4x4s produce 43 percent more global-warming pollution and 47 percent more air pollution than an average car.
New research has shown that when the high-fronted, wide-bodied vehicles, also known as SUVs (sports utility vehicles), crash into children or adults they are far more likely to cause head and chest injuries, and these are much more likely to be fatal.
Dozens of children in the US are also run over and killed every year by large vehicles reversing. The accidents often happen in their own driveways, and the drivers are often their own parents or carers.
Ordinary cars, whose profiles are lower and less blunt, tend to cause more leg and lower body injuries which are less life-threatening, and they have lower blind spots when reversing.
The results of a recent study of over 40,000 drivers in London, published
in the British
Medical Journal, revealed that the drivers of 4x4s were four times
more likely to use their mobile phone while driving, and also more likely
to drive without a seatbelt. Its authors suggest that the drivers of 4x4s
are more likely than other drivers to take risks because they feel safer
in their cars, even though research has shown that they are not.