April 19, 2004
Flaws in the design and performance of safety belts leave vehicle occupants vulnerable to serious and often fatal injuries in rollover crashes, a new Public Citizen report shows.
"Safety belts are currently the most important safety feature that would keep people secure and inside the vehicle during a rollover crash," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "It is inexcusable to install belts that do not do the job. The auto industry has known for decades how to design belts to better protect occupants in rollover crashes but has failed to do so."
There is no federal safety standard for belt performance in rollover crashes, and the auto industry has done little to design belts to fully protect occupants in these crashes, the report said. Public Citizen is calling on Congress to enact vehicle safety measures in a pending Senate bill (S.1072) that would establish a comprehensive approach to making rollover crashes survivable.
As rollover-prone SUVs proliferate on U.S. roads, fatalities in rollover crashes have climbed to one-third of all vehicle occupant fatalities, or 10,600 each year. The three risks of rollover - roof crush, ejection from the vehicle and belt failure - combine to make rollover crashes unnecessarily deadly.
All three of the risks compromise or destroy occupants' survival space during a crash and are inter-related. For example, roof crush becomes more deadly as seat belt use increases.
The auto industry continues to blame drivers and passengers for failing to use safety belts, but belt use is at an historic high and rollover fatalities are not abating.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) actively promotes belt use and is requesting $150 million for this program next year. But its most recent regulatory move on safety belts came in 1999, when - under heavy pressure from automakers - it removed a portion of its 1967 standard that described a belt's required position in relation to the occupant's pelvis in a rollover crash.
Statistics show that while safety belts usually keep occupants from being completely ejected from a vehicle during a rollover, they often allow partial ejection, which is deadly. Moreover, six of 10 occupants who suffer serious or fatal injuries in rollovers inside the vehicle were wearing a safety belt, according to NHTSA.
Public Citizen's report also pointed out a troubling discrepancy between observed belt use and rollover fatalities. Average belt use by SUV occupants is slightly higher than passenger car occupants, but recorded belt use by SUV occupants killed in rollovers is much lower than passenger car occupants killed in rollovers. The discrepancy suggests that some SUV occupants may come out of belts during the crash, or the belts may otherwise fail.
The report, Rolling Over on Safety: The Hidden Failures of Belts in Rollover Crashes, on the Web, describes ways in which belt failures expose occupants to serious and deadly injury:
- Most belt systems lack rollover sensors that would engage pretensioners and fail to pull slack in quickly enough to prevent occupants from contacting hard vehicle surfaces.
- Current standard belt systems permit lateral movement of occupants' heads and bodies during rollovers, allowing impact with roof pillars or partial or full ejection of occupants through side windows or weakened doors.
- Belt straps are anchored to the door frame instead of the seat, undercutting the belts' effectiveness when the frame or door is deformed or torn off during a rollover.
- Lap belts are anchored behind occupants' hips, rather than directly below. Belts are not effective in preventing people in rollovers from coming up out of the belts and toward the roof. It would be better for belts to wrap across the hips.
- Some safety belts unlatch during rollovers, which occurs during interaction with the vehicle interior or occupants that unlock the belt buckle, leaving occupants without the belt's protection.
"Protecting consumers in rollover crashes should be at the top of NHTSA's priority list," said C. Tab Turner, a Little Rock, Ark., attorney and co-author of the report. "As today's report shows, roof crush is not the only danger in rollover accidents. Current safety belt systems are designed to provide protection in frontal crashes, but victims of rollovers are not being adequately protected and, in fact, have a false sense of security about the effectiveness of belts in rollovers. The industry is unwilling to voluntarily incorporate rollover-safety technology in a timely manner."
"Consumers are told again and again to buckle up to save lives," Claybrook said. "Manufacturers and the government should be doing everything in their power to ensure that we really can rely on belts to protect people in rollover crashes."
