2003 Vehicle Safety Press Articles

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November 9, 2003

Chicago Sun Times, "Power windows' deadly risk to kids"

Mitchell Johnson was antsy, bored and feeling like he wanted to be just about anywhere but watching his little brother's school musical program. He'd seen the program once already, and being a typical 11-year-old, he just couldn't make it to the end.

Wanting to stretch his legs, Mitchell asked his mom if he could grab his basketball out of the car. Once inside the family's 1998 Buick Regal, Mitchell apparently turned on the car radio and started eating sunflower seeds.

But as he leaned out the front driver's side window -- possibly to spit out a sunflower seed shell -- Mitchell apparently hit the power window switch. The window quickly rose, and within seconds it was closing around Mitchell's neck. More...

October 8, 2003

The Wall Street Journal, "New Rollover Test Could Lead to Safer SUVs"

How likely is your SUV to roll over in traffic? After decades of research and bitter debate, the federal government unveiled a new test Tuesday that may provide the answer. The test is the first to be based on a vehicle's actual performance, instead of a mathematical formula. It is expected to increase pressure on car makers to speed up technological changes that are intended to reduce rollover accidents.

Starting this year, the government will subject all vehicles to the new road test -- a series of sharp maneuvers at high speeds. Consumers could start seeing the new ratings by year end, when the government will begin factoring the results of the test into its traditional rating system.

The agency plans to post the first batch of its new ratings (probably for a dozen cars or so) on the Web site safercars.gov1 by January at the latest. It won't require manufacturers or dealers to provide the data to customers at the time of sale.

The new test is the first in a series of actions that are likely to refocus public attention on the safety of sport-utility vehicles and light trucks. Within the next month, a panel of auto- and insurance-industry officials is expected to announce an agreement on new design criteria for SUVs and light trucks intended to reduce deaths and injuries that occur when these bigger, heavier vehicles strike smaller passenger cars.

October 7, 2003

Reuters, "NHTSA to begin actual driving tests of vehicles, but doubts remain"

The U.S. government for the first time will begin road tests Tuesday to measure vehicle rollover risk, but consumer and safety groups are not convinced the program will yield the most useful safety information.

Congress ordered the agency to rate passenger vehicles for rollover risk after the deadly Firestone tire debacle that led to the recall of millions of tires in 2000 and 2001. Nearly 300 people were killed in deadly crashes, many of them rollovers, linked to Firestone tire blowouts.

October 14, 2003

The Recorder, "Power window accidents causing auto industry headaches"

In the fall of 2001, cattle auctioneer Jay Gates drove with his 2-year-old daughter, Zoie, to his sale barn where he helped unload a truck full of animals in Anthony, Kan.

Gates thought the safest place to leave Zoie would be in the back seat of his 2000 Ford pickup, next to where he was working. The driver of the cattle truck noticed her leaning out a window and talking to a dog. Then he looked away. She must have kneeled on the power window switch. The window rolled up and caught her throat, suffocating her.

Power windows kill about four Americans a year and injure 500, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, a child-safety advocacy group.

American automakers are starting to follow the European lead by installing safety devices to prevent these kinds of injuries. In the meantime, most cars have windows that don't stop when they encounter an object, and that rise with considerable force. Kids and Cars has produced a video of a window neatly slicing a head of cabbage in half.

October 7, 2003

Reuters, "NHTSA to begin actual driving tests of vehicles, but doubts remain"

The US government for the first time will begin road tests Tuesday to measure vehicle rollover risk, but consumer and safety groups are not convinced the program will yield the most useful safety information.

Congress ordered the agency to rate passenger vehicles for rollover risk after the deadly Firestone tire debacle that led to the recall of millions of tires in 2000 and 2001. Nearly 300 people were killed in deadly crashes, many of them rollovers, linked to Firestone tire blowouts.

There are 22 million sport/utility vehicles on US roads, or about 10 percent of the total number of vehicles. NHTSA released figures this summer showing the number of SUV rollover deaths rose 14 percent in 2002 to more than 2,400.

October, 2003

Consumer Reports, "THE CONSUMERS UNION PERSPECTIVE: Cars should be made safer for children" (Excerpt)

Promising technologies are emerging, or exist, to make vehicles safer for children. Consumers Union is pressing the auto industry, Congress, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to give serious consideration to them in three particular areas. More...

