Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In

Data scientists in the U.K. are starting to figure out what we've known for a while now in the U.S.: SUVs are killing pedestrians.

But unlike here, British traffic safety officials might actually do something about it. A British transport safety official told Forbes that the commonwealth might even ban them.

Recent analysis by Leeds University found that drivers of vehicles with 2- to 3-liter engines killed the people they struck roughly twice as frequently as drivers of cars with engines smaller than 1.8 liters — 2.4 percent of the time vs. 1.4 percent of the time. By comparison, a 2020 Chevy Suburban is powered by a 5.3-liter engine at the smallest.

Adam Reynolds a transportation policy advisory with Britain's Department of Transportation told Reid the agency would continue to investigate, including efforts to isolate the effect of vehicle shape and size.

“If the data does show that SUVs are twice as deadly, then ownership in urban areas should be discouraged and use within cities curtailed with a ban on new sales," he told Reid.

U.S. researchers have estimated that SUVs are 2-3 times more likely to kill pedestrians when they strike them than sedans (cars). The effect is worse for children.

Still since Trump's election, national traffic safety officials have slow-walked any attempt to reign in the styling choices that are killing pedestrians at highs unseen in two generations.

Meanwhile, the U.K, has about a quarter of the traffic fatalities per capita as the U.S. And a larger percentage of British traffic deaths are pedestrians, because British walk more.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Chicago is a world-class city. Our transit system should reflect that. 

Creating a unified transit system across Northeast Illinois will allow us to serve riders' needs now and tomorrow.

May 28, 2025

‘Whether They See It Or Not’: How the ‘Arrested Mobility’ of Black Americans Harms Everyone

"Policy could be the decision to invest in a community, or to disinvest [in that community]. In Black, brown, low-income communities, the policy has been disinvestment."

May 28, 2025

Wednesday’s Headlines Look for a Bailout

Congress's latest Band-Aid for the Federal Highway Trust Fund won't keep it solvent, but it will hurt transit.

May 28, 2025

Doug Gordon Takes on John Mulaney’s ‘Entitled’ and Humorless Anti-Bike Insanity

Why do New Yorkers feel the need to prove their "street cred" by hating on bicycles when it is, in fact, cars that have ruined this city?

May 27, 2025

Car Harms Tuesday: Cars Are Just Ugly

New York has always had businesses and people using its streets for work and play. But it hasn’t always had this many cars, and never before have they been this big.

May 27, 2025
See all posts