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Cars that Pass National Rollover Standard May Still be Deadly

Manufacturers designing vehicles to pass tests rather than save lives

By Joseph S. Enoch
ConsumerAffairs.com

September 10, 2008

The report comes before the government is expected to propose new roof crush standards to Congress Oct. 1.

The Center for Injury Research at George Washington University tested six vehicles sold in the U.S. on the Jordan Rollover System (JRS), a dynamic test that subjects vehicles to repeatable real-world conditions. Currently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) 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.

"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 currently on the road, yet all six failed a simulated double roll at 15 miles per hour. While the Volkswagen Jetta and Toyota Corolla suffered 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 projected at the press conference revealed the devastating results of a rollover in those four vehicles that performed the worst. Cameras from inside the vehicles showed dummies' heads being crushed, necks bent 90 degrees and skulls scraping along the would be pavement outside the broken window.

View footage of the Chrysler 300 rollover test:

Some of the vehicles tested had the same static test results, but grossly different real life results, 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 the U.S. auto manufacturers in 1971 and Congress asked the agency to provide a better standard since rollovers account for four percent of all accidents but one third of accident fatalities. NHTSA responded earlier this summer by providing a standard that would have increased the strength to weight ratio from 1.5 to 2.5 and would have made 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 consumers 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 expensive foreign manufacturers such as 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. That became apparent in their tests, which 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 easier 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 Dr. Carl Nash, adjunct professor of engineering at George Washington University.

While a dynamic test costs a few more thousand dollars 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 a dynamic test.

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