Statistics on the number of fatal accidents by car make and model

you topped the billing in large engine size skidding off the road accidents in link I gave .. first car/amg is #82
(had not realised lorries were included - but thought that skidding and overturning is fairly disasterous)

38937807445_5bdc756902_o_d.jpg
 
well spotted (still loaded in excel here)
the first #3 in engine size/overturn was driving
3 -1 1994 1 16 -1 -1 SUBARU IMPREZA TURBO 2000 AWD
 
I'm interested in general and I was thinking of buying an SUV, however good one's are expensive. Seems a large estate would be quite safe too, but cheaper.

I surprised this information isn't publicly available in the UK, because it might affect peoples buying habits.

The thing is, how many people have lived because their suv collided with a small car? How many people have died in a small car because it was hit by an suv. Stick everyone in suvs and those trends will change.

I also imagine driver demographic plays a large part. Young, inexperienced drivers are more likely to be in your Corsa or fiesta than a q7.
 
Certainly speed will be a factor.
I used to know an A&E guy and he said whilst the speed kills message could be easilt challengable, the mergency services specialists were all pretty much in agreement that speed increased the risk and the nastiness of the outcome
So its no surprise at all that fast cars would have more fatalities.

When I had my faster cars I drove faster, probably more inappropriately. So your IMHO more likely to have a fatal.
Hitting another vehicle is bad, we have all see that, far fewer people see a car vs an immovable object, trees pretty much fall into this category.

Its amazing how much damage a car takes into an immovable object at 100Mph.

Mythbusters have done quite a few of these, such as head ons etc, but this one, 100Mph into a solid object. Makes you think, you could be close to this on a spirited drive down a country lane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkn37BDvTw
 
Even if the figures are normalized, you're still more likely to get figures (fatal accidents) for the better selling vehicles (as there are more of them on the road, and more of them involved in crashes of any kind). If a particular car has only sold 8,000,000 units, compared to say 100,000,000 units, there simply weren't as many of the car that only sold 8mil units to be caught up in the statistics in the first place. This is why statistics can typically be used (read manipulated) to prove or disprove almost anything.

So now you’re arguing against your original point? :p

Again, the issue is there isn’t that much of a discrepancy between vehicles sales numbers, in the examples I gave above it’s around 3-4x the number of vehicles sold, not 12 times. Those vehicles are still selling tens of thousands of units each year and there’s litttle chance of the sales figures really having that much of an effect on the death rates.

I would agree with you to an extent if some were very small volume models, with say a few hundred sales a year, that could actually skew death rates. But they aren’t.

To add to that, the data from other sources and analysis agree with this trend, bigger=Safer.
 
^ This.
I'd think you would be better off measuring those actually on the road, with the percentage of those on the road that had fatal crashes. Otherwise I could quite legitimately claim that a Ford Capri or an Escort XR3i are among the safest vehicles around.... which I'm fairly sure they aren't!

That’s what the data in the second link above is. It’s actual accidents vs vehicles on the road. It’s not a percentage, but it’s easy enough to convert to one if you want to view it in that form.

They’ve done it that way for the very reason you describe, low volume vehicles would give anomalous results.

Also, fatality doesn't necessarily reflect complete safety.
Firstly, I'd want to look at KSI figures - that being Killed or Seriously Injured - as the latter part can be more devastating if you have to live with it rather than being killed outright.

The first link gives a reasonable indicator of serious injury as it breaks out medical payments as a seperate column.

Secondly, you do need to look at the type of incidents, as a big SUV might be awesomely protected in a head-on with another vehicle, but the higher centre of mavity makes them more likely to roll or understeer and go off the road, so you'd need to look at all the lone vehicle crashes too.

Yes, SUVs are more likely to have rollovers than a saloon car, but you’re also more likely to survive a head on collision with another vehicle in it. As collisions are much more likely than rollovers the real world data shows that even with the higher rate of rollovers they are still safer overall. The data includes both multi and single vehicle collision information.

See the chart in the second link titled “Driver deaths per million registered passenger vehicles 1-3 years old by crash type, 2016”, it breaks it down into multi, single and rollover and then gives an overall death rate.
 
The thing is, how many people have lived because their suv collided with a small car? How many people have died in a small car because it was hit by an suv. Stick everyone in suvs and those trends will change.

I also imagine driver demographic plays a large part. Young, inexperienced drivers are more likely to be in your Corsa or fiesta than a q7.

That’s the issue, bigger vehicles are safer for occupants, but more dangerous for those outside of the vehicle.

Unfortunately again a US study, and the only one I’ve ever found on this, but a study from around ten years ago looked at fatality rates amongst teenage drivers in the US and found that even then pickups and large SUVs were safer than smaller vehicles.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17898248/

Fatality rates for teen drivers vary significantly by vehicle type. From 1999 to 2003 in the United States, fatal rollovers were significantly more likely per mile driven for teen drivers of both SUVs and pickups compared with passenger cars. However, overall fatality rates (i.e., all crash types) for teen drivers of SUVs and male drivers of pickups were lower per mile driven than for teen drivers of passenger cars. The results of this ecological analysis cannot predict the individual-level fatality risk for teens driving different vehicle types. However, the significant variability in fatality rates among SUVs, pickups, and passenger cars seen at a population level suggests that vehicle choice should be further explored as a potentially modifiable risk factor in interventions to address teen driver safety.

Whether there some urban/rural issues with the data I don’t know. I would love to find some UK data looking at this.
 
