NHTSA Inaction on Rollover Issue Seen as Typical
Nearly 30 years ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration put the brakes on an Army plan to sell off thousands of surplus jeeps.
The M151 jeeps, which had been involved in scores of fatal accidents, were so prone to flipping over that Army drivers were given special cautionary training. The Army planned to give civilian buyers this protection: A decal on each jeep to warn of the rollover risk.
Nothing doing, NHTSA said. “We do not believe that the handling problem, a propensity to roll over without warning to the user that rollover is imminent, can be adequately guarded against through the use of warnings,” NHTSA administrator Douglas W. Toms wrote the Army in 1971.
Yet what the agency deemed unacceptable then is reality today.
More than 10,000 Americans died last year in rollover crashes, the most in at least a decade, due at least partly to the boom in rollover-prone sport-utility vehicles and other light trucks. But from a stability standpoint, manufacturers are free to design their vehicles any way they choose, because NHTSA, despite several attempts, has been unable to set a minimum standard for rollover resistance.
NHTSA’s backup plan--publishing rollover ratings so consumers at least can comparison shop--has taken years to reach the formal proposal stage and faces opposition from the industry and some members of Congress.
The result: After nearly three decades of research and internal debate, NHTSA has achieved only the dubious remedy proposed for the Army jeeps: the warning label that appears on the visor of SUVs.
“They played around the mulberry bush on rollover and still haven’t done anything,” complained Joan Claybrook, who ran NHTSA during the Carter administration and is president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.
To critics such as Claybrook, the rollover problem is emblematic of NHTSA’s failure to protect the public by requiring safer vehicle designs. It also reflects the agency’s chronic fear of being overruled by Congress or the courts for interfering with a popular and profitable trend in the vehicle market.
NHTSA has described rollovers as “the most dangerous collision type,” because of the high risk of winding up killed or paralyzed. Although U.S. traffic deaths have reached a plateau of 41,000 to 42,000 a year, rollover fatalities have risen. A rollover fatality is one in which the vehicle flipping over is considered the major cause of death.
Any vehicle can be made to flip over, given the right combination of speed, sharp steering and road conditions. Indeed, a shrinking majority of rollover deaths still occur in cars, which greatly outnumber SUVs and other light trucks.
But the risk is much higher for light trucks, government figures show. In 1998, more than 60% of fatalities in SUVs and 40% of deaths in pickups occurred in rollover crashes, compared with 22% of the deaths in cars.
The reason is that, where stability is concerned, low and wide is better than tall and narrow. Built high off the ground and with a narrow track to dodge rocks and ruts, SUVs and other light trucks are admirably suited for the off-road use that most never get, but that defines their rugged image and popular cachet. Because of their high center of gravity, they are more unforgiving when drivers execute emergency steering maneuvers, such as veering around an obstacle on the road, or turning sharply after drifting onto the shoulder.
Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, said that when driving an SUV “if a dog runs across the road, run it over, do not swerve. . . . Your chances of rolling just go up dramatically in that emergency avoidance maneuver.”
Authorities say the scores of rollover deaths linked to the Firestone tire disaster clearly illustrate the stability problem of SUVs, which are harder to control than passenger cars when their tires fail.
Experts also say that because of the high center of gravity, loading passengers in all available seats or carrying gear on the roof of SUVs increases their instability--warnings neither NHTSA nor vehicle makers have provided to owners.
NHTSA’s work on the problem dates back to 1973, when the agency announced plans to develop a standard for rollover resistance. The agency conducted research but abandoned the effort several years later.
In 1986, Timothy E. Wirth, then a Democratic congressman from Colorado, petitioned the agency to set a rollover standard, recommending that vehicles be required to exceed a minimum stability factor--which could be calculated by dividing vehicle width by the height of its center of gravity. NHTSA denied the petition, stating, among other things, that it was uncertain the stability factor was an accurate gauge of rollover risk.
The agency spent several years investigating other possible stability measures before abandoning the quest for a standard in 1994.
Then, as it has at other times, NHTSA cited provisions in federal traffic safety laws that bar actions that might limit consumer choice or eliminate classes of vehicles from the market. Consumer groups maintain the agency has consistently exaggerated the breadth of this constraint as an excuse not to act.
In giving up on a regulatory standard in 1994, however, NHTSA announced a fallback plan. Since the specific cause of injuries and deaths in rollovers often is the vehicle roof caving in, NHTSA said it would consider upgrading the federal roof crush standard, long criticized as weak.
Six years later, NHTSA continues research on roof crush, but has yet to upgrade the rule.
NHTSA’s agenda on rollover also called for establishing a system of stability ratings of one to five stars so consumers could compare the rollover risks of all vehicles. Under the plan, the ratings would become part of NHTSA’s New Car Assessment Program, which already rates vehicle performance in front- and side-impact collisions. After years of development, the proposed rollover rating system was formally proposed in June and gave no model of SUV more than three stars.
Consumer groups have criticized rollover ratings as a weak substitute for regulation. A rating can never be a replacement “for a standard that’s going to prevent the rollover from happening in the first place,” said Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
But even the ratings are in jeopardy, due to opposition from the auto industry and some lawmakers.
The ratings would rely on the stability factor NHTSA rejected in the 1980s as the basis for a regulatory standard. In explaining its apparent flip-flop--rejecting the measure then and embracing it now--NHTSA said road tests have shown the stability factor closely correlates with real-world rollover risks.
But hard on the heels of the proposed rating system being published in the Federal Register, the Senate passed legislation by Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) to block implementation of the ratings until the National Academy of Sciences studies their validity.
A Shelby aide denied that the senator had acted for the industry, citing his concern that rollover ratings be scientifically invalid.
Auto makers contend that by failing to take account of vehicle features, such as suspensions, that may affect stability, the ratings are misleading. “We think it will generate misconceptions and some erroneous conclusions on the part of consumers,” said Bob Lange, engineering director for the General Motors Safety Center.
Consumer advocates have denounced this as a stall tactic. “Everyone knows that SUVs roll over at a worse rate,” said a NHTSA official who would not speak if identified. “When they won’t even let information out, the light should start flashing right there.”
The Shelby amendment, attached to a Senate transportation funding measure, does not appear in the House version of the bill. Should it be approved by House and Senate conferees, Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said he will recommend that President Clinton veto the legislation.
With a regulatory standard abandoned and the rating system delayed, the only completed action on rollover is a warning label first placed on SUVs in 1984.
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SAFETY ROAD BLOCKS
NHTSA’s efforts to strengthen auto safety standards in numerous areas have languished year after year. A1
