Cars that pass national rollover standard may still be deadly
Posted
Sep 11 2008, 01:33 PM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Joseph S. Enoch at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com.
A report released today by consumer advocates says vehicles that passed the national roof- crush standard generally performed poorly in real-life rollover tests and that in many cases any passengers would likely have been killed or paralyzed in those tests.
The Center for Injury Research at George Washington University tested six vehicles sold in the U.S. on the Jordan Rollover System, a dynamic test that subjects vehicles to repeatable real-world conditions.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration relies on a static test in which a crusher slowly applies a metal plate to a corner of the roof. A vehicle must withstand 1.5 times its own weight, applied by the static crusher, without caving in five or more inches.
The government is expected to propose new roof-crush standards to Congress on Oct. 1.
"NHTSA -- complicit with Detroit auto companies -- has wasted years considering a static standard it estimates will save only 13 to 44 lives out of 10,800 rollover deaths annually," Joan Claybrook, president of Ralph Nader's consumer advocacy group, Public Citizen, said at a press conference today in Washington, D.C. "It has refused to use dynamic testing for a comprehensive standard to save thousands of lives and reduce head injury and ejection."
All six vehicles tested passed NHTSA's standard and are on the road, yet all six failed a simulated double roll at 15 miles per hour. While the Volkswagen Jetta and Toyota Corolla sustained major structural damage in the tests, they performed far better than the Pontiac G6, Chrysler 300, Hyundai Sonata and Honda Ridgeline, test results show.
Video footage shown at the press conference revealed the devastating results of a rollover in those four vehicles that performed the worst. Cameras inside the vehicles showed dummies' heads being crushed, necks bent 90 degrees and skulls scraping along the would-be pavement outside the broken window.
Some vehicles that produced like results in the static test had grossly different results in the real-life test, said Clarence Ditlow, director of the not-for-profit Center for Auto Safety.
NHTSA has made only minor adjustments to the roof crush standard it created in conjunction with U.S. auto manufacturers in 1971. Congress asked the agency to provide a better standard because rollovers account for 4% of all accidents but a third of accident fatalities. NHTSA responded earlier this summer by providing a standard that would increase the strength-to-weight ratio from 1.5 to 2.5 and would make it nearly impossible for victims and their families to sue the auto industry.
The proposal, which included no dynamic-testing requirement similar to the JRS, angered consumer advocates and both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and prompted NHTSA to request that its deadline be pushed back to Oct. 1.
NHTSA spokespeople and industry representatives have maintained in past interviews with ConsumerAffairs.com that dynamic tests are not repeatable because the results are unreliable. The JRS test has shown to be nearly as repeatable as the static test, consumer advocates say. Many foreign manufacturers of expensive vehicles like BMW and Volvo rely on voluntary dynamic tests.
A panel of consumer advocates and engineers at the press conference today said that many vehicles are designed to pass the tests rather than protect passengers. Their tests revealed that the B-pillar, which runs vertically between the front and rear doors, was very strong, so that the vehicles could perform well in the highly publicized side-crash tests. The A-pillar, which runs vertically along each side of the windshield, was much less durable and collapsed more easily than the B-pillar in rollovers.
"What you don't know may kill you," Ditlow said. "Manufacturers are not stressing roof crush."
It would cost less than $100 to make most vehicles safe in a rollover, said Carl Nash, adjunct professor of engineering at George Washington University.
While a dynamic test costs a few thousand dollars more to perform than a static test, manufacturers could actually save money because it would essentially make the ejection standard obsolete, Claybrook said. The test for the ejection standard costs more than double the cost of a dynamic test.