October 1, 2003

Los Angeles Times, "Making power windows safer"

It's been two years since Damien Anthony, 15, was found dead, his body hanging out of a 1986 Ford Merkur. The Oklahoma teenager was killed when he was entrapped by the power window on the driver's side of the car. Damien was washing the car at his parents' home when he leaned in through the open window and inadvertently touched a power window switch. With his neck and arm caught by the window, Damien was unable to reach the switch to free himself, according to attorneys for the Anthony family, who sued Ford Motor Co. By the time his father reached him, the boy was dead.

The notion that someone could be killed by a power window "never would have entered my mind," John Anthony said. Over the last couple of decades, there have been 58 fatalities and hundreds of injuries in the United States because of power windows, safety groups say.

Concerned about the number of deaths and accidents, Kids and Cars, the Center for Auto Safety and the Consumer Federation of America have petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require automakers to provide safer electric window switches. The groups are particularly concerned about rocker, or toggle-style, window switches, which are triggered easily by children and close in a hurry.

Consumer advocates want automakers to install safety devices so that power windows automatically reverse direction if they come in contact with anything, in addition to installing switches that cannot be triggered unintentionally.

September 9, 2003

Mansfield News Journal (Mansfield, OH), "Mom on crusade for safer power windows"

Mansfield resident Rebecca Hergatt spoke at the National Press Club last month in Washington, D.C., before a room full of journalists. Hergatt's son Mac, 5, survived a near-fatal accident June 13 when he put his head out a window of the family's 1992 Buick Regal. Unaware of the child's actions, Hergatt put up the power windows of the car while parked in the driveway of their Pavonia West Road residence.

Hergatt sought answers from automakers after the accident, but had little success. Through the Internet she found Kids and Cars, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing child injuries and death from non-traffic vehicular incidents. The organization has documented 23 deaths from power windows since 1993. More...

August 19, 2003

USA Today, "Driven to make cars safe for kids"

After 17 years in sales and marketing for Kodak and personal care product-maker Helene Curtis, Janette Fennell knows how to sell. But she says she was a babe in the woods when she started trying to sell her brand of safety to Detroit automakers in the late '90s. More...

August 11, 2003

Associated Press, "Runge brings medical experience to top auto safety job"

One Saturday many years ago, while working in an emergency room, Dr. Jeffrey Runge had to tell parents that their two children died in an auto accident because they were not wearing seat belts. The next week, Runge treated two teenagers saved by seat belts when their vehicle plunged 30 feet into a construction pit.

Auto safety became a second calling for Runge, now head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "Every day is graduate school," Runge says, whether he is pushing for increased seat belt use or venting about the highway fatality rate: 42,815 deaths in 2002, or 117 per day.

Runge has formed teams to focus on five priorities: increasing seat belt use, decreasing impaired driving, improving data collected on accidents and defects, preventing rollovers and reducing the amount of damage to small vehicles when they are hit by larger ones.

August 8, 2003

Reuters, "Ford recalls over 1M SUVs: Company recalling Ford Explorers and Mercury Mountaineers to fix speed control and seat recliners"

Ford Motor Co. said Friday it is recalling more than a million Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer sport/utility vehicles to fix problems with the vehicles' speed control and seat recliners. Ford said the cruise control fix affects 499,988 trucks for 1999 through 2001 model year Ford Explorers, Explorer Sports and Mercury Mountaineers, and 2001 Explorer Sport Tracs, all equipped with 4.0 liter V-6 engines and speed control.

It said some customers had complained that the speed control would not shut off, due to a failing control cable.

The other recall involves about 1.6 million 1998 through 2001 model year Explorers and Mountaineers, and 2001-2002 Explorer Sports and Sport Tracs with high-back seats. Ford said it is possible for a bolt on the driver's seat to fracture, causing the seat to recline unexpectedly. Ford said no accidents or injuries were attributed to either problem. Both will be repaired free of charge.

August 7, 2003

USA Today, "Vehicle stability control gets cool reception in USA"

What if there were a way of preventing vehicle rollovers, but no one knew about it? That's not far from the situation facing auto suppliers who make stability control systems, which sense when drivers are about to lose control of their vehicles and help them regain it.

By preventing spinouts and other mishaps, stability control could reduce single-vehicle crashes by up to 35%, studies in Europe and Japan show.

July 30, 2003

Los Angeles Times, "NHTSA Upgrades Probe of Ford Sedans"

Ford Motor Co.'s Crown Victoria sedans and similar Lincoln and Mercury vehicles from the 1995 through 1997 model years face an upgraded US investigation of rear brake failures that may result in a recall. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started an engineering analysis that covers at least 785,000 cars, including the Lincoln Town Car and Mercury Grand Marquis.

