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Most Americans--55% of those surveyed in a recent TIME/CNN poll--believe SUVs are safer than cars because of their sheer size. But that's not necessarily true. In 2001, the most recent year for which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has figures, there were 162 deaths per million SUVs (including crossovers) and 157 deaths per million cars--meaning the death rate for SUVs was slightly higher. Why? There are several reasons, but in blunt comments last month, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, the NHTSA administrator, highlighted the most important: partly because of their high center of gravity--a feature...
George W. Bush--whose party received more than $10 million from the auto industry during the 2002 election cycle--appointed Runge, so you know he's not padding around NHTSA's headquarters in hemp sandals. And yet during a Q&A last month at an auto conference in Dearborn, Mich., he said, "I wouldn't buy my kid a two-star rollover vehicle if it was the last one on earth." According to NHTSA's website, 22 SUVs in the current model year have a rollover-resistance rating of two stars out of five, including the Jeep Grand Cherokee...
...comments on rollovers infuriated auto executives: "We have thousands of employees who work on safety issues every day," says Jay Cooney, a GM spokesman. "They wouldn't put their own family or anybody's family in a vehicle they thought was unsafe." Auto lobbyists point out that NHTSA generates its rollover ratings simply by calculating the height of a vehicle's center of gravity in proportion to its width--how top-heavy it is, essentially--not by measuring its performance in the real world. (Which is true, though later this year NHTSA will begin using a more subtle ratings system...
...response to National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) warnings, PBHA removed the back seats from its four 15-passenger vans and restricted them from roads with speed limits over 35 miles per hour, including Storrow Drive and the Massachusetts Turnpike...
...NHTSA warned in 2001 that 15-passenger vans have an increased rollover risk, as passenger weight shifts the center of gravity...