Abstract
This small car accident study investigated accidents in Washington State in four passenger car categories: subcompact, compact, intermediate, and large. The primary purpose of the study was to evaluate the effects on safety of increases in the number of smaller cars on the highways. Traffic accident data for the period 1973-79 were analysed to determine the accident severity for the different automobile classes, and this analysis showed that the smaller vehicles had a higher proportion of fatal and injury accidents than the other categories.