DATE: Saturday, October 4, 1997             TAG: 9710030018

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty 

                                            LENGTH:   83 lines

HOW MUCH HEAVIER CAN LIGHT TRUCKS GET ? UNFORTUNATELY, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN SLOW TO STUDY THE EFFECTS OF ACCIDENTS BETWEEN VEHICLES OF VASTING UNEQUAL SIZE.

Call it the ``protecting the litter'' conundrum.

With ever increasing numbers of light trucks on the road, we must ask ourselves, is it safe - or sensible - to venture into traffic in a mere car?

As I begin the painful process of shopping for a new car, I am tormented by the voices in my head. One argues that it's socially irresponsible to buy another big 4-wheel-drive gas-guzzler like I now drive. The other reminds me that to settle for anything smaller or lighter imperils my litter of two strapped in the back seat.

It's a fact: It's kill or be killed on the highways today. And, according the venerable New York Times, if you're driving just a car, you're likely to meet your maker a whole lot sooner than someone driving a sports utility vehicle or a minivan.

Last week this newspaper published a lengthy horror story about the dangers of light trucks. The story didn't say that light trucks are dangerous to drive, only that they are deadly to anything that dares get in their way.

It's a war out there, and if you're driving something like a ground-hugging 2,900 pound Honda Accord, you're going into battle armed only with a puny conventional weapon. If, on your way to the supermarket, you and your Accord crash into your neighbor's nuclear-powered 5,700 pound Suburban fully tanked with 42 gallons of gas, you, your Accord, your groceries and your passengers will look as if you've been put through a trash compacter.

The Suburban is a car for the apocalypse. Nothing else on the light-truck horizon can touch its size and ferocity. That will change, however, when Ford ups the ante next year by unveiling its light-truck version of the B-1 Bomber - a sport utility vehicle bigger, heavier and meaner than the Suburban.

On Sunday, under a headline ``Nothing light about these trucks,'' The Times published a hideous photo of twisted metal. The caption said it was a 3,300 pound Chrysler Concorde that collided with a Chevy Suburban. In a New York accident involving these two cars, the driver of the Chrysler was killed, his passenger was critically injured, but the driver of the Suburban walked away uninjured.

In a crash between an Accord and a Suburban, the driver of the Accord would be 13 times more likely to die than the driver of the Chevy, according to The Times. It's almost Darwinian.

This rush to commandeer bigger and bigger cars is not unlike the arms race. Back when everyone was driving sedans and station wagons, the playing field was almost level. When everyone drives a light truck, it will be level again. In the meantime, those in cars are outgunned. Worse, those who can't afford $35,000 for a light truck will just have to take their chances and pray they don't become tire fodder for the boys with fatter wallets and bigger vehicles.

The popularity of light trucks, sport utility vehicles and minivans exploded over the past decade. Unfortunately, the federal government has been slow to study the effects of accidents between vehicles of vastly unequal size.

This much we do know: When a car and a light truck meet, the truck tends to drive up and over all of the safety features on the car, leaving its occupants dead or dying of head and chest injuries. Seat belts don't help and neither do airbags.

I don't mean to be picking on Honda, either. It used to be that if you sunk the family fortune into that homely suburbo-box called Volvo, you knew you'd bought enough armor to keep the kiddies safe until they were old enough to drive.

No longer.

Volvo admits that its cars are no match for light trucks. Engineers in Sweden are trying now to concentrate on how to make their cars safer when a Suburban is driving on the roof.

What's the answer? Some insurance companies are already jacking up fees for light truck owners on the theory that these vehicles cost the industry more in liability claims.

Car safety activists are calling for federal legislation to limit the number of light trucks on the highways. Others are demanding that the manufacturers figure out a way to make their sport utility vehicles safer. Mercedes, which came out with a new light truck last month, claims that its model causes less damage to other cars in crash tests.

Let's hope the American Big Three car manufacturers follow Mercedes' lead (not that they've ever done that before).

We all want to protect our litters, but driving an 18-wheeler to the supermarket is not my idea of fun. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

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