There isn’t a single automobile roof, foreign or domestic, that cannot be crushed. Witness those hydraulic machines on television showing clunkers being compressed to less than 10 inches for scrap. It’s simply a matter of force, but the sad fact is similar catastrophic forces can also be attained in an automobile collision, especially a rollover.
The greatest weakness of a vehicle, beside the side-view mirror, is often the roof. That automatically makes crashworthiness one of the liability risks all automakers have to live with, and ranks them very high with insurance companies and attorneys in rollover cases.
Crashworthiness, the ability of a vehicle to prevent injuries to the occupants in the event of a collision, is the term used in the auto industry and by the government to define minimal human safety. It deals primarily with the results from forces of so-called 'second collisions' inside the auto-body structure, in which the driver and passengers collide against the interior of the vehicle.
Nonetheless, no two crashes or positions inside a vehicle are alike. A crushed roof can kill or injure one person down to the level of a quadriplegic, while another walks away from the same crash.
Weight Always Matters
Aside from speed, vehicle weight is a major factor in crash forces. That’s why the roof-crush standard originally adopted by NHTSA in 1971 was long criticized as too weak, because it only required roofs to withstand a force equal to 1.5 times the vehicle weight. And the roof was allowed to intrude up to five inches into the passenger compartment. If it intruded beyond that, the vehicle was not considered crashworthy. Unfortunately, that rule also exempted vehicles weighing more than 6,000 pounds.
Under a later proposal, the force was raised to 2.5 times the vehicle weight; and, tests by manufacturers had to prove that the roof would not contact the head of a test dummy the size of an average adult. In essence, the structure had to act as a true safety cage, and the greater the distance between the head and the roof after a crash, the safer the vehicle; just like crumple zones for front and rear collisions. Furthermore, the new rule extended coverage to large trucks and SUVs weighing up to 10,000 pounds.
Legal concerns
It is not surprising that a phase-one tactic of plaintiffs in a crash is to attempt to prove that a vehicle had a defect in its design, in its manufacturing, or with one of its systems as a cause of the accident in the first place. It doesn’t end there, though.
Even if there is no defect per se causing the crash, any injury resulting after the initial cause of the crash can be blamed on the lack of any structural integrity. The claim is then to prove a lack of human protection by design; and that’s not too hard, especially if the structure invades passenger space.
Recall the many Ford rollover cases where tires were initially blamed. According to attorney websites, a tire failure should not cause a rollover, and if there was a rollover, structural integrity should still have protected the occupants. In their minds, only a poorly designed suspension could be the initiating culprit, and a weak roof would crush.
Therefore, the root cause of any rollover accident does not negate the need for the roof to remain intact. Any roof that intrudes into the interior and contacts a driver or passenger after a rollover is considered unsafe by design; no matter how difficult it may be proving whether the forces in the rollover were beyond normal expectations. Fact is any roof structure that fails to absorb rollover forces is weak, because those are designed to match vehicle weight as a major contributor to the forces; and that is a known factor.
For the record, all auto companies have been challenged in court. Even Toyota has had its share of rollover cases with some of its trucks and SUVs. Witness the lawsuit by a former attorney for the company who disclosed over 300 rollover cases. That was not readily made known to the public by the media; and makes one wonder if Toyota got a free pass in the press.
While pickups and SUVs of all makes are touted as rugged due to their truck-frame construction, the upper bodies are the same monocoque (single shell or unibody) construction as modern crossovers and cars.It makes one wonder who so many truck roofs have indeed been crushed after a rollover crash. In many attorneys’ eyes, the causes of rollovers are irrelevant; the net effect is. The crush of the roofs are the real issue and the real reason for human injuries. And that tends to make the lawsuits touted as unjustifiable by carmakers quite justifiable and most often upheld. Witness how many are resolved out of court to hide the financial awards.
Preventing Rollovers by Design
Preventing a rollover is rightfully the first order of business for automakers and consumers. Physics prove that a wide stance, where the wheels are farther apart (think Wide-Track Pontiac) provides greater lateral (side to side) stability. So does a tuned suspension to the weight and center-of-gravity of the vehicle. Nonetheless, let any vehicle get into a side-ways slide where the tires may grab or a curb may act as a fulcrum, then any car or truck can flip over; some many times.
That's why the next order of business for automakers is maintaining structural integrity in a rolloer crash. One of the fears by engineers at the time of those law changes that increased requirements was that any added weight from more structure at the pillars and rails would raise the center of gravity. The higher that point from the ground, the greater the probability of a vehicle rolling over.
The key to success was, therefore, to balance strength with weight by using high-strength alloy steel for the pillars, headers and side rails, as opposed to just thickening the main metal or adding additional parts as gussets, which would increase mass and raise the center of gravity. Point: Preventing the structure from entering passenger space saves lives and costs less in the long run.
Examiner Final Comments
Auto crashes are a fact of modern life. Car-to-car crashes are especially affected by weight and size differentials between vehicles, and produce a complex set of interactive factors. In the case of a rollover, the situation is different; it’s simply a matter of the rolling vehicle and the ground; meaning the weight of the rolling vehicle and its structural integrity are involved. That’s why, in my opinion, it’s easier to prove roof defects by design and testing; that’s if the test results are ever made public.
With that in mind, it’s crucial for all auto manufacturers to provide test results whenever ordered by a court of law. Any attempt to withhold, destroy or modify test documents is illegal and immoral. The temptation to cover up a flawed roof design may play well as a legal tactic to protect corporate assets, but never justifiable. A company’s reputation and integrity are equally valuable.
Consumers have a personal responsibility, too, like wearing seat belts to hold their body in a protective position. They must also be responsible to research each vehicle they intend to own for its safety rating. Relying on a manufacturer’s past performance may provide some level of comfort and trust, but each vehicle has to stand on its own design and test merits. Again, the trust-but-verify mantra applies.
Finally, every consumer has to separate the term quality from crashworthy, in my opinion. They are not the same thing; and after a crash, it is too late to debate the difference.
Photo Source: AP
Comments