SUVs Make Traffic Worse And Are More Dangerous Than Cars

Forbes [no paywall] – Two new studies demonstrate some major downsides to upsizing our cars: “Our vehicles have never been bigger or heavier than they are now. Take the Ford F150 truck. Between 1991 and 2025, it got 75cm longer, 20 cm taller, and 483 kg heavier. But it’s not alone; the same trend of ‘supersizing’ can be seen all across the automotive market. Larger vehicles – particularly sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and light truck vehicles (LTVs) – are growing in popularity at an unprecedented pace. Eight out of the top 10 passenger vehicles sold in the US so far in 2025 were SUVs or LTVs. In New Zealand, nine of 2024’s top 10 sellers were SUVs or LTVs (which are most often referred to as ‘utes’ here). Globally, SUVs made up 48% of new car sales in 2023; that’s up from 15% in 2010. These supersized vehicles come with numerous downsides. The first and most obvious one is that those vehicles that rely on fossil fuels – which represent the vast majority of the fleet – are famously bad for the environment. Road transport is responsible for 15% of all global CO₂ emissions, and SUVs and LTVs play a big role in that. As reported earlier this year by the BBC, “If ranked among countries, the global fleet of SUVs would be the world’s fifth largest emitter of CO₂, exceeding the emissions of Japan and various other major economies.” The International Energy Agency has also found that due to weighing 200-300 kg more, an SUV that runs on petrol or diesel emits 20% more CO₂ than an average to medium-sized car. Given that CO₂ is the main contributor to the warming of our planet, adding more SUVs to the fleet seems like a retrograde step…”