Big ute and SUV smackdown: Why having the biggest and baddest vehicle on the road isn't the safest, as new research shows a surprising fact about pick-up trucks such as the Ram 1500, Ford F-150, Toyota Tundra and Chevrolet Silverado

Think buying the biggest, baddest ute or SUV will keep you safe in a crash? Think again.

New research from the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which performs a similar role to the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) in Australia, shows a bigger car does not necessarily translate to it being the safest.

The research was conducted in the US, which is a country that knows a thing or two about super-sized vehicles. 

The IIHS examined crashes involving two vehicles that involved either SUVs or pick-up trucks over a roughly 10 year period to examine fatality rates. The vehicles also had to be between one and four years old at the time of the accident to present a proper like-for-like crash comparison.

It found if your car was lighter than the fleet average there was an increased risk of a fatal accident, but no matter how much heavier than the average your vehicle was than the average it posed very little benefit, according to the data.

The average weight for a  vehicle in the US is about 2270kg, which is about the same as thef the average dual-cab ute such as the Toyota HiLux or Ford Ranger.

The research found the heavier vehicle the more danger it posed to others in a crash. For every roughly 225kg above the fleet average the rate of fatalities dropped by only one per million registered vehicles, while increasing the fatality rate of the other vehicle by seven.

“For American drivers, the conventional wisdom is that if bigger is safer, even bigger must be safer still,” IIHS President David Harkey said. “These results show that isn’t true today. Not for people in other cars. And — this is important — not for the occupants of the large vehicles themselves.”

Australian vehicles are on average smaller than those in America, but that is changing as a new wave of super-sized vehicles are gaining traction Down Under.

Aussies now have the choice of four different US-style pick-up trucks: the Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150 and Toyota Tundra.

The GMC Yukon, which is bigger than any SUV currently on sale, arrives later this year.

Each generation of vehicle generally grows in every direction, slowly bringing up the fleet average.

The head of ANCAP Carla Hoorweg told CarsGuide last year it had concerns about the proliferation of giant utes on our roads.

“We’ve definitely got concerns. There are a lot of community concerns we are fielding,” said Hoorweg.

“We’re looking at vehicles that are being designed for the US market, they’re not necessarily going to have a focus on pedestrian protection or vulnerable road user protection, that’s not a focus in those regulations. So we know there’s going to be a gap there.”

“We are considering what our options are around physical testing, so there’s potential for pedestrian impact testing,” she said.

This test involves firing adult and child head forms and leg forms at the bonnet, windscreen, front bumper of a vehicle to determine how well it can physically protect pedestrians from serious head, pelvis and leg injury.

ANCAP’s new focus comes as its US equivalent, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), plans to crackdown on large pick-ups, SUVs and vans after pedestrian fatalities rose by 57 per cent between 2013 and 2022.