NHTSA Must Revise Roof Crush Rule to Enhance Auto Safety
We have always maintained that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) proposed performance standard for vehicle roofs is extremely inadequate when it comes to keeping people safe in roof crush rollover accidents. This article in the consumer watchdog Web site, Consumeraffairs.com, quotes safety advocates from Public Citizen, who agree with us 100 percent.
The main problem with NHTSA’s proposed roof crush rule is that it does not require a dynamic test that mimics an actual rollover accident. On the other hand, the requirement is only for a static test where the vehicle is dropped on its roof when its immobile. We all know that auto accidents and rollovers in the real world happen when vehicles are in motion, not when they are static.
The other problem with this roof crush rule is that it fails to require manufacturers to test both the driver and passenger sides of vehicles. The NHTSA’s rule relies on measuring the ability of the driver’s side roof to resist 2.5 times the vehicle’s weight. This is an improvement on the current standard, but still is way behind and does little to improve safety.
I’ve seen Chevy Blazers and Ford sport utility vehicles such as the Explorer and Expedition perform all too poorly in crash tests especially when it comes to roof crush. These are SUVs marketed as “vehicles for the family” and “the safest.” What’s more, many of these vehicles with really weak roofs receive NHTSA’s five-star or four-star rating coaxing the consumer into believing that they are safe. But in reality, in SUV roll over accidents, the impact causes catastrophic injuries to its occupants. The flimsy roofs cave inward in a rollover crushing the occupants, causing traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries.
There are about 40,000 auto accident fatalities in the United States. More than 25 percent of these involve rollovers and a majority of those involve sport utility vehicles, which have risen in popularity over the last decade. Joan Claybrook, president of the Public Citizen estimates that the NHTSA’s proposal may save at most 44 lives a year. She says, and we agree, that a comprehensive, dynamic testing standard is absolutely necessary – a standard that looks not only at roof strength, but also at what happens to passengers during a rollover accident.
In 2005, Congress instructed NHTSA to reduce rollover deaths by writing new performance standards that would improve vehicle stability, roof strength and reduce the number of vehicle occupants being ejected due to this auto design defect. There are many credible studies that show that the initial impact of a rollover can considerably weaken the other side of the roof, which greatly increases the risk of the roof caving in, crumpling and injuring the vehicle’s occupant.
We agree with the Public Citizen that NHTSA officials need to do their homework. They need to spend more time, if necessary, to develop a test whose aim should be to protect occupants of vehicles during rollover crashes. If NHTSA needs to do away with its current proposal and come back with a completely new roof crush rule, so be it.