The agency received reports of more than 700 complaints and warranty repairs for brake-line leaks that can extend stopping distances. The agency also said it began an investigation of Volkswagen's Audi A6 sedan after three reports that the dashboard caught fire without warning, leading to a crash in each case. The inquiry involves 56,740 cars from the 1999 and 2000 model years.

July 22, 2003

Los Angeles Times, "Alleged Defect in Dodge Durango Investigated"

The government is investigating an alleged defect on the Dodge Durango that has led some drivers to lose control of their vehicles, documents showed.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said four drivers have reported the failure of an upper ball joint on the Durango's front suspension. In two of those cases, the front wheels separated from the Durango.

In the other two cases, the front suspension collapsed. All four drivers lost control of their vehicles, although no injuries were reported.

NHTSA is investigating Durangos from model years 1998 through 2003. The agency will seek more information from DaimlerChrysler before deciding whether to upgrade the investigation.

July 19, 2003

International Herald Tribune, "Rollover Accidents are Cited in a Rise in US Road Deaths"

New US traffic statistics show that rollover accidents were the leading contributor to an increase in the number of deaths on the nation's roads last year.

A total of 42,815 people died in traffic accidents in the United States last year, the most since 1990, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Thursday. The agency said a large proportion of the increase was a result of rollover accidents.

July 18, 2003

Reuters, "Fatal SUV rollovers jump 14 percent "

The number of people killed in sport/ utility rollover crashes jumped 14 percent last year as total highway deaths hit a 12-year high.

Car crash injuries fell to an all-time low last year, but SUV rollovers killed more than 2,400 people, a 14% increase from 2001. Nearly two-thirds, or 61 percent, of all SUV fatalities involved rollovers.

July 14, 2003

California Governor Davis Signs Bill Aimed At Curbing Discriminatory Auto Loan Mark Ups

Governor Gray Davis of California signed into law a bill to curb inflated interest rates on auto loans that car dealers charge minority customers. The new statute is the nation's first to take aim at discriminatory lending that can result from a practice known as the dealer markup. Frequently the customers that incur the highest mark ups are allegedly African Americans and Latinos.

June 11, 2003

Associated Press, "Lawsuit filed in fatal Lincoln crash"

The children of a woman killed three years ago when a dump truck slammed into her car at a fast-food drive-through have sued the truck's manufacturer in Lincoln, Nebraska. Dennis G. and Cheryl Carlson allege in US District Court that defective brakes on the dump truck led to the accident. They and four of their siblings were seeking unspecified damages from Freightliner LLC of Portland, Ore.

Their mother, Shirley Carlson, 67, was one of two people killed in the accident. The fully loaded truck careened out of control on Oct. 19, 2000 and collided with a car before crashing into the rear of Carlson's car in the drive-through lane of a Burger King restaurant. The driver of the first car, Melissa Holton, 18, also died from injuries she suffered in the crash. After the accident, Freightliner voluntarily recalled 133,000 trucks with brake pins similar to one thought to have failed in the crash.

June 2, 2003

USA Today, "Car safety experts push for new stability device"

The National Transportation Safety Board will hear evidence Tuesday that a promising auto safety feature might have prevented a sport-utility vehicle rollover crash in Maryland that killed five people.

NTSB crash investigators will recommend that the board encourage widespread installation of the device - called stability control - in new cars and trucks.

The system senses when a driver is about to lose control of a vehicle, and it applies brakes to certain wheels. That helps the driver maintain or regain control.

May 20, 2003

USA Today, "SUVs fare poorly in latest government rollover tests"

Sport-utility vehicles performed poorly in the latest round of rollover tests released Tuesday, with none winning the government's highest safety rating.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released rollover ratings for 14 sport-utility vehicles from the 2003 model year. Most got three out of five stars from the agency. None got a four- or five-star rollover rating.

That shows little improvement from the 2001 model year, when the Pontiac Aztek was the first SUV to win a four-star rollover rating from NHTSA. In 2002, the Aztek and the Acura MDX earned four stars.

May 19, 2003

Reuters, "Court Sets Aside Record Award vs. Ford"

The US Supreme Court gave Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F - News) a victory on Monday and set aside a record $290 million punitive damages award against it over a deadly 1993 California rollover accident with a Ford Bronco. Ford had called this the largest personal injury award that had been affirmed on appeal in US history. The high court set aside the California court ruling that upheld the award.