That’s what the data in the second link above is. It’s actual accidents vs vehicles on the road. It’s not a percentage, but it’s easy enough to convert to one if you want to view it in that form.
Sounds awfully low...
I'd also wonder how much of an effect is due to these being American vehicles, since their SUVs and Pickups tend to be stupidly big. I'd expect UK spec SUVs to be somewhere closer to Medium or Large Car, really.
But more than that, this is why I'd look at percentage of KSIs per individual model OTR, as some of them will be ridiculously bad by comparison.

The first link gives a reasonable indicator of serious injury as it breaks out medical payments as a seperate column.
Do US insurances pay out the same as UK?

Yes, SUVs are more likely to have rollovers than a saloon car, but you’re also more likely to survive a head on collision with another vehicle in it.
But which is more likely on tight UK roads - A head-on, or over/understeering and loss of control/leaving the road/rollover/etc?
And what about collisions other than head-on?

From there, I'd be more curious about the cause of the accidents (with fingers crossed that it's stupidly bright SUV headlights) in the first place.
 
Sounds awfully low...

How many accidents do you think actually happen each year?

I'd also wonder how much of an effect is due to these being American vehicles, since their SUVs and Pickups tend to be stupidly big. I'd expect UK spec SUVs to be somewhere closer to Medium or Large Car, really.
But more than that, this is why I'd look at percentage of KSIs per individual model OTR, as some of them will be ridiculously bad by comparison.

UK spec SUVs are on that list, generally under small/medium SUVs. There's very little to no difference between a US spec or a UK spec one (except minor trim variations and some lighting variations - DLRs etc) in the vast majority of cases.

Here you go. Driver deaths per million vehicles (easily changable to percentage) for each model.

http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/driver-death-rates

Shows the same trend mind you...;)

I'm sure there is a difference, unfortunately the data for the UK just isn't as available. What data there is does show a similar trend though, and if the OP is looking to compare one specific vehicle to another then realistically it's going to be useful data even though its from a different country.

Do US insurances pay out the same as UK?

Does it really matter the specifics? The medical costs will be related to the severity and number of injuries. Admittedly we can't tell if the number is lots of small injuries or just a few large injuries, but we're talking about stats from hundreds of thousands of incidents so generally they're going to be reasonably normalised between vehicles.


But which is more likely on tight UK roads - A head-on, or over/understeering and loss of control/leaving the road/rollover/etc?
And what about collisions other than head-on?

The only data I can find from a quick search is that in the EU around 60% of accidents are multi vehicle incidents. That's not to dissimilar to the US. Why not look and see what you can find?

From there, I'd be more curious about the cause of the accidents (with fingers crossed that it's stupidly bright SUV headlights) in the first place.

So basically you have a preconceived notion that SUVs are more dangerous, so ignore any data that says otherwise and continue sticking your fingers in your ears.

Why not find some actual data to back up your own opinions and refute the data actually provided? The data in those spreadsheets linked would be a good place to start. How about crunching the numbers and letting us know (it actually separates out cause) . :)

Here's a telegraph article from 2011 on the subject too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/road-safety/8702111/How-do-accidents-happen.html

Just over a fifth of deaths were caused by SMIDSY, whereas:

and being dazzled by headlamps, a factor in 0.4 per dent of fatalities.

(Less than dodgy brakes).

Yes, 20 years ago 4x4s were death traps (relative), but things have moved on, as shown in the data in some of the links above. Now SUVs are some of the safest vehicles on the road for their drivers and passengers.
 
Which would you say is the safest:

BMW 5 series
BMW 5 series touring
BMW X5

I believe the chassis is the same on all three. I guess the isn't too much difference.
 
Which would you say is the safest:

BMW 5 series
BMW 5 series touring
BMW X5

I believe the chassis is the same on all three. I guess the isn't too much difference.

Realistically probably not a huge amount of difference assuming like for like chassis. Personally I'd pick based on what I prefer to drive. Do you want more space, more sporty drive, higher ground clearance, more visibility?

The X5 has more boot/interior space, but is also the smaller vehicle (shorter, but a shade wider) if that's important. The X5 will also have more visibility because it's taller and has a larger rear window.
 
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Realistically probably not a huge amount of difference assuming like for like chassis. Personally I'd pick based on what I prefer to drive. Do you want more space, more sporty drive, higher ground clearance, more visibility?

The X5 has more boot/interior space, but is also the smaller vehicle (shorter, but a shade wider) if that's important.

I can't really afford an X5 anyway, even £20k won't really buy anything good. I think I'll end up getting an estate.
 
some excel fun - from the 2016 UK xls - deaths associated with the different car brands and X5+5series breakout.

AUDI 42
BMW 91
FORD 214
VOLKSWAGEN 108
VAUXHALL 148
SKODA 17

X5 BMW 6
5* BMW 9

whether the accidents are disproportionate with the number of each brand on the roads ???... etc etc...
 
I found the licencing stats from 2016

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-licensing-statistics-2016

and the key to the files is here

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/vehicles-statistical-tables-index

Code:
2016                       Deaths   Deaths per million
Audi         1513884    42          28
BMW        1688901    91            54
Ford         4420343    214         48
Skoda       658437     17           26
Vauxhall    3595511   148           41
VW           2739147   108          39

Code:
5 series    238693      9             38
X5            88722     6             68


So moral of the story OP, if you want a safe car don't get a BMW... ;)

More seriously I wonder why that is, the type of vehicle, driver profile or something else?

(Data calculated by every listing for each brand and model)
 
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I already have a Skoda, but it is a Vrs, which could be the model that accounts for all those deaths. :p


Do you think Audi might be safer because of Quattro? Audi's share chassis with VW.

Maybe BMWs are just a handful and difficult to control at high speed, like if you had to swerve.
 
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