SUV Rollover Safety - Are SUVs Safe?

Over the past decade, the overall safety of America's highways has improved. However, the popularity of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) threatens to reverse this trend. Increasing evidence supports that SUVs pose a significant threat to the safety of drivers and occupants of other cars on the road. Furthermore, recent studies indicate that safety concerns also pose risks of serious injuries and possible death for the drivers and passengers of the SUVs themselves.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the government agency in charge of studying the safety of vehicles on America's roads, describe two characteristics shared by SUVs and light trucks that have the potential for increasing fatalities: rollover propensity and crash compatibility.

Rollover Propensity

Most SUVs ride higher off the ground than most passenger cars. This characteristic is important because it directly affects the propensity of a vehicle to rollover when loss of control occurs. This is a particularly serious concern in SUVs as their high center of gravity makes them three times more likely to rollover in an accident than passenger cars. This higher rollover propensity ultimately results in the increased potential for fatalities.

According to NHTSA research:

• SUVs rollover in 37 percent of fatal crashes, compared to a 15 percent rollover rate for passenger cars.
• Rollover crashes accounted for 53 percent of all SUV occupant deaths in single vehicle crashes in 1996.
• Only 19 percent of occupant fatalities in passenger cars occurred in similar crashes.
• Smaller SUVs - with a wheelbase of less than 100 inches - had a disproportionately high incidence of fatal rollover crashes. Small SUVs were involved in rollover crashes more than four times as often as the average passenger car.

Crash Compatibility

On average, light trucks and SUVs are designed to ride eight inches higher than a car. This combined with increased weight and their more ridged frames greatly increase the damage caused in crashes with other passenger vehicles. In March 1999 NHTSA examined the design of many popular SUVs and found that the height and frames of SUVs make them extra lethal to people riding in smaller vehicles.

SUVs and light trucks drivers and passengers are also at greater risk. These design characteristics also provide a greater probability for causing vehicle rollover from passenger vehicles sliding under the SUV or light truck resulting in the increased potential of rollover.

NHTSA conducted tests showing what happens when an SUV crashes into a Honda Accord. Several SUVs were crashed into the front driver's-side corner of the Accord. A Ford Explorer caused the most damage to the Accord. While the results might indicate that the Explorer is the safer vehicle, video of the crash test shows that the Explorer nearly rolled over after hitting the Accord, and teetered on two wheels for several moments.