SUV Rollovers - National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

SUVs have a possibility of being significantly dangerous to its occupants in the vehicle if involved in collisions with them. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that since 1995, the people who lost their lives in SUV vs. passenger car crashes, nearly 98% were occupants of the passenger vehicles.

Since 1992, collisions connected with SUVs and cars have more fatalities as an outcome than the car-to-car crashes. This is because the SUV’s high weight, added height, and the preference of the tall, big SUVs to ride over the safety “crumple regions” of most cars and go through the passenger section. Therefore, SUV-to-car collisions are six times more liable to kill the passengers of the smaller vehicle, judged against to deaths in car-to-car collisions.

NHTSA has verified that more than 90% of rollovers occur only after the driver has gone off-off, according to the study of the ‘real world sing vehicle crashed or accidents.’ This does not mean that the SUV owners trying to negotiate hard to drive away from the public roads. It refers to SUVs rolling over off of the roadway after the driver has lost control of the vehicle. Once the SUV slips off of the roadway, a ditch, soft soil, curb or other tripping mechanism generally initiates the rollover.

According to NHTSA, SUVs rolled over in 37% of deadly crashes, evaluated to a 15% rollover rate for passenger cars. Rollover crashes reports 53% of all SUV occupant killed in single vehicle crashes. Rollover crashes resulted in only 19% occupant wounded in passenger cars.

The word of warning given with SUV is necessary by the U. S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: “This automobile will handle and maneuver in a different way from a regular passenger car in driving circumstances which may occur on streets and highways and off road. As with other mediums of this type, if you make quick turns or sudden maneuvers, the vehicle may roll over or may go out of control and crash. You must read the on-pavement and an off-road driving guideline in the owner’s manual and wear your seat-belts at all times.”

“Rollover” also inspects why the SUV rollover difficulty and increasing death toll weren’t looked into more compellingly by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the national agency charged with overseeing auto security standards. The program interviews a number of former NHTSA engineers, executives and observers, who state that the agency’s public security authorization was compromised by the Reagan and first Bush administrations’ commitment to deregulation and their wants to enhance the American auto industry.

ROLLOVER SAFETY STANDARD AND CRASH PROTECTION FACTS