On December 1, Trial Lawyers for Public Justice (TLPJ), representing Public Citizen, filed a legal challenge to a Florida court order sealing crucial exhibits from a rollover case decided last spring over fatal injuries caused by the popular Ford Explorer SUV. What automakers know about injury prevention in rollovers should be fully disclosed and made part of the public record in NHTSA’s pending rulemaking. The key documents were publicized in news reports throughout the nation, but were sealed despite their direct relevance to a new proposed federal roof strength regulation undergoing public comment.
The documents show that throughout the late 1990s, Ford successively weakened the roof of its Ford Explorer and that the vehicle has an extremely low margin of safety in rollover crashes. However, documents from Volvo, which became a Ford subsidiary in 2000, demonstrate that a strong roof can protect occupants in a rollover. The documents also show that in developing its SUV, the XC-90, Volvo used a much stronger dynamic test to examine roof strength and the interaction of safety systems in a rollover.
Testing and development records, such as the Volvo documents being sought, must be considered by NHTSA before issuing its new roof crush rules.
IN-DEPTH:Follow this link to read Public Citizen’s full press release on the efforts to gain public access to the Ford documents: http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?id=2093 Follow this link to read a December 1, 2005 article from the Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Aid=/20051201/AUTO01/512010354&Searchid=73228156469331
