Rollover Warning Sounded on 15-Passenger Vans
In an unusual warning to consumers, the government reported Monday that 15-passenger vans--such as those used to transport college teams and church groups-- have a dramatically higher risk of rolling over when fully loaded.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said the vans, often driven by students or volunteers, should be operated only by experienced drivers who are aware of their propensity to flip over in abrupt steering maneuvers.
NHTSA issued the warning after finding in a study that the vans are three times more likely to roll over when carrying 10 or more passengers than with lighter loads. The study was prompted by a series of rollovers involving college sports teams.
Four members of the Prairie View A&M; University track team in Texas were killed and seven others were seriously injured when their van rolled over on the way to a meet last year. Other serious rollover accidents last year involved the Wisconsin-Oshkosh swim team, the DePaul women’s track team in Chicago and the Kenyon College swim team in Ohio.
NHTSA found that when a large van is fully loaded, its center of gravity shifts up and to the back, increasing the risk of rollovers, especially in panic maneuvers by drivers.
“You have a vehicle that behaves entirely differently than when they are lightly loaded,” NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson said.
The study highlighted a basic paradox of large passenger vans and sport-utilities, which are marketed as spacious carriers of people and cargo, yet become less stable with additional weight--a fact little known to consumers. The reason: The vehicles ride high off the road, so that the center of gravity rises with additional passengers and gear.
According to the NHTSA study, when seven-passenger vehicles, such as minivans, are loaded to capacity, the center of gravity rises moderately. But when 15-passenger vans go from light to maximum loads, the destabilizing effect is more profound, with the center of gravity rising 4 inches, the study said.
Based on crash data from seven states from 1994-97, the study found that 15-passenger vans with 10 or more occupants had about three times the risk of flipping over in a single-vehicle crash as vans carrying fewer than 10 people. Vans with more than 15 occupants had nearly six times the rollover risk of vans with five occupants or fewer, the study showed.
NHTSA said that under all loading conditions, the large passenger vans have about the same rollover risk as sport-utilities and pickups. But that risk already is two to three times higher than for the typical passenger car.
Officials from General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler agreed that van drivers need to be especially cautious. Ford, which makes the top-selling Econoline, warns drivers in its owner’s manual to avoid sharp turns, excessive speed and abrupt maneuvers, but the other two manufacturers do not.
NHTSA officials said there are about 1.4 million 15-passenger vans registered in the United States. The agency identified a number of 15-passenger models, although its list may not include all models: the Ford Econoline E350, Ford Club Wagon E350, Chevrolet Express 3500, GMC Savana G3500, GMC Rally/Vandura G3500, Dodge Ram Van/Wagon B3500 and GMC Savana G3500.
Milton Chace, an Ann Arbor, Mich., engineer who has researched the rollover risk for plaintiffs’ attorneys in several lawsuits, said at least half the lawsuits involve rented vans.
“You have a bad combination of an inexperienced driver who is going to fill it with close to 15 people and luggage,” Chace said.
According to NHTSA, anyone carrying 16 or more people for commercial purposes is required to have a commercial driver’s license, but no special license or experience is required for the 15-passenger vans. Federal law bans the sale of 15-passenger vans to transport elementary and high school students, yet no such prohibition exists for vehicles to transport college students or other passengers.
Larry Raab, vice president for university operations at Prairie View, said the school still uses the vans but now requires all drivers to take training classes.
“We have 17 sports teams, and many of them are small,” he said. “It would not be economically feasible to lease a bus for five or six students.”
Chace said rollover risk can be reduced if owners buy high-quality rear tires, keep the gas tank as full as possible (which lowers the center of gravity) and drive conservatively. He said passengers should fill front seats first and nothing should ever be loaded on the roof.
A few times in the past, experts have sought to alert consumers that adding weight to vehicles that are marginally stable only increases their risk of rolling over.
In September 1995, the American Journal of Public Health warned that “certain sports utility vehicles and small pickup trucks have designs that are so unstable that the weight of the passengers in the vehicle affects its propensity to roll over.” But the NHTSA alert appears to be the first to focus on the large passenger vans.
