How safe are motorhomes?

Most modern tow vehicles have been proven to be relatively safe in a crash, but what about motorhomes?

To find out, the Swedish Transport Administration recently carried out crash tests on a number of different motorhomes, with alarming results.

According to the Swedish authority, the reason for conducting the crash tests in the first place, was due to the rapid increase in the number of motorhomes on the road.

“Since 2014, the number of newly registered motorhomes in Sweden has increased by 50 per cent,” the STA said. “During the same period, six people have died in a camper, four of them last year.

“The most common type of accident was frontal collision. Another approximately 100 people have been injured in road traffic accidents with motorhomes since 2014.”

The Swedish authority tested two types of motorhomes: fully integrated (meaning the body was entirely built as one unit by the manufacturer) and semi-integrated, where the front cab part of the vehicle is from the donor van, and the rear living-section part of the body is built separately.

Worst performing in the tests were the fully integrated motorhomes, with significant intrusion into the vehicle. The semi-integrated motorhomes performed better, which is good news as most Australian motorhomes are built like this.

These sorts of motorhomes largely retain the original commercial van or truck cab-chassis platform, which have in-built design features to enable them to pass European crash tests including crumple zones, airbag protection and electronic driver aids such as stability control.

The other safety issue highlighted by the crash tests is the increased potential of furniture, appliances and other objects in a motorhome turning into dangerous projectiles during a crash.

You can watch a video of the crash test here.