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Sports utility vehicles are a modern phenomenon that’s taking the auto world by storm. So much so that many car manufacturers are phasing out their family sedans altogether – read our article Ford for evidence.
Drivers can’t seem to get enough of these big bodied vehicles. One reason for the increasing domination of SUVs is; the recent push by car makers for better driver and passenger safety aides.
SUV makers have changed the safety stigma
For decades, besides being viewed as fuel hogs (another stigma that was ended by Tesla and others), SUVs had a safety problem – primarily towards pedestrians. This was before advent of technologies such as, surround view monitoring, radar sensing, pedestrian alert, blind spot monitoring, etc., etc.
These advancements were desperately needed in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, when the SUV wave just starting to build. Big dumb rides like the original H2 Hummer and Chevy’s Suburban started showing up – without any of the aforementioned technologies.
Things went as bad as you’d expect as pedestrian injuries and car accidents involving many of these first gen SUVs skyrocketed. Many lessons were learned from those earlier days in the rise of the Sports utility vehicle.
SUVs: We’ve come a long way baby
SUVs have come a long way, but there is still more hills to climb. There are no tech that can change the laws of physics, Sports utility vehicles are bigger and heavier than sedans.
Before we even consider full self-driving autonomy for these cars – we still have to make even more progress in making them even safer. A lot of tech advancements have been made in the highway and road driving side, we believe better pedestrian protections must also continue to be a priority.
Main image courtesy: Buick
