•  Is road safety being driven in the wrong direction?

  OFFROADERs UNSAFE?

  Following a publication  in a main swiss newspaper about safety of offroaders (big SUV’s) a FEVR board member reacted with a response letter to be published

  Here is the English translation:

  MISLEADING  is the title  of an article published in the major Swiss
  news magazine NZZ from  18th May 2014, claiming a doubtable enhanced
  transport safety of off-road Vehicles like SUVs, as it turns out only  by
  reading the article itself. In deed, that car occupants of these cars
  perform better in collisions than those of other cars is not surprising, since
  these bought  their safety at the expense of the others. However, the bad
  image of the SUVs is not due to the fact, that opponents in smaller cars get
  the short end of the stick (why not?), but because pedestrians and
  cyclists lose. There is no word about these unprotected road users in the
  article. Most readers will keep the fat printed title and the article’s
  lead in mind.  But let us not be fooled:
  The on road omnipresent potency prostheses can easily ruin our own lives,
  since they clearly ought to be powerful. And nobody drives faultlessly, not
  even in an off-road vehicle.

  Rolf Strassfeld

  FEVR board member

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  Indeed: following a crash of a big SUV with a smaller, lighter car, the passenger of this last  one have a risk 6 times higher to get severly injured. And concerning vulnerable road users being hit by a SUV, the risk of severe injuries  is much higher compared to a “vru friendly car”, even at slower speeds ( J. Mersch FEVR president)

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  Is road safety being driven in the wrong direction?

  a study done by Professor Ian Roberts about the approach to road safety education:

  are  educational interventions effective? or could  health and environmental benefits such as reducing car use be more beneficial.

  more: Is road safety being driven in the wrong direction (pdf)

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