1. Thomas, P., & Frampton, R. (1999). Large and Small Cars in Real-World Crashes -Patterns of Use, Collision Types and Injury Outcomes. Annual Proceedings / Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine, 43, 101–118.

Background: This article highlights data from previous works that examined the relationship between vehicle mass and fatality rate of real world crashes. One section in particular that was important to my research was the first couple of paragraphs after the abstract, which discuss specific studies that produced data backing up the claim that vehicle mass has an effect on the fatality rate of car accidents. It then goes on to discuss other factors such as gender, age and vehicle occupancy. 

How I Used It: This article helped confirm the part of my hypothesis that vehicle size affects the fatality rate of car accidents. I used the data found in this article that explained how there is a twofold increase in the fatality risk when a car’s mass is reduced to nearly half, proving an almost proportional relationship between the two.

2. Baker, B., Nolan, J., O’Neill, B., & Genetos, A. (2007, May 22). Crash compatibility between cars and light trucks: Benefits of lowering front-end energy-absorbing structure in SUVs and pickups.

Background: This article describes how energy is absorbed in a car-to-car collision through the crushing of energy absorbing structures to minimize potential injuries to the car’s occupants. It was found that collisions between cars and light trucks end up not utilizing these energy absorbing structures because their difference in height created a mismatch in energy absorbing structures. This meant more injuries or even fatalities were occuring in accidents between the two classes of vehicles than others. Then in 2003, automakers committed to new design standards to reduce this mismatch in structures. The article mainly focuses on how much of a difference these changes in design standards made in front-to-front collisions.

How I Used It: This article helped me find the phrase “crash compatibility,” which I then used as the focal point of my definition essay. Most of the information on “crash compatibility” comes from this article.

3. Kahane, C. (1997, January 1). Relationship Between Vehicle Size and Fatality Risk in Model Year 1985-93 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks [PDF]. United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Background: This paper goes in depth on how vehicle weight and sizes affect fatality rates of all different types of crashes including car-to-car collisions, rollovers, and collisions with objects. The paper also discusses the factors that make car to light truck collisions have such higher fatality rates than collisions between other classes of vehicles. It is also explained that a majority of motorists believe large vehicles are safer than small ones which is true for the occupant of the vehicle but is not for other drivers. Large and heavy vehicles create a hazard for smaller, lightweight vehicles on roadways.

How I Used It: I used this paper to gather more data on the relationship between vehicle weight/size and the fatality rates of car-to-car collisions. This paper also provided me with direct statistics on how collisions between large and small vehicles are more fatal and explained the reasoning behind it.

4. Karim, M., Ibrahim, N., Saifizul, A., & Yamanaka, H. (2013, July 04). Effectiveness of vehicle weight enforcement in a developing country using weigh-in-motion sorting system considering vehicle by-pass and enforcement capability.

Background: This article explains how vehicle overloading, loading more weight in vehicles than there should be, is a major problem on the roadways of Malaysia. The reason it is a problem is because vehicle overloading is one of the major contributors to road pavement damage. The article goes into detail about how Malaysia tries to enforce vehicle weight through a vehicle, weigh-in-motion (WIM) system.

How I Used It: I only ended up using this article to try to explain how vehicle weight enforcement could possibly be done on all roadways to help put my thesis into action but later found that this was the wrong approach. I will not be using this source in my final paper but this article helped me find out how I should change my thesis and put me in the right direction.

5. Bae, H., Lim, J., & Park, K. (n.d.). VEHICLE COMPATIBILITY IN CAR -TO-CAR FRONTAL OFFSET CRASH [PDF]. Korea: Hyundai Motor Company.

Background: This article showcases a series of full scale car-to-car collision tests conducted by Hyundai Motor Company in order to show the crash compatibility of different vehicles. The article discusses some of the factors of vehicle compatibility as well as all of the actual data from the crash tests. The article also uses data from FARS, Fatality Analysis Reporting System, to show the actual death ratios of collisions between different vehicle types and normal cars.

How I Used It: I used this article for its definition of crash compatibility. The article defines it as “Vehicle compatibility is defined as the ability of a car to protect both its own occupants and partner car’s occupants.”

6. Overly, S. (2019, April 17). Americans have fallen in love with little big cars.

Background: This news article from The Washington Post talks about how larger vehicles are becoming more and more popular in America. The article goes into the details of why these larger vehicles are becoming popular.

How I Used It: I used this article to help explain how more people are buying bigger cars making roadways even more dangerous for people who still drive smaller cars. I used this information to make my hypothesis seem more urgent to try to get the reader onboard with my hypothesis.

7. Forkenbrock, D. J., & March, J. (2005, September). Issues in The Financing of Truck-Only Lanes.

Background: This article is about the issues in implementing truck-only lanes and more specifically, as the title implies, it is about the issues in financing truck-only lanes. Truck only lanes would benefit all drivers as they clear up traffic on highways and make it safer for all other drivers. But the cost of a truck-only lane currently outweighs their benefit in the long run, at $10 million per mile of road. That isn’t even including other costs such as land acquisition.

How I Used It: I used this article as the main opposing claim in my rebuttal essay. I explained how expensive these lanes cost then showed how all the lives saved by constructing them reduces their cost by the amount of money saved from less fatal accidents and would continue to save money annually due to less fatalities.

8. IIHS. (2019, December). Fatality Facts 2018: Large trucks. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Background: This article highlights the discrepancy between the fatality rate of car occupants and large truck occupants in large truck collisions. The discrepancy is made very clear with this simple statistic, in 2018, 4,136 large truck crashes occurred and only 16% of deaths were truck occupants while 67% percent were occupants of cars. 

How I Used It: I pretty much used this source for that statistic alone and just to increase my knowledge in general about crashes between large and small vehicles.

9. Joost, W.J. (2012, August 24). Reducing Vehicle Weight and Improving U.S. Energy Efficiency Using Integrated Computational Materials Engineering.

Background: The main topic of this article is how the use of lightweight materials to reduce the weight of vehicles leads to an increase in fuel efficiency yet is not being done by most companies because of multiple factors. These factors include performance of the materials, manufacturability, and cost. The rest of the article discusses how much of a benefit using advanced lightweight materials would be and how there needs to be a great deal of material science effort for this material to be created.

How I Used It: I used this article to answer one of the biggest questions surrounding my original hypothesis of forcing all cars to be the same size, rather than creating dedicated roadways for different classes of vehicles. This question was what size should all vehicles be forced to be, big, small or somewhere inbetween. This article provided me with supporting evidence to say that all cars should be forced to be small because they are more fuel efficient and with the advancement of lightweight materials, they could still be considerably strong and crash resistant.

10. Williams, J. M. (2010, June 26). Why We Should Favor Heavier Vehicles for Highway Driving.

Background: This article explains how cars with greater mass (weight), are safer to drive on highways. The article then goes into describing the science behind why this is true. Based off the science, a conclusion is made that highway vehicles should be 20 times the mass of the average passenger.

How I Used It: I used this article to help show that it is true that larger vehicles are safer than smaller ones but only for the occupants of said large vehicle. So the main purpose of this article was for me to show how it is valid to think that cars should be larger, but based on data from other sources, this is not the correct way of thinking.