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Despite extensive media coverage to the contrary, mismatches among cars, utility vehicles, and pickups in crashes is not a big problem from a societal perspective. On the other hand, if you are riding in a small car that is about to be hit by a big utility vehicle, then the problem looms large. Crash compatibility has attracted a lot of attention lately because utility vehicles have become so popular. The concern is that their designs pose a threat to people riding in smaller cars. But the fact is, two-vehicle collisions between cars (including passenger vans) and utility vehicles or pickups account for only about 15 percent of all car occupant deaths. As a result, countermeasures that focus on making utility vehicles and pickups more crash compatible, however appropriate, can have only small effects on crash injuries and fatalities. On the other hand, improvements in crashworthiness not only reduce crash incompatibilities but also protect across a wider spectrum of crashes.

After decades of focus on car designs that improve the crash protection of occupants in their own cars, some theorists have refocused their attention on vehicle aggressivity, or more generally, the compatibility of vehicles when they crash with each other. Real-world fatal crash data reveal important issues of compatibility related to the broad mix of types and sizes of vehicles in the fleet. However, these data also show that incompatibility among passenger vehicles has accounted for only a small proportion of crash fatalities on U.S. roads and that modifications of the more aggressive vehicles, though appropriate and necessary, will have relatively small effects. Interventions to curtail the development and sale of the largest and heaviest passenger vehicles would be ineffective.