Why is it better to crash at a lower speed?

Higher driving speeds lead to higher collision speeds and thus to severer injury. Higher driving speeds also provide less time to process information and to act on it, and the braking distance is longer. Therefore the possibility of avoiding a collision is smaller.



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If you drive any car short of a race car with head restraint devices and other safety innovations into a wall at 90 mph you're probably going to die. In fact, likely the only way to survive hitting something head on at 90 mph is to be driving a big car at 45 and hit something like a smart car at 45.

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The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) estimated that about 40 percent of people who get hit by a motor vehicle going 30 mph will die from their injuries.

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More than 80 percent of all crashes occur at speeds less than 40 mph. Deaths involving non-belted occupants of cars have been recorded at as low as 12 mph. That's about the speed you'd be driving in a parking lot. Three out of four crashes causing death occur within 25 miles of home.

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SUVs, minivans and luxury cars were the least deadly, the research found. “We typically find that smaller vehicles have high driver death rates because they don't provide as much protection, especially in crashes with larger, heavier SUVs and pickups,” IIHS President David Harkey said.

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