The driver died in the crash. So did many other passenger vehicle drivers during 2000-03, but the risk of death isn’t the same in one vehicle compared with another. Car, minivan, SUV, and pickup truck models vary widely in the likelihood of dying in a crash. The average driver death rate in 1999-2002 passenger vehicle models during 2000-03 was 87 per million registered vehicle years. But the death rates in some models were two or even three times as high, while the rates in other vehicles were much lower.

Large cars and minivans dominate among vehicle models with very low death rates. The models with the highest rates are mostly small cars and small and midsize SUVs, many of which also have high rates of death in single vehicle rollover crashes. The model with the highest death rate of all — the two-door, two wheel-drive Chevrolet Blazer with 308 driver deaths per million registered years — also had the highest rollover death rate (251 per million).

“Many of these general patterns of death rates have been consistent since the Institute began computing the rates by vehicle make and model in the late 1980s,” says Institute chief operating officer Adrian Lund. “Since then there also has been a pattern of improvement. In the late 1980s the overall driver death rate was higher than 100. The latest overall rate was 87.”

Vehicle body style, size, and fatality risk: Important characteristics of vehicles that influence their driver death rates are type, body style, size, and weight. Within virtually every group of vehicles, the smaller and lighter models have the higher rates.

Among cars, for example, the smallest two door models had the highest death rate at 190 per million vehicle years. This rate is more than twice as high as the average for all vehicles included in the study.

Midsize sports cars also had a high rate at 133 driver deaths per million vehicle years. This was higher than for either small or mini sports cars, so this type of vehicle was an exception to the general rule that bigger means lower death rates.

The vehicle group with the lowest driver death rate was large luxury cars with 37 deaths per million vehicle years. The next lowest rate was in large minivans and station wagons with 42 deaths per million.

(CONTINUE...)