GM's Blazer Ranked Deadliest Car on U.S. Roadways

[Up2Late]

(Tell me again why they sell so many SUV's in this country again?)


Tue Mar 15, 2005 03:58 PM ET

DETROIT (Reuters) - The two-door Chevrolet Blazer from General Motors Corp. has the highest driver death rate of any passenger vehicle on U.S. roadways, a research group with links to the insurance industry said on Tuesday.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety based that conclusion, and its embarrassing result for the world's largest automaker, on an extensive study of passenger vehicles from the 1999-2002 model years.

The study focused on the rate of driver deaths in various types of crashes, including both single- and multiple-vehicle accidents.

The overall driver death rate, for 199 models studied during the 2000-2003 calendar years, was 87 per million registered vehicles annually, the Insurance Institute said.

(more at link)

<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7910327&src=rss/domesticNews>

[mr_hat]

1. That things been a POS for its entire run. But GM will sell

every one it makes until the SUV wannabes wake up.

[BiggJawn]

2. "I feel so SAFE in my Essuvee!"

"And it gives me an idea what it must feel like to have a huge penis, too!"

[Zynx]

4. Most SUV's and trucks do protect *their* passengers better

The Blazer is just crap. This doesn't surprise me.

[BiggJawn]

10. Perhaps. But I'll put my faith in "Conscious Driving".

The Blazer...Yugo of the essuvee world...

[leesa]

12. I may be wrong, but I don't think your statement is true. SUVs and trucks

had the highest death rates, most often due to narrow wheel base compared to the height which makes them roll.

[Ready4Change]

3. Wish they'd report highest death, total.

I wonder how many people are killed who AREN'T the drivers.

As a driver of a smaller car surrounded by an SUV wall, that thought occurs to me from time to time.

[Sivafae]

7. I live in an area with a lot h2's and I have been wondering the same thing

[TwilightZone]

5. I'd be curious to see how seat belt usage plays into these figures.

In our small part of the world, many SUV drivers seem to think that they're automatically safer in an SUV and tend to buckle up less. That could certainly be a contributing factor.

[Up2Late]

8. Here's a FACT that I bet MOST here do NOT know

In Georgia, where we have a "Mandatory Seat Belt Law" EXCEPT, if you drive (and I think ride in) a "Pick-up" Truck, you do NOT have to wear a Seat Belt.

Try to figure that one out, without you head exploding.

[pie]

11. whoawhao

[denverbill]

6. Haha. Nice quote from the GM spokesman.

"It is impossible looking at these statistics to know what role driver behavior, such as drunk driving and driving without a safety belt, played in these deaths. We know from decades of work that whether a driver dies in a crash has more to do with behavior than with the vehicle."

Yes, Mr GM, the overall death rate was 87 per million, and the Blazer rate was 308 per million. It has nothing to do with your vehicle. It just that nobody but drunks and careless idiots buy that piece of crap.

[leveymg]

9. And that doesn't even count the occupants of the cars they crush

I saw one such encounter between a full-size GM SUV and a compact car near the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia. The SUV ploughed straight through the driver's side of the sedan. I couldn't even identify the make or model of what was left of the pasenger car.

Frankly, both types of vehicles should be required to have steel roll cages with side bars built in at the factory. The manufacturers of SUVs should be required to pay to retrofit all passenger vehicles with safety cages.