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Lawsuit Documents and a Study Raise Questions on the Safety of Ford Explorer Roofs

The New York Times - Jermey W. Peters

03/31/05 - A new study and documents from a recent lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company raise fresh questions about the safety of roofs on Ford Explorers.

The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen released a study on Wednesday that accuses Ford of ignoring evidence that stronger roofs would lead to fewer injuries.

Also on Wednesday, a plaintiffs' lawyer in several prominent rollover lawsuits said he had obtained internal Ford documents that show that several years ago the company rebuffed assertions from its Volvo subsidiary that stronger vehicle roofs prevent injuries and deaths in rollover accidents.

The lawyer, C. Tab Turner, did not release copies of the documents. He said during a Public Citizen news conference that a memorandum showed that Ford was determined to "fix the problem" stemming from the disparity between the views of the companies.

In 1999, Ford purchased Volvo, the Swedish automaker known for producing some of the safest vehicles on the road.

In addition, documents connected with a trial this year involving Ford show that the automaker decided not to strengthen roof supports on the Explorer, a sport utility vehicle, although engineers at the company recommended the change.

Those documents were entered into evidence by lawyers for a Florida woman who died from a fractured skull after her Explorer rolled five times during an accident. This month, Ford was ordered to pay $10.2 million in damages in the case.

Carolyn Brown, a Ford spokeswoman, said the company had no comment on its discussions with Volvo regarding roof strength. In relation to the Florida case, she said all the company's vehicles comply with federal rollover safety regulations.

The company strongly refuted the study released by the consumer group, issuing a statement that said, "Years of testing show strengthening the roof will not affect the outcome of the crash for the simple reason that the injury mechanics are not related to how much the roof is deformed in a rollover crash."

The new study, which was written by Martha Bidez, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Alabama, takes issue with that assertion.

"Stated in the simplest terms, roof crush can and does cause catastrophic injury and death," the study states. "The science is irrefutable."

The study re-examined Ford's own rollover crash data from 1998 and 1999 and concluded that the most catastrophic neck injuries occurred when the Explorer's roof caved in and smashed into the crash dummy's head. It further found that in test cases where the Explorer's roof was not crushed, no serious injuries were recorded in the dummies.

The study criticizes the auto industry's commitment to safety, noting at one point that while car companies have said roof strength has nothing to do with injuries in rollovers "they routinely add roll bars to their test vehicles to ensure that roofs don't crush test drivers in the event of a rollover accident."

Using the same data examined in Ms. Bidez's study, Ford told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last year that injury to the neck in rollovers occurs before the roof is crushed, and therefore roof strength has nothing to do with whether a passenger is injured.

Ms. Brown said the company had no comment on how Ford and the new study arrived at such different conclusions. But the company's statement said the study appeared to be based on information that is "seriously flawed."

Consumer groups, which have long lobbied for tougher rollover standards, say that roof collapse is the leading cause of death in rollovers.

The government, which will soon issue the first new vehicle rollover standards since 1971, sides with Ford and the other two major domestic automakers, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler , on the cause of injuries from rollovers.

Although the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will carry out the new standards within the next two months, it says they will not have much of an impact.

"When vehicles roll over and people get hurt or killed, there are a lot of things that may be contributing factors, and a collapsed roof is just one small part," said Rae Tyson, a safety administration spokesman, who added that new standards would probably save about 40 lives a year.

More than 10,000 people are killed each year in rollovers of all vehicles.

The Explorer's roof has become the subject of further scrutiny after the disclosure that more than a decade ago, Ford dismissed suggestions from its engineers that the vehicle's roof supports be strengthened. A 1993 memorandum from two Ford engineers, which was reported in The Detroit News on Tuesday, suggested that the company reinforce support pillars that connect the body of the 1995 Explorer to its roof.

Ford did not, and produced Explorers in at least three subsequent model years that were more susceptible to having their roofs crushed in a rollover, according to documents introduced in the Florida case earlier this month.

After the four-week trial, a jury on March 18 ordered Ford to pay the family of Claire Duncan, the Florida woman who was killed when her Explorer rolled over, $10.2 million in damages.

Other internal documents made public during the Explorer rollover trial show that as Volvo was designing its XC90 S.U.V., it considered roof strength to be a main element in ensuring the vehicle's safety.

If you believe that you have been injured in a rollover or roof collapse related accident you should click here for a free case assessment..