As I highlighted in the Chevy Express review, I believe the vehicle is inherently unsafe. The Ford E-Series and Dodge Ram Van (RIP: 2002), aren't much better. From 1990 to 2006, over 2700 people have died in extended van accidents, they majority of which were rollovers (seat belt use is an important variable). In 2002, The National Transportation Safety Board wrote an open letter to Bill Ford and Rick Wagoner, stating "Heavily loaded 15-passenger vans are particularly susceptible to rollover… Simulations conducted for the NHTSA research illustrated the adverse effects that a fully loaded 15-passenger van can have on the vehicles handling properties and rollover propensity. Fully loading or nearly loading a 15-passenger van causes the center of gravity to move rearwardand upward, which increases the vehicles rollover propensity and could increase the potential for driver loss of control in emergency maneuvers." Ford and GM declined to make a $300m (per design) modification to the rear end to enhance van safety. They did, however, add stability control systems, as requested. While NHTSA stats show the accident and fatality rate for these vehicles are falling, it's still proportionately higher than for other passenger vehicles. Both the Ford and Chevy score a measly two and three stars respectively in roll-over tendency. These are outmoded designs whose active safety is woeful inadequate– especially when you consider their cargo.
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I remember the smoking brakes after taking a fully-loaded Econoline through a bunch of mountain roads (even WITH downshifting). It was as comfortable as riding on a couch with wheels and handled about as well.
Good note–rental companies cannot be counted on to check the tires. We were about to take a 500 mile trip when I discovered one of the tires had 10 psi. They did not care when I brought this up upon returning it…not even an apology from their neglect which would have endangered the lives of 2 adults and 13 church kids.
These vehicles obey the laws of physics. They have a high center of gravity, more so with passengers. But it’s not accurate to say the vans have not changed since being extended to handle 15 passengers, at least the GM product. The 15 passenger GM van has a WB of 155″ vs. 135″ for the regular van. Ford does not extend the 138″ WB when selling the 15 passenger van. The GM passenger van has curtain air bags and stability control as standard features.
Yes cross winds can be a problem; ask a FedEx driver about their Sprinters. Some features of the van that make it safer are that it’s very high thus easily seen by other drivers. The height gives the van driver fantastic visibility; I can see over about everything except dump trucks up. If I get T-boned, the bumper/hood of the vehicle hitting me will come in below my body instead of at my head. Lots of tradeoffs. Every owner I’ve talked to was very happy with their van.
15-passenger van safety is not much different from SUV safety: if the driver is competent, everyone will be ok. The problem is these church groups or boy scout troops or day care centers load 14 people into the van and let someone who can barely maneuver a Civic without bumping into something drive this behemoth of a van whose handling is much worse and whose propensity to stay on all four wheels is lower than any other vehicle on the road. I’ve never heard of a crash with these types of vehicles where the driver wasn’t speeding or trying to do a maneuver that was an over-reaction to a situation – it’s always driver error, ultimately.
Frankly, you should need a different license to operate 15-passenger vans. Period. They are not Civics, and they aren’t even Explorers, which now have great rollover ratings. They are massive vans that require careful, attentive and skilled driving. If Semis and busses can be operated without constantly flipping, so can 15-passenger vans.
I’ve never been in one of these vehicles, but your review sounded like what I’d expect. I’ve heard of their problems and wouldn’t doubt that the Detroit 3 would do as little as possible to correct them.
That said: I looked at TTAC’s latest little partner up top (Myride.com) and wondered what’s up. Their information was all wrong. Considering what they said about the Chevy Colorado’s fuel economy (they said 20/26 in four-cyl crew cab config, which is about two or three mpg too high for both estimates), I’d guess they’d say these vans got five-star rollover ratings.
Would Mr. Farago care to elaborate on this latest partnership?
I’ve driven these big vans and been a passenger in them. As long as you realize that it is not a car and drive it properly, you won’t have an issue.
A few years back when I participated in a racing school, track tours were conducted in 15 passenger vans. The instructors would run laps at speed while sitting sideways in the seat talking to the customers about the track, working the pedals with their left foot. Call it a combination of skill, upkeep and just dumb luck but we had no problems. I also haven’t heard of any accidents during these track tours.
First off Mike, thank you for defending my country!
I am a USMC veteran and was an MTO – Motor Transport Officer from 1988-93. I mostly had tactical vehicles (5-tons, HMMWVs, trailers, etc.) but on occasion was given a commercial vehicle, such as full sized vans or the Jeep Cherokee (compliments of the Japanese during Desert Shield/Desert Storm). Mostly the big vans were Dodges.
