A trio of automobile safety groups says the government’s roof-strength standard ratings fall critically short of measuring the protection a vehicle offers its occupants during a rollover wreck.
In a prepared statement released jointly Sept. 10 by the Center for Auto Safety, The Center for Injury Research and Public Citizen, the groups said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s current rollover testing is grossly inadequate when compared to “real-world” tests that put vehicles and crash test dummies through actual rollovers.
The groups’ statement followed a series of tests using a “dynamic” - or real-world - testing method as opposed to the NHTSA’s existing roof testing standard.
The comparison, sponsored by the Santos Family Foundation, involved the 2007 Pontiac G6, 2006 Chrysler 300, 2007 Toyota Camry, 2007 Volkswagen Jetta, 2006 Honda Ridgeline and 2006 Hyundai Sonata, which were tested on the Jordan Rollover System (JRS), a device designed to dynamically test the rollover occupant protection performance of motor vehicles. The vehicles are the same ones that performed well in NHTSA’s “static” test.
According to the statement, the study highlights the need for the NHTSA to adopt a similar dynamic test for passenger vehicles and light trucks, rather than the method now in use.
The current NHTSA method tests the strength of an upright, stationary – or static – vehicle’s roof, but ignores what happens to a vehicle’s passengers during a rollover and a rolling vehicle’s ability to withstand such a crash.
“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,” Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook said. “It has refused to use dynamic testing for a comprehensive standard to save thousands of lives and reduce head injury and ejection. The Congress, the next administration, and/or the courts will be asked by consumers to right this wrong.”
A journalist at the related press conference asked about the cost difference between the static and dynamic tests, to which panel member Carl Nash said the static tests run about $7,500 apiece and the dynamic tests, about $1,200.
“Also remember that the cost of testing includes the cost of the car being tested,” said Nash, a faculty member of the National Crash Analysis Center at George Washington University. “So the cost of the actual test is relatively small compared to the cost of the vehicle.”
Claybrook, who was administrator of the NHTSA from 1977-1981, said the agency also is obligated to issue a second standard that addresses vehicle occupant ejection.
“The way (the NHTSA) has framed this is that they’re going to have two standards, but if they had the dynamic standard for both ejection and roof crush, which could be combined in one test,” Claybrook said, “then it would be cheaper to have one dynamic test than two static tests and that’s where they’re headed.”
In other words, Claybrook said, the NHTSA could address two standards with one $12,000 test, as opposed to two separate $7,500 tests.
But the difference in the cost of testing pales in comparison to what rollover wreck-related deaths cost the U.S. each year in terms of dollars, let alone physical and emotional pain and suffering.
The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates the cost, per death, to society is about $4 million.
“And what we’re talking about is 10,800 deaths, plus you have another 25,000 serious injuries, which cost in the hundreds of thousands, if not a million dollars per injury,” she said. “That ends up being much more expensive to society than the cost of doing the crash tests…”
Nash brought up another interesting point about the cost of rollovers, especially as it relates to sport-utility vehicles – or SUVs.
“A couple of years ago I did a study based on the NHTSA’s accident statistics and their estimates of the cost of deaths and of injuries,” he said, “and, for every vehicle sold, for passenger cars, they carry basically about $1,000 in average cost for rollover accidents. For SUVs, it’s actually over $3,000 per new vehicle sold.”
“So, in other words, every time you buy one of those vehicles, you’re essentially investing that much money in the probability that you’re going to be killed or injured in a rollover accident in that vehicle.”
To read the groups’ statement, view video footage of the actual dynamic testing and find other rollover-related information, visit Public Citizen’s Web site at www.citizen.org.