Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute have concluded that a pedestrian hit by an LTV (light truck vehicle, which includes minivans, pickup trucks and SUVs) is more than three times more likely to be killed than one hit by a car – less due to the vehicle’s greater mass than due to its height and the design of its front end. A pedestrian hit by a passenger car will, with luck (a relative term), be struck in the legs and sent over the hood. An LTV will probably strike a pedestrian with its blunt hood – for adults, at the level of the torso, home of the vital organs; for kids, the level of the head. The LTV will then knock 65 per cent of adults and 93 per cent of children to the ground, where they have a good chance of being run over.