Big vans like the Chevy, Ford, and Dodge, are just people movers – glorified cattle cars. They’re not about the driving/ownership experience. And since they seem to be used mostly in fleets, such as hotels, businesses, churches, and the government (federal, state, local), the D2.8 has taken the sale of these things for granted and hasn’t cared for continuous improvement unless regulated.
I agree that they are inherently unsafe, but the D2.8 can always point to driver error as the cause of fatalities and accidents and keep excreting these POS vehicles.
As an aside, as a former regional airline pilot (I now fly air ambulance), I had a love/hate relationship with the big vans. It seemed that most of the hotels we stayed in for overnights used these things. After flying all day or night and standing in front of the (X) airport terminal waiting to be picked up with my exhausted crew, having the hotel van show up was a welcome sight. But when I had to squeeze between the rows of seats to get to the back or middle, part of my uniform would catch (and tear or get grease stains) on the door hinge or latch or some other protrusion. It was certainly difficult to get comfortable in those damn things. And of course we would stuff our trash, chewing gum, candy wrappers, etc. into the little many numerous ash trays on the bulkheads. The DoubleTree in San Francisco used mini buses, like special ed, so they were more comfortable although probably just as unsafe.
Mike-
Your post is incredibly misleading, ignorant, and alarmist. If these vehicles were inherently unsafe, NHTSA would not allow them to be sold. Every single documented fatal accident involving passenger vans has been a result of the driver over-compensating or driving unsafely for this type of vehicle. If the driver understands that the vehicle they are driving cannot be driven like an econocar, they’ll be fine. This is not too much to ask either, as the 15 passenger vans are clearly not your run of the mill passenger car; if they drive it like one, its not GM or Ford’s fault. (A bus driver doesn’t drive a bus like its an econocar, do they?)
“If these vehicles were inherently unsafe, NHTSA would not allow them to be sold”
Check your history books before claiming so.
“…cannot be driven like an econocar,”
There are a few enonocars that drive about as bad when fully loaded (try Aveo hatches with 5 adults – not possible to drive over 55).
“(A bus driver doesn’t drive a bus like its an econocar, do they?)”
You apparently don’t live in TX.. Sarcasm aside, I’ve seen plenty bus drivers drive like damn fools (usually with no passengers, but that doesn’t save the surrounding cars).
And back to “Your post is incredibly misleading, ignorant, and alarmist.”
What about the post was misleading? Or ignorant? Not one word said that these vans should handle like a Civic. Nobody is forgiving idiot drivers. But focus on the “overcorrection” for just one second… in most cars, this is pretty hard to do if you know how to drive (and don’t let yourself panic). Whose not to say that, just maybe, these vans are far too easy to overcorrect? Or even, next to impossible to avoid overcorrection?
The issue I have is how archaic these platforms are. Tried & true can only be stretched so far… While these vans are designed to be used for towing as well, a 15-seater car is usually used for passenger transportation. Ever ridden in a modern Minivan (Odyssey comes to mind)? Very easy to drive, next to impossible to flip. Sure, they can’t tow much… or at all.. but why not take this model as a template? Stretch the wheels out, widen the track, strengthen the unibody platform to be safe for 15 passengers (put in a stronger engine), an you have a relatively safe (and Comfortable) people mover.
Instead, these vehicles are excreted out and shoveled off to fleet markets and dealer lots. There is no excuse why these cars are allowed to be so unsafe, yet a modern subcompact can’t even weigh under 2,000 lbs due to modern safety regulations. Stability control is soon a requirement (consequentially, so is ABS and Brake Distribution, etc), tire pressure monitoring is supposed to help with rollovers, roofs now have to hold an elephant, yet these vans are allowed to pretty much stay the same as they have been for decades.
/off-topic
If rollovers are the main killers, and mainly because of passenger ejection (no seatbelts), with technology as it is, why not mandate a system that senses passengers and doesn’t allow the car to drive past 10MPH without all belts buckled? Or at least poses an ANNOYING loud beep with flashing lights that can’t be disabled? Seems it might be more efficient than modern rules/regulations
/end off-topic
These things are scary-dangerous. Your review of the Express 3500 also shows what rubbish they are. Hopefully, Nissan follows through and offers a full-size van here (I remember reading once that they wanted to do that), or Toyota will offer the Hiace, and then GM will have to update the vehicle to stay competitive.
