 Now comes a conclusion in a report released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that suggests safety advocates and plaintiff's lawyers have been correct all along. It concludes that more than 200 deaths could have been prevented in rollovers in 2006 if just a few more SUVs had roofs as strong as the best one it tested.
The institute's conclusion (Click here for the new study) is a rebuke of the automakers' longstanding position. It also amounts to a rejection of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's go-slow approach. NHTSA hasn't upgraded its standard for roof strength since 1971, despite a surge in the sale of SUVs, which are more than twice as likely as cars to roll over. NHTSA estimates that a plan it's finalizing to upgrade its standard would save only 13 to 44 lives a year.
The IIHS estimates that people in SUVs with roofs as strong as the top-rated Nissan (NSANY) Xterra face up to 57% less risk of serious injury or death in a single-vehicle rollover than those in the 1999-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee or 1996-2004 Chevrolet Blazer. The 1996-2001 Ford (F) Explorer was also among the SUVs that the institute said had the weakest roofs.
Using data from 12 states, IIHS researchers compared injury and death rates in four-door SUVs. It tested and rated only models without stability control or side-curtain air bags as standard equipment. Those two fairly new technologies help prevent rollovers and the injuries they can cause. (This was to prevent vehicle differences from skewing its results, IIHS says.) The vehicles tested were sold from the mid-1990s until about 2004. The institute tested older models so there were enough crashes for them to estimate injury risks.
Ford chief safety engineer Kozak notes that along with stability control, Ford includes side-curtain air bags that stay deployed in rollovers, tensioners in seat belts that keep people seated during rollovers and seat-belt reminder buzzers - all of which help cut the risk of injury in rollovers.
Chrysler, which owns the Jeep brand, notes that IIHS reported last year that the Grand Cherokee actually has a lower fatality rate in rollover crashes than the Xterra. But IIHS spokesman Russ Rader says the new report controlled for factors that influence the chance of a rollover so it could isolate the link between roof strength and injury risk.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents major automakers except Honda, calls the IIHS report "flawed." "Unfortunately, there remains no definitive answer as to what effect roof strength has on injury risk in rollover crashes," the alliance said. General Motors (GM) would not comment beyond the alliance's statement.
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