Date of Graduation
2008
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MS
Committee Chair
David R. Martinelli
Abstract
In the last decade, Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) have become a considerable percentage of the US vehicular fleet, giving rise to several highway safety issues such as: vehicular incompatibility, rollover propensity and offsetting driver behavior. While greater mass, stiffness and dimensions of SUVs relative to passenger cars, are safety advantages of SUVs, they may encourage SUV drivers to engage in a trade off between this new level of safety and risk taking behavior, named Peltzman Effect. In this research a model developed by Levitt and Poter (2001) for drinking drivers is applied to assessing the Peltzman Effect of SUVs and Passenger Cars with a set of data characteristics to control for preexisting risk taking behavior. It was found that indeed SUVs pose an externality hazard on passenger cars and that SUV drivers are 2.7 times more likely to cause a fatal crash compared to passenger cars.
Recommended Citation
Diosdado-De-La-Pena, Maria-Paulina, "Safety externalities of SUVs on passenger cars: An analysis of the Peltzman Effect using FARS data." (2008). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD). 11111.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/11111