SUV Safety

"Speaking out on the perils of SUVs"

"A top regulator's unequivocal warning comes as a surprise to both automakers and consumer advocates". Jeffrey W. Runge, chief of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, stunned the auto industry last week in a speech by declaring that sport utility vehicles are not safe enough and consumers should reconsider buying them.

No federal regulator ever has delivered such a tough message about SUV safety, experts say….But Runge doesn't fit the mold of most federal bureaucrats. Almost his entire career has been spent as an emergency room physician…At the North Carolina hospital where he worked, he treated 30,000 people, a third of them injured in automobile accidents.

With that experience, Runge's warning about SUVs has added credibility. Although SUVs accounted for just 3% of all highway crashes in 2001, they were responsible for about 30% of vehicle fatalities…About 10,000 people annually are killed in rollover accidents….

The reason is simple: The top-heavy vehicles easily roll over if an evasive maneuver is attempted or if the vehicles begin to spin. During a rollover, occupants can be thrown out the windows or are killed when the roof collapses. And SUVs' heavy weight and high profile are deadly to occupants of the vehicles they hit.

Rosemary Shahan, President of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, worried that if Runge continued to speak out, the Bush Administration would get rid of him.

"I was astounded he would be so honest," Shahan said. 'It was almost like somebody gave him truth serum.' "

---Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2003