JEREMY CLACKSON, transport correspondent, on the troubling but entirely obvious findings of recently published scientific research
Deadly presence: researchers studied the impact of 680,000 road traffic collisions
“Chelsea tractors”, those super-sized vehicles that take up extra road space and gobble up more than their share of parking bays, are also deadlier to pedestrians and cyclists, especially children, when involved in collisions, research has confirmed.
In children under 10, researchers at the University of London found that the risk of death was 130% higher if they are hit by an SUV.
SUVs, sports utility vehicles, account for 60% of new vehicles bought in Britain. And now, according to a long-term academic study, cyclists and pedestrians who are hit by the “supersized” cars are 44% more likely to be killed than if they were run over by a conventional car.
The risk is even greater for children, who are 82% more likely to suffer fatal injuries in a SUV collision than one involving a regular-sized car. That risk is greater still for smaller, younger children.
Raised up higher from the road, SUVs “present a greater risk to ‘vulnerable road users’ because their front end is likely to be taller and blunter”, the Weekly Standard newspaper reports. Their subs chose to put quote marks around the words vulnerable road users.
The scale of SUVs mean that children are more likely to be hit in the head if run into by one of the bigger vehicles.
The newspaper quoted Anna Goodman, assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and senior author of the study.
“Our findings indicate that this proliferation of larger vehicles threatens to undermine all the road safety gains being made on other fronts,” Prof Goodman said.
“Cities and countries around the world are starting to introduce measures to discourage the use of these large vehicles, and our study strengthens the road safety rationale for this.”
The research is published in the journal Injury Prevention, and is based on a study conducted together with Imperial College that collated data from more than 680,000 collisions around the world in the last 35 years.
They compared the severity of injuries suffered by pedestrians or cyclists struck by SUVs or LTVs (light truck vehicles) with the injuries of pedestrians or cyclists struck by cars.
Prof Goodman also said that SUVs are “substantially undermining progress towards net zero goals”.
A group called Clean Cities is lobbying for road-hogging SUVs to pay more vehicle tax and bigger parking fees.
“We urgently need government to take action on carspreading,” said Clean Cities spokesman Oliver Lord.
“Councils could introduce fairer parking charges that reflect the size and weight of these vehicles, while government reviews taxes to address the real harm caused by supersized SUVs. That would provide more opportunity to invest in priorities like fixing potholes and better public transport.”
Pro car: Tory Mayor Jason Perry
In Croydon, at a public cost of possibly as much as £1million, Mayor Jason Perry has ripped out the protected cycle lane and safety wands between Purley and the town centre.
The reason for Perry’s headlong rush to remove the Brighton Road wands remains unexplained. It was done without any consultation.
The cabinet member notionally responsible for the decision, Scott Roche, is the chair of the council’s “Croydon Advisory Forum on Active, Sustainable and Accessible Transport”. Up to 2024, the “advisory forum” had met only twice in two years. Mayor Perry’s secret plan to rip out the Brighton Road cycle lane was not even on the agenda of the forum’s last meeting before the cyclists’ safety corridor was removed.
Yet meanwhile, the Tory Mayor has broken his 2022 election promise to scrap other traffic-calming measures, LTNs, around the borough. Perry admitted that his cash-strapped council depends on the millions generated each year from fining motorists.
Read more: Pro-car Perry’s cycle lane ‘vandalism’ could cost council £1m
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