The justices sent the case back to the state court for further consideration in view of their ruling last month in a different case that punitive damages must be reasonable and proportionate to the harm suffered. The Supreme Court also granted another Ford appeal over a $15 million punitive damages award in a Kentucky case brought on behalf of a man killed in 1993 when his Ford pickup truck slipped into reverse from park and he was crushed.

May 7, 2003

Los Angeles Times, "GM Paid $495 Million in Suits: The automaker settled 297 cases involving fiery pickup crashes, a court document reveals"

General Motors Corp. has paid out at least $495 million — an average of more than $1.6 million per case — to settle a series of lawsuits brought by victims of fiery crashes involving a popular line of pickup trucks. The revelation of the payouts emerged late Tuesday, when a federal judge in Missoula, Mont., released an exhibit in a case brought by the estate of a family killed in a pickup accident.

The cases involved C/K pickups that had fuel tanks mounted outside the vehicles' protective frames. That made them prone to explode in crashes, critics say. The dollar amounts in the document refer only to settlements reached before late 2000. It isn't clear how much GM has shelled out since then, though C/K pickup cases have been dwindling steadily as the trucks age and drivers replace.

April 24, 2003

Los Angeles Times, "States Say SUV Ads May Be Misleading"

Eight state attorneys general sent letters to 16 automakers warning that advertisements portraying sport utility vehicles as handling like cars may be misleading.

"Too many ads have SUVs zipping around like sports cars, which they are not," Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan said.

The warning comes after Ford Motor Co.'s $51.5-million settlement in December of consumer fraud claims, involving fatal rollovers of Explorers, brought by the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The letters on behalf of 40 states and territories went to Ford, General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler and other automakers.

April 16, 2003

Associated Press, "Car's Electric Window Kills Boy"

An 11-year-old boy who left a music program at an elementary school to play in the parking lot was found dead, trapped between a car's electric window and the door frame. Mitchell L. Johnson was attending his brother's fourth-grade class presentation at Danville South Elementary in Indiana when he became bored and left with keys to his mother's car.

Police said his family found him dead after the program concluded Tuesday evening. "We believe he may have somehow pushed the button and the window came up and trapped his head,'' police Lt. Jerry Cunningham said. The coroner said the death was an accidental suffocation and police said there were no signs of foul play.

April 1, 2003

Money Magazine, "Sit. Rollover. Heel.; How to have your SUV and be safe too"

It's the biggest disconnect in the automotive world. As millions of consumers clamor for an ever-growing SUV lineup, regulators, politicians and pundits savage the same vehicles for their fuel-thirsty ways and purported safety risks -- particularly their vulnerability to rollovers.

By saying last month that he wouldn't put his own children in some SUV models, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the nation's top auto regulator, only fanned the flames that were started during the Ford Explorer/Firestone blowout scandal.

April 1, 2003

Monterey County Herald, "Three women killed in accident"

They were just five miles from the end of a trip they had made before, a religious pilgrimage to the Southern California desert. But the crash of their van ended the trip and the lives of three young Monterey County women along with two others from Northern California's small Coptic Orthodox community.

Today, the Monterey congregation will mourn the deaths of Dalal and Iman Hanalla, sisters who lived in the Los Laureles area between Monterey and Salinas, and Monterey resident Simone Botros. Dalal Hanalla was 25, her sister a year younger. Botros was just 21.

The local women and two others were killed when the church van overturned early Saturday as it approached the St. Anthony Monastery in the Mojave Desert community of Yermo. Also killed in the accident were Christine Youssef, 17, of San Jose, who died at the scene, and Mary Demian, 21, of Fair Oaks, who died en route to a hospital.

The van, driven by Peter Demian, 27, of San Jose -- no relation to Mary Demian -- was one of three in a convoy bound for the monastery, the California Highway Patrol said. The driver suffered major head injuries and several other passengers suffered serious injuries. The 2002 Ford 15-passenger van was northbound on Interstate 15 at 70 mph when it began to drift toward a vehicle in the next lane at a section of the freeway with a slight bend, CHP investigators reported.

The driver swerved several times while trying to straighten out, sending the van out of control, the highway patrol said.

March 31, 2003

Sacramento Bee, "Lenten retreat turns to tragedy"

As their three vans hurtled toward Barstow early Saturday morning, about 40 Northern California teens and young adults were looking forward to their annual Lenten retreat of prayer and rest. What happened just before 3 a.m. left the group in spiritual need more than ever. One of the vans swerved off Interstate 15 and rolled over, killing five young women just 20 minutes from their destination, the St. Anthony Monastery, the country's only Coptic Orthodox monastery.

