[sustran] SUVs in developing countries -sure road lillers

[Kisan Mehta]

 Dear Colleagues,

Invasion of SUVs (we still know smaller versions of SUVs as
Station Wagons) on pavementless roads encroached by double
parked vehicles, hawkers and overflowing with literally
thousands of pedestrians in urban settlements in the developing countries
increases road accidents terribly.

The World Bank actively supported this situation in Mumbai by
giving liberal loan for constructing highways within crowded city
and reducing the public bus services.  The Bank admits that
Mumbai has a very high road accident ratio and that pedestrians form  95% of
the victims.    Daily death on roads and railway
tracks is on average 10 and 25 respectively. The Bank is now considering
another loan request for constructng on the only two arterial roads 20-30 km
long elevated roads that  will remove
the last pavements and increase pedestian deaths making way for
SUVs.  This is how the Bank wants to help in reducing poverty.
Best wishes

Kisan Mehta
Tel: 00 91 22 24149688

4X4S more than twice as deadly for pedestrians
Sunday Herald, UK
 ... There are very few legitimate reasons why people living in
urban Scotland need ...
> <http://www.sundayherald.com/38681>

Rise in 'off-road' vehicles causes concern as research reveals their design
results in higher risk of fatalities, especially among children
By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor (excerpted version below)

LARGE 4x4 vehicles that are growing in popularity on UK roads have been
exposed as more than twice as lethal to pedestrians than normal cars.
Authoritative new research by US scientists shows that when the
high-fronted, wide-bodied vehicles, also known as SUVs (sports utility
vehicles), crash into children or adults they are far more likely to cause
head and chest injuries, and these are much more likely to be fatal.

Dozens of children in the US are run over and killed every year by
large vehicles reversing. The accidents often happen in their own driveways,
and the drivers are often their own parents or carers.

Ordinary cars, whose profiles are lower and less blunt, tend to cause more
leg and lower body injuries which are less life-threatening, and they have
lower blind spots when reversing.

SUVs are used more often for urban errands than countryside sports. They
have been dubbed the "axles of evil" by environmentalists
because of the large amounts of fuel they consume and the huge amounts of
pollution they cause.

In the UK, there were 135,000 SUVs bought last year, and their share of the
market is rapidly expanding. Almost 5% of all car sales are now SUVs, up
from 3% on 10 years ago. In the US, more than half of the passenger vehicles
bought are SUVs, pick-up trucks or vans. The UK can learn much from US
experience, particularly from the 5000 pedestrians killed each year in road
accidents.

"What has happened here is an early warning for what to expect there," Clay
Gabler, an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering
at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, told the Sunday Herald.

Along with his colleague Devon Lefler, Gabler analysed three major databases
on US traffic accidents over the last decade. The first thing
 he discovered was that while the number of pedestrians killed by cars
decreased between 1991 and 2000, the number killed by SUVs,
pick-up trucks and vans increased by 10%.

Focusing on the 89% of accidents that involved a single vehicle and a single
pedestrian, he then calculated the number of pedestrian fatalities per 1000
crashes by type of vehicle, between 1995 and 2000.  The results clearly
showed that the larger and more blunt-fronted the
vehicle was, the more likely it was to kill.

So while 4.5% of pedestrians struck by a car died, the figure rose to 7.8%
when they were hit by a small SUV, and 11.5% when hit by a large one.
"Pedestrians struck by large SUVs are twice as likely to
die as pedestrians struck by cars," Gabler and Lefler concluded in a study
published in the journal, Accident Analysis & Prevention, and reported by
New Scientist. When they further analysed the data, they found that the
types of injuries inflicted by SUVs and other large vehicles were more
likely to be fatal.

Gabler said his study was the first to quantify the increased risk of death
to pedestrians from SUVs and other large vehicles, though he stressed it was
not their size or weight that mattered, so much as their shape. "The more
geometrically blunt they are, the greater the fatality risk," he said.

The new study has prompted pleas from motoring organisations and
environmentalists for people to avoid buying off-road vehicles for use in
built-up areas. "You would need to think carefully about buying that sort of
vehicle for urban use," said John Stubbs, head of technical policy with the
AA Motoring Trust.

He accepted that SUVs may be more lethal to pedestrians, though he argued it
was less of a problem in the UK than in the US. But he admitted the fuel
they burn and pollution they emit meant they were "not very satisfactory"
passenger vehicles.

"We have known for some time that SUVs guzzle fuel and poison the air we
breathe. However, this study demonstrates that in our towns and cities they
can have a much more immediate and deadly impact," said Duncan McLaren,
chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland.

"Such shocking findings should make any buyer think twice before purchasing
an SUV. There are very few legitimate reasons why people living in urban
Scotland need such polluting and deadly vehicles. Dropping the kids off at
school isn't one of them."

The fronts of the vehicles are described as "unfriendly" and the performance
of one manufacturer dismissed as "dismal".

In September, 23-month-old Jaxson Swank of South Bend, Indiana, died after
he was run over by his nanny, Lindsay Reed, reversing an SUV up his
driveway.  The accident was blamed by experts on the difficulty of seeing
infants at the back of large vehicles. "In the US at least 58 children were
backed over and killed last year, often by a relative in their own driveway,
and often by a larger vehicle such as an SUV," said Janette Fennell, founder
of the US lobby group, Kids And Cars.

14 December 2003

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