By John Cooper, Virginia Wrongful Death Attorney

A rollover accident, when a vehicle literally flips over, is one of the worst kinds of accidents a person can be involved in.  SUVs are three times more likely to roll over than regular cars, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration stated that since 2000, 78 percent of deaths in SUV accidents occurred because the vehicle experienced a rollover.  During a rollover, design defects can cause a seat belt or window to not perform as intended or the roof of the vehicle may collapse.  These defects may result in worsening the injury, or even contributing to a loss of life.

These devastating accidents all too often result in death of the driver and/or passengers. More than 10,000 deaths and 50,000 injuries occur each year due to rollover accidents.  Rollovers are second only to frontal collisions in the number of deaths per crash in the United States.

It is completely unnecessary for the defect that causes rollover accidents in SUVs to continue when it causes thousands of deaths each year.  Many factors contribute to a vehicle’s rollover propensity.  Some are a vehicle’s height to width ratio, suspension, steering characteristics, certain tire characteristics, and weight distribution.  Some companies, in order to sell more vehicles, do things like put bigger tires on SUVs.  This lowers the height-width ratio of the vehicle, and makes a rollover more likely.

Furthermore, roof integrity is another vehicle characteristic that contributes to loss of life in a rollover accident.  There are many examples where an auto manufacturer’s failure to provide a strong enough roof strength on their vehicles has forever changed the lives of people who unknowingly purchase their defective cars.  The federal government has set out standards for roof integrity in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, but many times manufacturers produce vehicles that barely meet this standard.  Even roofs that meet the FMVSS can collapse a foot or more during a rollover, which can result in severe head and neck injuries. The multiple cases we see each year due to a lack of roof strength is not due to a lack of knowledge.  Auto manufacturers know how to build roofs that will not collapse, but they manufacture their vehicles to the minimum government standard no matter how many times people are severely injured or killed.

There have been highly contested wrongful death lawsuits for decades over whether car and SUV roofs were manufactured properly and sufficiently to withstand the forces involved in rollover accidents.  It is important for manufacturers to know they need to focus more on the survival of passengers during rollover accidents.

OEA

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis & Appleton is a law firm whose attorneys focus on injury and accident law and have experience handling wrongful death claims. Check out our case results to see for yourself. We have offices in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Suffolk Injuryboard, Norfolk-Portsmouth-Hampton Injuryboard and Greenville-Outer Banks-Rocky Mount Injuryboard blog sites as pro bono public information services. If you are thinking about taking legal action against the at-fault person or company that caused the death of your loved one, call our office at (800) 752-0042 for a free, confidential consultation. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, be sure to leave a voicemail so we can return your call.