Massachusetts Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Sport Utility Vehicles: What makes them dangerous?

What are the real dangers of an SUV? 

• A weak roof;
• A high center of gravity;
• A narrow wheelbase; and
• Inadequate driver/passenger restraints, including seatbelts and side airbags. 

SUVs are also prone to tip and rollover.

More than 10,000 people are killed every year in rollover accidents. Rollover accidents are particularly deadly--nearly one-third of all fatalities in SUV accidents occur when the vehicle rolls over. This number doesn't even take into account the people killed in other types of collisions when the SUV doesn't roll over.

SUV manufacturers don't tell you that a fatal accident can occur when the driver swerves to avoid an accident and loses control of the vehicle. Not all fatal accidents occur in a head-on collision.

There are some features the automakers could start using in new models, including electronic control stability, or ESC, and side airbags could reduce the risk of fatalities by almost 72%. However, because the automakers choose profits over the occupant's safety, these changes have not been made, and an SUV remains a deadly vehicle.

Get more information about the hazards of SUVs and how to minimize your risk.

Massachusetts personal injury lawyer, Thomas M. Kiley, is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association and is a respected member of the American Association for Justice and the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys.

The personal injury attorneys at the Law Office of Kiley Law Group are dedicated to helping the victims of:

• Car, motorcycle, truck, van or bus accident
• Single vehicle accidents such as SUV or 15-passenger van rollovers
• Pedestrian accidents such as a hit and run
• Defective products such as ineffective airbags or seatbelts, prescription drugs with unpublicized side-effects, or hazardous children's toys
• Child injury and child abuse such as negligence
• Birth injuries such as trauma during labor or cerebral palsy

We Serve Clients Across the State of Massachusetts
The firm's headquarters are in Andover, MA and serves the following cities in Massachusetts: Boston, Danvers, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Methuen, Middleton, Reading, and Salem, MA and Salem, New Hampshire.