SUVs have a lot of myths circulating around due to sheer size. You’d be surprised how lax some of the programs are.
Are you referring to roof strength or to some other type of crash performance?
SUV’s have a reduced chance of getting destroyed in a collision, and are often safer when it comes to front or rear end crashes.
Is there crash test data to support this?
I’d suspect the main benefit SUVs have is just being heavier on average. In most multi car accidents you do better with a heavier vehicle due to the physics of how energy is transferred.
But I’d wager that you would do better in a large heavy safe sedan, say a S90 or 7 series, than in a CRV or Rav-4 in the vast majority of accidents.
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It’s not that minivans are more unsafe than SUVs, or other vehicle types, for second row passengers, but rather that the updated IIHS frontal overlap test was all-new in 2022 and most automakers haven’t engineered their vehicles to do well in this test yet.
The new frontal test includes rear seat dummies for the first time, and it’s largely a test of rear seat restraints rather than vehicle structure. If you look at minivans and SUVs from the same manufacturer, they are rated similarly in the updated frontal test:
Toyota Sienna = Marginal
Toyota Highlander = Marginal
Chrysler Pacifica = Marginal
Jeep Grand Cherokee = Poor
Honda Odyssey = Poor
Honda Pilot = Marginal
Kia Carnival = Marginal
Kia Telluride = Good (was Marginal for the 2022 model year)
Expect the ratings to improve as manufacturers take rear restraints as seriously as the front (e.g., add seatbelt pre-tensioners and load limiters to the back seats). Most US-market cars do not have rear seatbelt pre-tensioners, even though their EU-market equivalents do, because Euro NCAP has included rear seat dummies in their frontal tests for a while.
Interestingly, Volvo’s XC40 got a Good rating from the get-go of this new test, along with numerous Fords (Escape, Mach-E, and Explorer).
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Volvo is a brand I applaud for their engineering in safety. When small overlap was introduced back in the early 2010s, XC90 did amazing well. I dont know if their home market had a similar test that allowed them to keep this in mind at the design stage back in the late 90s.
This is an article from 2019 when the rear seat tests were announced. Seems like most, but not all, of the Euro luxury brands basically include pretensioners in the back seat across their lineup.
It does seem like Volvo goes beyond what is needed to just pass the IIHS testing. The XC90 was designed about nine years ago yet still earned a good score on the new moderate overlap front test that cars designed more recently (as Michael discussed above) are struggling with/need to be resigned to pass. Although this is probably just Volvo (and many other euro luxury brands) including all safety features on the North American version that they had to design into the Euro version.
Anything bigger then you on the road can kill you.
Vehicle size and weight.
I think more husbands talk their wives into minivans than the other way around