Massachusetts Personal Injury Library

SUVs: What makes them dangerous?

Startling Statistics

• More than 10,000 people are killed in rollover accidents each year. This statistic does not even take into account those killed in other types of collisions.
• About 35% of all occupant deaths occur in crashes in which vehicles roll over.

The government has set standards for motor vehicle safety, but most of the testing is for head-on collisions only. However, the testing is misleading and does not realistically recreate the mechanics of an accident. The forces on the vehicle which cause the injuries to the occupants are different in head-on collisions, in side or rear collisions, or in rollover collisions.

Faulty Vehicle Design – A Leading Contributor to Rollover Accidents

You might not know it, but rollovers can occur in single-car accidents. You don’t have to have a head-on collision to have a rollover, which is one of the dangers the automakers don’t tell the public about.

Some of the more common design flaws of an SUV are:

• A weak roof structure that does not prevent crushing, causing serious injuries or death to both the driver and passengers.
• When the roof collapses, so do the windows–ejection is a very real possibility.
• These vehicles have a high center of gravity, making them unstable even when driven safely.
• Many SUVs have seatbelts that are inadequate for the forces created in a serious collision.
• SUVs have a narrow wheelbase, meaning they do not have the stability needed to protect the driver and passengers.

SUV manufacturers are aware of these design flaws, but choose not to correct them – choosing profits over safety.

Some simple re-design by the auto manufacturers could eliminate or minimize some of these injuries. Researchers estimate that electronic stability control, or ESC as it’s known, reduces the risk of fatalities in a single-vehicle rollover by about 72% for SUVs. Side curtain airbags could also reduce injuries.

Injury rates vary considerably among vehicles in rollovers, and there’s still a lot that needs to be investigated. More studies need to be done to determine the causes:

• Is the primary injury risk from the roof crushing in the accident?
• Is it because people are thrown into the roof in a rollover crash?
• Is it because the occupants are ejected when the roof collapses and the doors or windows open?

Until these questions are answered and the car manufacturers take action, serious injury and death will continue to occur.