell a Vette to a customer.
As a long-time “Road & Track” subscriber in the John R. Bond-era (and those editors he groomed), I think Bond and his writers gravitated toward the Volvos, Peuguots, Rovers and Mercedes-Benz 190s on up in terms of safe vehicles. I remember “Consumer Reports” in the late 1960s and early 1970s consistently rating Ford / Mercury full-size pillared four-door sedans as the safest American-made cars. Given Ford products’ gasoline tank location from 1960 into the early 1970s, I would have thought that this would have been a big negative (trunk floor) in terms of safety. Somehow, I wonder why G.M. A-body pillared four-door sedans of the 1966-1967 vintage with front-disc brakes weren’t more highly rated at the time. Almost all American cars of that vintage had mushy standard equipment suspensions.