Roof Crush In Rollover SUV Accidents Is Entirely Preventable

January 3, 2008

By John Bisnar

Rollover accidents are not just a statistic in our country. They constitute a serious problem that is now claiming 10,000 lives a year. That number is higher than the number of people we have lost in a war zone in Iraq. It should be unacceptable to government regulators and others who monitor the auto manufacturing industry. But surprisingly, auto makers, for decades, have gotten away with doing nothing to improve the safety of the people who put their faith in these automobiles.

The problem of rollovers and resultant roof crush is much more common in SUVs and pickups than cars. According to the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, in 2005, 60 percent of SUV occupants killed in crashes were in vehicles that rolled over. In comparison, only 24 percent of deaths in car accidents were a result of rollovers. This may be attributed to the fact that SUVs are more prone to rollover because of their higher center of gravity.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal body that regulates the auto industry, has been terribly slow in toughening safety standards especially when it comes to the issue of roof strength in SUVs. For example, in late 2007, new federal regulations regarding rollovers and roof crush resistance were delayed yet again because NHTSA was retooling the proposed standards, an article in the Sept. 24 issue of the Automotive Body Repair News reported.

The problem of roof crush goes hand in hand with rollovers. When large vehicles such as sport utility vehicles roll over, those vehicles with flimsy roofs cave in crushing the vehicle’s occupants leaving them with serious brain and spinal injuries if they are not a fatality. The pressure on the spine during a roof crush is so great that very often it snaps rendering the occupant quadriplegic or paraplegic – in other words, paralyzed or injured for life.

Numerous safety advocates around the nation have said time and again that that NHTSA’s standards are simply not good enough. The magazine article cited above, quotes Stephen Forrest, a former General Motors engineer, now a principal with Safety Analysis and Forensics Engineering (SAFE) in Goleta, Calif. Forrest says that the proposed standards represent only very small changes in roof design.

“After 10 years of study they say we’re going to go from 1.5 to 2.5 and save 44 lives,” he told the publication. The numbers, which reflect the strength-to-weight ratio should range between 3 and 5 to have a real impact on vehicle safety, Forrest said.

The safety standard referred to here is officially known as the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 216-Roof Crush Resistance. The standard now requires that vehicles weighing below 6,000 pounds be able to withstand a crush level of 1.5.The revised proposed standards would call for a 2.5 crush level applied to vehicle weighing up to 10,000 pounds. NHTSA has pushed back the publication date to January and blames the postponement of wanting to “get it right.” Get it right for who?

But safety advocates such as Joan Claybrook of the Public Citizen watchdog group, are not happy that the agency is taking so long to approve a fundamentally “weak” standard that would make little progress. Paula Lawlor, founder of People Safe in Rollovers, that recently launched a billboard campaign to rally public support for legislative reform in this area, says the roofs of many vehicles are simply not strong enough.

“NHTSA has not addressed the roof crush issue, which is easy and inexpensive to fix,” she says.

Lawlor says that Vehicle Safety Standard No. 216 is insignificant, that the NHTSA proposed changes would cost an auto manufacturer only $10 per vehicle to comply with and that the cost would go up only to $30 per vehicle to reach a 4 or 5-level strength-to-weight ratio. So in other words, it would cost an auto maker about $30 per vehicle to make their roofs a lot safer. The strength of a roof also has to do with design. For example, the roof of a Volvo XC-90 – seen as the gold standard for roof excellence -- has high-strength steel throughout.

Volvo performed tests on that vehicle companies such as Ford and General Motors have fought for decades to circumvent. They did an “inverted drop,” a procedure that involves dropping a car upside down from a set height. They also did a “dolly rollover,” which is basically taking the car and flinging it down the road. These tests, experts say are more realistic crash tests than what is done right now.

The NHTSA still relies on what is known as a “crusher” test. It looks nothing like a rollover that happens in the real world, experts say. The big difference is that the crusher test is static while the dolly test is dynamic and in the real world, accidents happen when vehicles are in motion, not when they are parked some place.

Lawlor said the auto industry giants lobbied in favor of the crusher test and strongly opposed the more dynamic tests because they knew that their SUVs wouldn’t pass those tests. The same static test has remained for the last 35 years.

Furthermore, lawsuits brought against companies such as Ford, have shown through the company’s own internal memos that Ford officials knew that they were putting a defective product in the market. According to a CBS News article, a Florida attorney representing a client who suffered head and neck injuries as a result of a roof crush in a Ford Aerostar van, produced a Ford internal memo during the trial.

It was a memo from July 8, 1968 when a safety engineer told his company officials that people could be buckled up in one of those vans and still suffer catastrophic injuries or death as a result of a rollover. That same memo 40 years ago also recommended that Ford make changes in roofing design.

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