SPORT-UTILITIES GETTING BAD RAP, STUDIES FIND.

Byline: Janet Fix Knight Ridder Newspapers

Sport-utility vehicles are commonly thought to be the most deadly passenger vehicles on the road, but new government studies show a large van or pickup is more likely to kill you if it hits your car.

And, surprisingly, you might have more to fear from being hit by a compact sport-utility vehicle or a minivan than a GMC Suburban - one of the biggest sport-brutes on the road.

For the first time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ranked the 20 ``most aggressive'' light trucks - the vans, pickups and sport-utility vehicles most likely to kill someone in a car during a collision.

The rankings cover crashes between 1991 and 1994, and present a bewildering mix of big- and small-truck villains that seems to defy common sense and the laws of physics.

The full-size Dodge Ram appears to be the deadliest vehicle on the road, but the compact Chevrolet S-10 Blazer is the second-most deadly. The much larger, full-size Chevrolet K-Blazer is third, while the biggest GM sport-utility of all, the GMC Suburban, is 18th. (The nearly identical Chevrolet Suburban isn't on the list at all.)

All that is surprising because sport-utility vehicles - the station wagons of the 1990s - have been branded as killers by some safety advocates because of their extra height, weight and strong front ends.

But the NHTSA's list of aggressors offers no pattern to suggest which of these factors, or combination of factors, makes these particular vehicles - large and small - more likely to kill the occupants of a car in a crash.

The research does suggest that the attention sport-utilities have gotten has hidden - even for federal safety officials - the risks full-size vans and full-size pickups pose to passenger cars. It also suggests that the NHTSA is a long way from finding ways to reduce the risks to passenger cars of the growing number of light trucks on the nation's roads.

While the NHTSA has summoned automakers to a June 5 conference in hopes of finding ways to reduce the danger posed by sport-utilities and other light trucks, solutions aren't likely to come any time soon.

Even the NHTSA now recognizes that the case against sport-utilities is not as simple as first portrayed, and has quietly begun calling the meeting a ``dialogue'' rather than a summit.

``NHTSA's own research kind of blows away NHTSA's complaint about sport-utilities,'' said David Cole, director of the University of Michigan's Transportation Institute. ``They shouldn't be calling for the redesign of sport-utilities until they get to the root of the problem.''

The NHTSA suggests that the research data are most effective in making a case against light trucks - a group that is 30 times more likely than a car to kill car occupants in a crash. Researchers are less confident in explaining why other vehicles make the ``most aggressive'' list.

It makes some sense that all three of the Big Three automakers' full-size vans made the list. They are heavier than most sport-utilities and pickups, but they don't ride as high off the ground as pickups and sport-utilities, so they are less likely to hit a car in vulnerable spots above bumpers and side-impact door beams.

And there is no obvious reason why the Ford and GMC vans rate lower than the No. 2-ranked Chevy S-10 Blazer. Or why the S-10 ranks ahead of Chevy's much bigger K-Blazer. Or why Mazda's MPV minivan ranks well above the GMC Suburban, which weighs at least 1,500 pounds more.

``We've always known weight makes the most difference in crashes with smaller vehicles,'' said Philip Recht, the NHTSA's deputy director. ``What we don't know is what effect height and stiffness have.''

Auto manufacturers contend that sport-utilities have been unfairly smeared. Collisions between cars and sport-utilities represent just 4 percent of all crashes - and you're almost 14 times more likely to be killed by running your car into a tree or off the road. Crashes between pickups or vans and cars represent 10 percent of all collisions.

The NHTSA produced its ``aggressive vehicle'' list by looking at vehicle registrations and fatal crash data from 1991 to 1994. Only vehicles involved in at least 10,000 crashes made the list.

Because the information is old, there are no crash data for many of the bigger sport-utilities - such as the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator - now on the road. But the NHTSA says research now under way on the most recent fatal crash data confirms the key result that full-size vans and full-size pickups pose more risk to car occupants than sport-utilities do.

20 MOST DEADLY VEHICLES

Here, beginning with the worst, is a list of the 20 ``most aggressive'' vehicles on American highways:

1. Dodge B-series van (full-size van)

2. Chevy S-10 Blazer (compact sport-utility)

3. Chevy K-Blazer (full-size sport-utility)

4. Toyota 4Runner (compact sport-utility)

5. Mazda MPV (minivan)

6. GMC S-15 Jimmy (Compact sport-utility)

7. Ford F-series trucks (full-size pickup)

8. Ford E-series vans (full-size van)

9. Ford Explorer/Bronco II (compact sport-utility)

10. Chevy/GMC G-series vans (full-size vans)

11. Dodge Dakota (compact pickup)

12. Dodge Ram 50, Colt truck (compact pickup)

13. Chevy Astro van (minivan)

14. Ford Ranger (compact pickup)

15. Chevy/GMC C/K, R, V-series (full-size pickups)

16. Jeep CJ5, 6, 7, 8 (small sport-utility)

17. GMC S-15/Sonoma (compact pickup)

18. GMC Suburban (full-size sport-utility)

19. Toyota truck (compact pickup)

20. Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager (minivan)

Note: This National Highway Traffic Safety Administration list is based on data in the Federal Fatal Accident Reporting System gathered from 1991 through 1994. It is based on the number of driver fatalities in opposing cars for every 1,000 crashes between the listed vehicles and vehicles weighing less than 10,000 pounds.

Knight Ridder Newspapers

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Box: 20 most deadly vehicles (see text)