Rollovers
One-third of all motor vehicle deaths are attributed to rollovers; an estimated 10,000 annually. Another 16,000 are injured in rollover accidents each year.
Yet, rollovers represent only 4% of all crashes.
In a June 2003 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency (NHTSA) titled, Initiatives to Address the Mitigation of Vehicle Rollover, the agency describes its mission as follows:
…to save lives, prevent injuries and reduce traffic-related health care and other economic costs. The department develops, promotes, and implements effective educational, engineering and enforcement programs aimed at ending preventable tragedies and reducing the economic costs associated with motor vehicle use and highway travel.
Yet, the NHTSA has failed to enact heightened mandatory standards for rollover protection and crashworthiness; recommendations that consumer safety organizations and members of Congress have argued would save lives. According to Public Citizen, a national non-profit, public interest organization, rollovers are among the most survivable of all crash types when aggressive, yet inexpensive standards are applied.
Public Citizen has estimated the costs to improve roof crush resistance and make the vehicle safer to be approximately $100 per vehicle.
While NHTSA has made changes to roof-crush prevention standards, critics agree that the new laws offer minimal advances, if any, in the name of public safety and further shield auto manufacturers from requirements that would profoundly reduce death and injury rates.
What we know about the risk: The Jordan Rollover System is a repeatable, dynamic rollover crashworthiness test that quantifies the strength of the roof. It can accurately determine a roof's resistance to crush.
The basis of every lawsuit against auto manufacturers in rollover cases continues to be what the manufacturers knew (and still know) about the risk of rollover, and the safety precautions necessary to prevent them. Furthermore, what known standards should be applied to roof strength and side protection to decrease the number of serious injuries and fatalities during a rollover.
Most rollover injuries and deaths are caused by roof crush (roof intrusion into the occupant protection space) and from passenger ejection. Even belted passengers can be ejected. Source: Don Friedman remarks 05/11/2005.
Learn More
If you or a loved one have been seriously injured due to a rollover accident, please contact our office for a free consultation.
General Motors' Deadly Cutbacks (GoLeft Tv)
Michael Carter talks with Mike Papantonio of Air America's Ring of Fire about the deadly decisions that have been made by General Motors regarding your safety. Apparently to GM, your life isn't worth an extra $9 a car.
Michael is representing victims who have been injured or killed by "roof crush" in rollover accidents.