Raymond Souweha, 23, of San Jose said Sunday he was the only one of the van's 14 occupants to survive without serious injury, only a bruised and cut face that required stitches. "All of us were screaming and yelling," Souweha said. "It's very, very tragic."

Souweha said Peter Demian, 27, of Mountain View, had been driving the entire seven-hour trip, although he had taken breaks. Just before the crash, Demian dozed off. Many of his passengers were already asleep, but one realized the van was sliding from its lane and called out Demian's name.

Startled awake, Demian jerked the steering wheel, but his van swerved out of control, onto the shoulder and down a gradual slope, Souweha said. The travelers were members of a half dozen Northern California Coptic churches and gathered at a church in Hayward to load the vans.

March 27, 2003

Portland Press Herald (Maine), "Snowe backs rollover tests for large vans"

Fifteen-passenger vans, like the one that rolled off a bridge over the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in September, killing 14 people, need more rigorous safety testing, US Sen. Olympia Snowe said on Wednesday.

So Maine's senior senator introduced legislation to require more testing and to close a loophole that she said "put schoolchildren at risk."

"Since 1990, more than 400 people have lost their lives in van rollover accidents, and hundreds more have been seriously injured," Snowe, a member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, said in a written statement. "Fifteen-passenger vans are popular vehicles for tourists, schoolchildren and church outings, but they can also be dangerous if overloaded with either passengers or cargo."

March 12, 2003

Motor Trend, "Automakers Must Call a Recall a Recall"

Many 2002 Nissan Altimas had a potentially faulty air bag sensor; a half-million 1995-97 Ford Contours and Mercury Mystiques had heaters that could cause fires; thousands of 1998-99 Honda and Isuzu sport-utility vehicles had anti-lock brakes that could take too long to stop.

The manufacturers fixed the vehicles, yet none was technically recalled. That's because these automakers -- and many others -- were able to negotiate a special deal with regulators called a "safety improvement campaign" that allowed them to couch their recalls in less dramatic language.

Now, National Highway Transportation Safety Administration chief Jeffrey Runge has done away with safety improvement campaigns. Automakers will no longer be able to say they didn't do a "recall" when they call back vehicles to fix safety problems.

March 11, 2003

USA Today, "Ford Faces Challenge on Bronco rollovers"

An environmental group with clout is trying to portray Ford Motor - and by implication, most automakers - as lying about safety, hoping to destroy the industry's credibility when it argues that stricter fuel-economy standards would lead to less-safe vehicles.

Detroit defends the poor fuel economy of SUVs by contending that's the price of safer vehicles, and argues that "increased fuel economy will force it to make small, unsafe cars. We wanted to see how concerned the big seller of SUVs, Ford, was about safety," says Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group (EWG).

Ford has been beset by criticism that's hurting its stock and boosting borrowing costs.

March 11, 2003

United Press International, "Watchdog group: Ford hid rollover data"

An environmental group wants federal auto safety officials to reopen an investigation into rollovers of Ford Bronco II sport-utility vehicles. Ford ceased production of the boxy Bronco II in 1990 when it was replaced by the Explorer, the world's best-selling SUV for the last 12 years.

The Washington-based Environmental Working Group said Ford paid an expert witness $5 million over eight years to change his testimony on the vehicle's rollover risk. The watchdog group claimed in a report released on Monday Ford paid David Bickerstaff, a Southfield engineer, some $4,000 a day to testify the Bronco II had a rollover rate no higher than comparable vehicles. The Environmental Working Group review said Ford engineers knew in 1982 the sport utility vehicle was prone to roll over during routine safety tests.

March 11, 2003

Edmonton Journal, "SUVs No Cure for Worst Winter: Can Provide Sense of invincibility that often puts these drivers upside-down"

Buffalo gets an average of more than seven feet of snow a year, so its drivers are usually pretty savvy about bad weather.

But that didn't prevent Cheryl Campbell, a Buffalo police officer, from spinning her General Motors Jimmy sport-utility vehicle on ice a couple of weeks ago.
"I came around a curve too fast, hit a patch of black ice and did three 360-degree spins without the four-wheel drive helping one bit," she said. "Having an SUV definitely makes winter drivers overconfident. We see it all the time."

