Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:00:26 -0700
Reply-To: Steve Schwenk <SXS@CONCENTRIC.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Steve Schwenk <SXS@CONCENTRIC.NET>
Subject: One More on Rollover Fatalities...
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Here's some more good info from Thus. NYT on
rollovers. I won't post anymore. And please do not
e-mail me telling me vanagons are not at risk. Look at
the height of a vanagon, and the width, and compare it
to an explorer. You've got to be kidding if you think
the vanagon is more stable.
________________________________________________________
The annual number of deaths involving rollovers has
been inching up since 1993 as sport utility vehicles
have become more popular, according to an analysis by
The New York Times of a federal database that includes
all fatal crashes across the country. Rollovers were a
factor in 10,657 of the
35,806 deaths that occurred in vehicles of all types
last year, the analysis found.
"Unless sport utility vehicles are redesigned and go
through some
comprehensive engineering changes, we're going to see
more rollovers in
the future," said Sally Greenberg, the senior product
safety counsel at
Consumers Union.
Automakers say that they are addressing the rollover
problem, by
lowering the center of gravity of some sport utilities,
installing electronic stability systems in some luxury
models and even putting in air bags that deploy from
the ceiling, to reduce the risk that passengers will
smash through the side windows during rollovers.
An auto industry computer simulation, demonstrated for
auto engineers at
a closed-door meeting in late 1997, shows that when a
sport utility vehicle rolls over, an unbelted rider
tends to be thrown through a side
window in the direction of the roll, and is then
crushed by the vehicle.
The public image of rollovers, shaped by television
footage of vehicles
weaving at high speed through slalom courses of safety
cones, is that
vehicles tip over when drivers swerve too sharply
trying to avoid road
hazards. But federal regulators say, and auto industry
engineers tend to
agree, that fewer than 10 percent of all rollovers
happen purely because
of sharp maneuvers on a paved road.
Federal studies have found that as many as 92 percent
of rollovers occur
when a vehicle is "tripped." This can happen either
because the vehicle
strikes a car, curb, guard rail or other low object, or
because one side of the vehicle starts traveling over a
surface that slows it down, like a muddy shoulder of
the road.
The Times's analysis found that a vehicle rollover was
the first thing that went wrong in 4,125 of the 10,657
rollover deaths last year. Sport
utilities accounted for a quarter of all crashes that
started with rollovers, even though sport utilities
still make up only one-twelfth of all vehicles in use.
One of the best answers would be to persuade more
people to wear seat
belts. A data review by regulators in 1998 found that
only 327 of the
1,482 people who died in sport utility vehicle
rollovers in 1997 were
wearing their seat belts.