I would, however, defend the D2.8 for not making a vehicle modification that would cost $300M per vehicle. I don’t think Expresses are really worth that much. :)
Google knows all.
Search for “15 passenger van” without the quotes. Ignoring ads, there are ten results on the first page. Of those ten, six are related to safety issues or guidelines of the vans.
If you search for things like “station wagon” or “pickup truck” (again, without the quotes), there are no such links.
It appears that the vehicles are hard to control in emergency maneuvers, especially when fully loaded. Of course, inexperienced drivers, unbelted passengers, poor maintenance, etc., increase the risk, but the risk is there no matter what. One solution proposed was to dually the rear wheels, or to make sure not to load them fully. The second solution seems dumb-what’s the point of purchasing such a big vehicle if you are only going to use half it’s capacity?
I agree that they’re inherently unsafe and would like to see them speed limited or drivers have to have one or two hours specialist training before driving them.
Not too much to ask when these vehicles transport loads of kids every day.
Droid800
If drivers — inexperienced or untrained as they might be — are going to predictably flip these vehicles, then these vehicles, in the present context, are unsafe. End of story.
We can discuss, however, what might be the best way to make them safe. “Best” requires some sort of definition, but I will submit that key factors include how effectively accidents can be avoided, and at what cost. Maybe a special training and licensing regime is best. You’d have to account for the overall cost of licensing and training, and the improvement that will make to safety. Maybe, on the other hand a redesign would be best, because while that costs some money, it would allow regular drivers to use the vehicle, saving on the ongoing costs of training and licensing.
I think most people on this site have come to the intuitive conclusions that (1) the current fleet can be made safer by having only specially trained drivers operate it, but (2) in the future, it would be best (more increase in safety at less cost) to seek a new design. They might be wrong, but I’m inclined to agree with them too.
Finally, as a matter of common usage, I would submit that any instrument which requires extra-special training to use safely — without that training people are likely to die — would be called a “dangerous” instrument by the average English speaker. Dangerous instruments can be used safely by those with special training, but that still does not wipe out that fact that the thing itself is “dangerous.”
I know Mercedes makes a version of the Sprinter for use as a passenger van.
The other factor here is the driver quality when these are used in a commercial context. The quality of person most of the hotels, daycares, air port shuttles etc employ is quite low.
Right now were are taking obselete poorly desinged for their purpose vehicles, packing them full of people and allowing them to be operated by some of the worst drivers.
The fix is two fold: Improve the equipment and the quality of the operator.
The simple method would be to change the rules at the federal level, requiring a Class B CDL with passenger endorsement for any COMMERCIAL use of one of these.
A big family could still use one as their “Griswald Family Truckster” but the a Motel could not without a professional driver.
I’ve driven worst equipment over Donner Summit on I80 in awful weather without incident. But before I was asked to do that I was given months of training and mentoring from fellow drivers.
I concur that making these dually would greatly enhance stability. You could also hard wire the ECU to govern the vehicle at 65-70mph.
These things are scary-dangerous. Your review of the Express 3500 also shows what rubbish they are. Hopefully, Nissan follows through and offers a full-size van here (I remember reading once that they wanted to do that), or Toyota will offer the Hiace, and then GM will have to update the vehicle to stay competitive.
I would, however, defend the D2.8 for not making a vehicle modification that would cost $300M per vehicle. I don’t think Expresses are really worth that much. :)
The Hi-Ace is not a large van. It would require a ground-up redesign to have one that has a 15-passenger capacity. Japanese vans are not designed to take advantage of the wider roads here in the U.S. At most, they’re only able to carry 10 passengers. Fine if you’re going to bring this van to market against the shorter 8-passenger vans, but still unusable for the larger market which churches and camps desire.
I’ve driven 15-passenger vans before. The ride is uncomfortable, to say the least, and it does wallow around turns. But then again, it’s a van, not a family car. As a driver, if you cannot adjust your driving style accordingly, perhaps your skills should be re-evaluated.
Having been in an Econoline that flipped onto its side at ~70mph, I can attest to the propensity for these vans to tip. That case involved a blown out front right tire while towing a loaded 25′ trailer. The driver reacted calmly, but there was little if anything that could be done to prevent it from going over. Still, the high sides actually prevented it from rolling even though the trailer ripped off the hitch and rolled down the highway. I also appreciated that the rear side glass, which my back smashed through due to not wearing a seatbelt, beaded rather than shattered and thus did not cut me to shreds.
