Toronto, Ontario — They’re loud, heavy and an undisputed icon in the history of the automobile—but according to the IIHS, muscle cars may also be the deadliest vehicles on the road.
A new report from the U.S. safety institute found that of the 21 models that recorded the highest rates of driver death, six of them were variants of the MY2020 Chevrolet Camaro, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger and Ford Mustang.
“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,” said IIHS President David Harkey.
“The muscle cars on this list highlight that a vehicle’s image and how it is marketed can also contribute to crash risk.”
The report pointed out that, in most cases, it is the driver of the smaller vehicle that incurs the most damage on themselves rather than the driver of the larger vehicle.
In the case of muscle cars, however, both the driver of the muscle car and the other, potentially larger vehicle, face a heightened risk of death in a collision.
The IIHS attributes this to the association of muscle cars with aggressive driving, which in turn contributes to one of the worst other-driver death rates of any vehicle class, according to the institute.
“The explanation may lie in the image of the vehicles. Luxury cars are associated with ease and comfort,” read a section of the report.
“In contrast, the muscle cars on this list are associated with the early days of the drag strip, as illustrated by features like racing stripes, hood scoops and spoilers, and that seems to influence how they’re driven.”
Marketing buzzwords like “ground-shaking”, “racing-inspired”, “track performance” do no favours to this perception of muscle car drivers as aggressive, according to the IIHS.
Click here for the IIHS’s most recent data on driver death rates by make and model.
