July 13, 2004 -- Safety advocates say America's love affair wit
July 13, 2004 -- Safety advocates say America's love affair with SUVs is risky -- pointing to the 13-year high with 46,000 deaths and 3 million injuries on roads in 2003.
One-quarter of all the deaths take place in rollover crashes, which are a particular risk in tall and top-heavy SUVs, experts say.
A new survey shows that Americans overwhelmingly support the idea that the government set tougher automobile safety standards and enforce laws set to protect the public.
A major focus of the survey was to study issues concerning vehicle rollover crashes, a special concern with sport utility vehicles -- the fastest selling vehicle in the U.S. SUVs, light trucks, and minivans make up 56% of all new car sales in the U.S. according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a car industry trade group.
Eighty-four percent of Americans say they support stricter government regulations to make SUVs less prone to rollover crashes, according to a poll of more than 1,000 adults conducted by the Peter Harris Research Group. Ninety-one percent of adults surveyed in this year's poll also said that the federal government's involvement is either very or somewhat important.
Eighty-six percent of Americans and 85% of SUV owners say they are familiar with the SUV rollover problem. When the participants were asked about whether they were aware of a government web site "that has customer information about how likely it is for various types of vehicles to roll over in a crash," only 31% say they are aware of such a site. Only 24% of SUV owners were aware that such a site existed. The researchers say this implies that these car owners may be less inclined to seek out car safety information.
The majority of those surveyed say they are willing to pay the $200 to $300 extra that safety advocates say would be required to make reinforced roofing and antirollover computers standard in all SUVs.
Advocates released the poll hoping to convince lawmakers to enact tougher safety regulations in a transportation bill currently before the Congress. A bill passed by the Senate includes new standards for antirollover technology, sturdier roof construction, anti-ejections seatbelts, and other technologies.
"They don't want to give up their favorite vehicles, they love them. But they don't want to die in them either," pollster Louis Harris says.
According to the poll, 84% of Americans say that "the government should create safety rules that require manufacturers to make all passenger vehicles, including SUVs, more stable and less likely to roll over.
Judith Lee Stone accuses automakers of restricting many safety advances to expensive luxury cars, leaving most buyers without the best protection against highway fatalities.
"It's as if the cures for this epidemic are being locked up in a huge medicine chest," says Stone, president of a group called Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. "They decide who gets the vaccines and who doesn't."
The poll asked participants whether they would like the government to require having Electronic Stability Control (ESC) devices installed in all new cars they buy in the future. Fifty-five percent favors the government the move. ESC devices can in certain circumstances help prevent vehicle rollovers; they are available in more expensive, high-end vehicles in the U.S.
Car makers say they have worked to make SUVs and pickup trucks safer and that consumers who want antirollover devices and other safety technology can often purchase them as options.
Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, argues that an increasing number of cars on the road -- and not rollover-prone SUVs and trucks -- are partly to blame for the 13-year record high in highway deaths last year.
"The increase in traffic deaths isn't just from vehicles, it's from pedestrians" and a rise in crashes involving 18-wheel trucks and other commercial autos, Territo says. "Today's SUVs are as safe as passenger cars."
That wasn't the case for 40-year-old Patrick Parker of Childress, Texas, who was paralyzed in a SUV rollover accident in 2001. Parker had swerved to avoid a deer, causing his vehicle to flip.
"It was the roof crushing in that broke his neck, nearly severing his spinal card, rendering him quadriplegic at age 37," his wife Dena says.
Advocates stress that they are not trying to get Americans to stop buying fewer of their favorite big SUVs, but that they just want the trucks better regulated, even if it costs more. "The part of the free market that we want to interfere in is only one very narrow area and that is to make these vehicles safer, says Joan Claybrook, president of the consumer group Public Citizen.