March 10, 2003

Press Release, "Environmental Working Group Alleges Ford Hid SUV Rollover Evidence For Decades"

The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group announced that Ford Motor Company has fought mandatory increases in fuel economy for SUVs and other vehicles by invoking fears that higher mileage requirements would result in smaller, more dangerous vehicles. It claim that for Ford safety has been used to beat back fuel efficiency regulations.

The Environmental Working Group also asserted, based on its review of Ford Motor Company documents, that Ford engineers allegedly were aware in 1982 that the original sport utility vehicle, the Bronco II, was prone to roll over during routine safety tests. With modest stability changes that did not significantly reduce rollover potential, the Bronco II was renamed the Explorer in 1990.

March 7, 2003

Bismarck Tribune, "Use of Large Vans by Schools may be Banned"

North Dakota's state school superintendent may ban public schools from using 15-passenger vans, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said Thursday.
The larger vans are at greater risk of rollover crashes when they are full, federal safety regulators say.

Wayne Sanstead, the superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction, has cautioned schools against using the vehicles. However, 110 of them are still being used across North Dakota.

February 26, 2003

USA Today, "Crash tests may make SUVs even more deadly"

New evidence from the government suggests that key auto crash tests run by the insurance industry and federal regulators might make sport-utility vehicles deadlier to people in small cars. And USA TODAY research finds little proof the tests actually lead to vehicles that better protect their own occupants.

February 26, 2003

Los Angeles Times, "Automaker data say SUVs are riskier"

A key automaker group Tuesday released figures showing that people in sport utility vehicles are more likely to die in crashes than are occupants of passenger cars.

Officials of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers defended the safety of SUVs and said the difference in death risks was "statistically indiscernible," but independent observers said the numbers indicate that automakers may be slowly acknowledging the problems of their most profitable products.

February 26, 2003

CNN.com Technology, "Voluntary steps urged for SUV safety;
Report says SUVs pose danger to cars"

The top U.S. auto safety regulator said on Wednesday he would let carmakers voluntarily improve the safety of sport utility vehicles but left open the option of forcing them to make changes if necessary.

Jeffrey Runge, who heads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, told a congressional hearing the industry can move more swiftly than government on safety improvements. Declaring he would not let members of his family drive some SUV models, Runge nevertheless said some sport utility vehicles are as safe as passenger cars. He did not say which ones were off limits in his family.

February 18, 2003

Los Angeles Times, "Study questions safety of SUVs"

Which is safer, a Honda Accord or the nearly one-ton- heavier Ford Expedition? Chances are that the brawny SUV would hold up better in a wreck. Yet drivers of Accords and Expeditions have about the same risk of suffering a fatal accident, new research shows. And when the risk to other drivers is factored in, the Accord is safer by far. Or consider the massive Chevrolet Suburban, identified by the research as safest among popular SUVs. But according to the data, drivers of Suburbans and shrimpy Volkswagen Jettas have about the same fatality rates.

The novel study's bottom line: Sport utility vehicles and pickups aren't as protective as many of their owners believe, while they are also uniquely dangerous to everyone else.

February 3, 2003

Chicago Tribune, "Church van flips, killing 13-year-old"

Authorities say a church van that flipped on its side killing a teenager and seriously injuring two 4-year-olds is a model some federal experts have targeted as a safety risk.

Geoffrey Smith, 13, of Belleville was killed instantly when the Ford E-350 15-passenger van he was riding in fishtailed on wet pavement Friday night, veered into a ditch and turned on its side. The boy was pinned inside.

January 27, 2003

The Wall Street Journal, "Auto Makers Start To Back Away From Big SUVs: As Outcry Over the Vehicles Grows, Detroit Pushes Smaller, Carlike Models

Sport-utility vehicles have fattened auto companies' profits and ridden an economic boom into millions of suburban garages. But now, pressures from society, government and the auto industry itself are growing so strong that Detroit is starting to take its first big steps away from reliance on the traditional, huge SUV.

Anti-SUV crusaders now span an unlikely spectrum. The Sierra Club argues that SUVs contribute to global warming. A religious group protests that Jesus wouldn't drive an SUV. Conservative columnist Arianna Huffington recently launched television ads tying SUVs to terrorism.

January 23, 2003  

USA Today, "Lawsuits give Ford publicity problem"

Ford Motor, working hard to put financial and quality problems behind it, is being dogged by high-profile court battles that are likely to generate publicity through the rest of the year.

The cases challenge product and engineering decisions made more than a decade ago and question the company's honesty.