BMJ  2005;331:787-788 (8 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7520.787

Editorial

Sports utility vehicles and older pedestrians

A damaging collision

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Two independent trends in the developed world are likely to reverse some of the hard won improvements that have been made in road safety. One is the ageing of the population; the other the increase in the use of sports utility vehicles (SUVs, high performance four wheel drive cars capable of off-road driving). The first trend produces a growing number of vulnerable road users; the second produces a likelihood of more severe injuries when vehicles and pedestrians collide. Public health professionals will need to work with transportation and road safety agencies to avoid the inevitable consequences of more vulnerable road users and more lethal vehicles.

Among road users, pedestrians are already a group at high risk, and elderly pedestrians are particularly at risk. People over 60 are more than four times as likely to die if injured by a car than younger people¹: in a pattern repeated around . . . [Full text of this article]

(arhc@amnch.ie)
Trinity Centre for Bioengineering and Medical Gerontology, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

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