When it comes to the crunch, size does matter

DRIVERS of small cars are more likely to die or suffer serious injury than motorists in all other kinds of motorcars, a comprehensive study has found.

Researchers found motorists driving old-style Rover Minis had a 14% chance of being maimed or killed in serious two-car accidents.

Drivers behind the wheel of Land Rover Defenders were least likely of all motorists to be killed or seriously hurt with a one 1% chance.

The research was carried out by the British Government’s Department for Transport, which studied 138,000 road accidents between 2000 and 2004 in Britain.

Dividing up the findings purely into vehicle types, they discovered that drivers of small vehicles stood a 7% chance of serious injury or death in road accidents.

This compares to 6% for small sports cars, 6% for small to medium cars, 5% for medium, 4% for large, 4% for people carriers and 3% for four-wheel drive cars.

Researchers discovered that drivers of old-style Fiat Pandas, Nissan Micras, and Suzuki Swifts stood a 10% chance of serious injury or death if involved in a crash.

Yet the rate was 3% to 5% for motorists behind the wheel of similar, newer, small cars such as the new-style Citroen C3, Mercedes A Class, Volkswagen Polo and Fiat Punto.

In the medium car category, drivers of X-type Jaguars fared better in road accidents with a 2% chance of serious injury or death compared to owners of the Subaru Impreza, who stood an 8% chance.

In the large vehicle category, drivers of Volvo SV40 had a one-in-50 chance while owners of the old Ford Granada and Ford Scorpio cars stood a one-in-14 chance.

Of the four-wheel drive vehicles, drivers of pre-2001 Honda CRVs stood a 6% chance of serious injury or death, putting them on a par with owners of small to medium cars.

The researchers also looked at how the age and sex of the driver as well as the speed of the car affected the chance of a driver being injured or killed.

The highest risk in speed terms was travelling at 60 mph (96 kph) when drivers involved in smashes stood an 11% chance of dying or being seriously hurt. The lowest risk was while driving at 20 mph to 30 mph (32 kph to 48 kph).

In all accidents, men stood a 0.4% chance of dying — twice the figure for women. Drivers aged 55 or over were most likely to die (0.7% of all accidents) compared to 0.3% of 17 to 24 year olds (0.3%).

Motorists whose cars were hit on the driver’s side died in 1.1% of all accidents.

Ireland’s Road Safety Authority said similar research had yet to be done into types of cars involved in crashes in the Republic as the authorities were concentrating on practical measures to slash roads deaths.

A spokesman said road deaths in August and September had dropped compared to last year, while driver behaviour was improving.

“It’s too early to draw any conclusions, but there has been a noticeable change in driver behaviour following the introduction of mandatory breath-testing,” a spokesman said.