That said, I’ve also been in an Econoline van being driven by a racing instructor around a track at speeds that would scare most people in a sports car. And the Econoline, at least, has actually been improved (despite what I said yesterday). The rear shocks were moved outside of the frame rails and the body was stiffened under the seat mounts.
So multi billion dollar companies like the D2.8 can’t produce a better vehicle than this? If they can’t then they deserve what they get.
I bet Toyota or Honda could. Even Hyundai could do it.
A big piece of the 15 passenger van puzzle has to do with who is driving them. They are the largest capacity passenger vehicles sold which do not require a bus driver’s license to operate. Anyone who can get a standard license is authorized to operate the things.
Thus many churches, schools, hotels, day-care centers and the like buy these things to use as mini-buses because any idiot is allowed to get behind the wheel. These vehicles are inherently top heavy and unstable, at least compared to typical cars and minivans. The deadly combination of a topsy-turvy vehicle and poorly trained drivers results in a lot of dead and injured people.
Some schools like the University of California have their own rules requiring the drivers of any 15 passenger vans used for school purposes to have a class-b licenses with passenger endorsement (aka a bus driver’s license).
http://adminrecords.ucsd.edu/Notices/2004/2004-7-7-1.html
The problems with these vans are well documented, and the on the record refusal to make further improvements is almost certain to come back and bite GM and Ford in class action lawsuits. Likewise, the schools, churches and hotels are all liable because the problems are well documented and because some organizations like UC have already taken the step of requiring a class B license. A good argument can be made that not requiring a bus driver’s license of the employees who drive these things is in fact negligence. Legal discovery would probably uncover internal emails and memos discussing the possibility but choosing not to go with it for cost reasons. Show that the the jury deciding who is to blame for 14 children being at the bottom of a river and the case is done.
RobertSD :
June 18th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
15-passenger van safety is not much different from SUV safety: if the driver is competent, everyone will be ok. The problem is these church groups or boy scout troops or day care centers load 14 people into the van and let someone who can barely maneuver a Civic without bumping into something drive this behemoth of a van whose handling is much worse and whose propensity to stay on all four wheels is lower than any other vehicle on the road. I’ve never heard of a crash with these types of vehicles where the driver wasn’t speeding or trying to do a maneuver that was an over-reaction to a situation – it’s always driver error, ultimately.
IMO you are generalizing a bit too much. A good friend and roommate in college used to drive his churches van precisely because he had a commercial license with just about every endorsement under the sun(as he put it, he had a license to drive everything but a helicopter). The only other two people that I’ve known to drive these vans on a regular basis were bus drivers during the week. It may be true of businesses like hotels and the such, but I think a better generalization is that Churches and other non-profit types that use these vans take the safety of the van’s passengers very seriously and use the best drivers that they can get. Maybe the accidents occur when these vans are driven by inexperienced drivers, but the only personal knowledge that I have has been the people driving these vans are typically very experienced drivers.
As anybody who knows me could tell you, I think the government is the last institution you want fixing a problem, but to say that these vans are safe as compared to other vehicles on the road is ignoring the higher accident rate and the inherent instability of the vehicles.
“Ever ridden in a modern Minivan (Odyssey comes to mind)? Very easy to drive, next to impossible to flip. Sure, they can’t tow much… or at all.. but why not take this model as a template? Stretch the wheels out, widen the track, strengthen the unibody platform to be safe for 15 passengers (put in a stronger engine), an you have a relatively safe (and Comfortable) people mover.”
The Odyssey is based off a CAR. So no wonder it drives like a car. If your idea of building a 15 passenger blow up of the Odyssey was feasible, then Honda would’ve done it. Same for any other maker.
I’m fully aware of what the Odyssey is based off of. But just because they HAVEN’T doesn’t mean they CAN’T, so never use that as an excuse.
We all know damn well that there are plenty of cars that manufacturers CAN make but DON’T because of perceived lack of profit. Maybe Honda chose to stay OUT of the 15-passenger market for other reasons, who knows.
My use of the Odyssey was purely as an example of a current platform (5-seater) being modified into a comfortable, safe, profitable 8-seater platform with a hella-lot of interior space. And whose to say that a manufacturer CAN’T stretch this platform even farther? Or offer a 15-passenger unibody? Give me some actual proof that this is physically impossible to do safely and I’ll agree. But I still say the only reason 15-passengers are on truck platforms is because its cheap & easy to roll out (and allows for towing).
It’s been a known problem and a hidden, unspoken secret for a long time:
http://www.vanangels.org/