Australia’s growing love affair with SUVs and utes is reshaping road safety. Larger vehicles don’t just cause more harm in crashes – they may also change how drivers behave.

You may have noticed – there’s a car-size inflation on Australian roads that some have nicknamed car “ mobesity”.

Most SUVs and utes from a decade or two ago look small  next to today’s models.

As we head for a  fifth consecutive year of rising road deaths and what could be the worst year for pedestrian fatalities  in nearly two decades, it’s time to look more closely at what this means.

We already know bigger cars cause  greater impacts in collisions.

But what’s less discussed is whether driving one also changes how we drive – if larger vehicles make us feel safer inside them, do they also make us take more risks behind the wheel?

Four in five new cars sold in Australia are SUVs or utes – more than  double the share of 20 years ago.

This isn’t purely........

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