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Don Friedman - Co-Founder of Center for Injury Research

August 23,2007

By John Bisnar

Don Friedman is a researcher at heart. He's developed guidance systems for the sidewinder missile, periscope control systems for submarines and even had a hand in the Apollo lunar rover that went to the moon.

Today, at age 80, Friedman is still a scientist and an engineer at heart. Only now, he examines the mechanics of automobile accidents and testifies as an expert witness to his findings. Friedman is Co-Founder of Center for Injury Research, a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit, which raises money for vehicle rollover experimentation.

Research shows that rollovers cause 9,000 motor vehicle fatalities annually and twice as many catastrophic injuries. Friedman's research substantiates the fact that rollover casualties have increased with greater and widespread use of light trucks, such as sport utility vehicles, as passenger vehicles.

Interestingly enough, Friedman, who at 33 years of age, was the youngest executive at General Motors, has over the last 20 years been the star expert witness in cases against giant auto makers such as GM and Ford. He has been testifying in favor of plaintiffs who allege that faulty and defective design of sport utility vehicles cause accidents and increases their severity.

Friedman is a strong believer that auto defect litigation is a faster and more effective way to prompt auto makers to fix problems with their vehicles than legislation, which can come at a painfully and frustratingly slow speed. When auto defects litigation costs auto makers more money than building safer vehicles, they will build safer vehicles.

SUV rollovers have been growing at an alarming rate and there has been very little done in terms of solving the problem, Friedman says.

"In 1980 about 5,000 deaths were attributed to vehicle rollovers," he says. "In 2003, more than 10,000 people were killed in rollover crashes, a majority of those in SUVs."

SUVs now constitute one-third of the total vehicle fleet in the United States, Friedman says. The large size of an SUV can be an advantage when it comes to frontal or side-impact collisions, but when it comes to rollovers, SUVs are extremely dangerous for occupants, he says. SUVs have the propensity to tip over because of their high center of gravity, Friedman says.

"The first thing auto makers need to do is widen what is known as the track width - or the distance between the two front wheels," he says. "Secondly, they need to have electronic stability control, which American vehicles are yet to fully incorporate. Mercedes Benz has had the technology in their vehicles since 1995."

Friedman says the worst culprits in fatal rollover accidents are two American made SUV brands: "Ford Explorer and Chevy Blazer."

The problem with both these vehicles, Friedman explains, is that the roof is very weak.

"Once the vehicle rolls over, it collapses on the head of the person inside," he says. "This causes severe or fatal injuries - mostly spinal cord and head injuries."

In the case of these vehicles, the roofs' strength is only one and a half times more than the weight of the vehicle. "This is totally inadequate," Friedman points out.

Friedman knows all too well why companies don't fix these problems, even though there are lives at stake, and the reason is money.

"Some auto makers do not want to make the vehicles any safer than the government requires them to," he says. "To do more, would cost more and they do not want that. It would cost them a couple hundred dollars a vehicle to strengthen the roofs and save thousands of lives annually."

Friedman is sought out by plaintiffs' attorneys at $600 an hour for a good reason. His approach to proving his opinions is compelling and devastating to the automakers. He uses the automakers' own data and records to prove his points. Friedman's institute has also developed visual technology to show juries what happens in an accident while he explains it. Friedman's technicians and technology are able to simulate rollover accidents exactly how they happened in order to explain it to jurors.

"The technology really helps in trials," he says. "A jury is made up of lay people, not experts. So when they are able to see how and why a crash occurred, when they watch a video of a roof caving in, it really helps them understand."

GM officials have called Friedman's technology "junk science." But he doesn't care. In order to agree with him they would have to change their production priorities.

"Calling names doesn't help anyone and it certainly doesn't bother me," he says. "My problem with these auto makers is that the way they build some of their vehicles is criminally negligent when you consider the evidence and the technology available to them."

Friedman says the hope that he can help people reconstruct their lives after a catastrophic accident and the hope that he can motivate auto makers to make safer cars, keeps him motivated to continue his work at the Center at a stage in his life where he could easily retire. He has helped numerous plaintiffs develop and present their cases against auto makers.

In 2006, the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed an $18.6 million verdict for plaintiff Penny Shipler against GM in a roof-crush case involving a 1996 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer. In that case, Friedman testified as the expert, explaining to the jury the hows and whys of the Blazer's roof being defective and how it crushed inward causing Shipler's injuries, rendering her quadriplegic.

Friedman was the key expert witness in another trial in 2002 when a Duval County Texas jury found that a crushed roof caused the side doors of a 2000-model Ford SuperCab to burst open, ejecting Paul Alaniz and Laura Benavides to their deaths from the rolling pickup.

"Look at it this way," Friedman says, his voice amplified by emotion. "The number of people we lose in SUV rollover crashes each year is 40 times more than the people we're losing in Iraq. And that's just unacceptable."

The government is equally to blame, he says. Since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) asked the public for comments on roof strength in November 2001, Friedman has filed 12 separate submissions. Only recently did the agency mandate electronic stability control.

"So you see, things happen very, very slowly with government legislation," he says.

Government agencies knew about these problems two decades ago and did nothing about it, Friedman says.

"Very often I feel that convincing juries is easier than banging my head against the wall with the government," he says. "The government hands out five-star ratings to these vehicles and thousands of people in those vehicles are still dying."

He is currently researching German vehicles for safety and stability. The numbers are already amazing, he says. With the Chevy Blazer, 260 people are killed for every 100 million miles. For the Mercedes SUV, the number of fatalities is 11. For the Subaru Forrester, which modified its roof design and made it much heavier and stronger, the number of deaths is six. For the Volvo XC 90, which Volvo designed for rollover safety, there have been no fatalities yet.

"There's a reason why the numbers are the way they are," Friedman says. "And Ford and GM officials know very well what those reasons are."

HOLDING WRONGDOERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE DAMAGES THEY CAUSE SINCE 1978

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Bisnar | Chase 2006-2008 - Super Lawyers is a listing of outstanding lawyers from more than 60 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Bisnar | Chase has received this award for three consecutive years.

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