Automotive News [sub] dutifully reports that the auto industry's lobbying group are arguing that proposals to strengthen vehicle roofs conflict with recently-increased CAFE standards. [Never mind the fact that heavier lids are dubious from a safety point of view.] In testimony before the Senate, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers' shills argued that roof-strengthening measure sought by safety advocates could hurt the fuel economy of large pickups and SUVs by up to ten percent. But since CAFE increases (along with those crazy gas prices) basically herald the demise of mainstream "large pickup and SUV" ownership, it seems that the AAM is barking up the wrong tree. Meanwhile, lawmakers are playing-up to telegenic emotional outbursts from "victims" of "heartless car companies" during their public hearings. While all of us know someone who's been killed or seriously injured in a car accident, automotive regulations should be based on proper scientific analysis of the full implications of existing and proposed regulations– research into which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration excels. Those who criticize NHTSA's new roof crush standards– requiring roofs to support 2.5 times the vehicle's weight (up from the current 1.5 times)– should consider the possibility that not all government agencies work against the public interest. Besides, if this is such a serious problem, why are convertibles still exempt from ALL roof crush standards?
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Well, if vehicles had less propensity to roll and less mass-to-height, this wouldn’t be such an issue, would it? We sold a lot of vehicles with poor dynamics to people who weren’t able to handle them. A whole generation of people who learned in front-drive unibody sedans and wagons were suddenly riding on low-adhesion tires, jacked eight inches into the air and dealing with a suspension designed for load-bearing rather than body control.
This, the sales slump and the pain of gas price increases; they’re all the hangover from the SUV binge. And what a hangover it is…
Well said Edward; this deserves a well-written editorial in addition, I think.
Rollover propensity and roof strength affect the occupants of the vehicle in question more than the occupants of other vehicles on the road. Thus I would be in favor of having less strict requirements but the government just forming a summary of the safety (or lack thereof) of the vehicles. After all, the occupants of the vehicle in question can always choose not to ride in that vehicle whereas the occupants in other vehicles have no choice about when that vehicle goes down the road.
That said, if light trucks were lowered by an inch, the improved aerodynamics could overcome any weight-gain fuel economy decline and the lower center of gravity would more than offset adding all that extra weight to the top of the vehicle.
There are two ways to attack this problem, aren’t there? Let’s see, you need to make the roofs sturdy enough to hold 250% of the vehicle’s weight. Ok, we’ll make the roof heavier. Or, wait a minute, I’m thinking, gee, what CAN we do?
How about reducing the vehicle’s weight overall?
Most buyers of truck-based vehicles don’t have a clue that the roof crush standards are so feeble. Their salesman probably made a big deal about how heavy the frame rails were, but that’s little consolation when they’re sitting on top of you.
Maybe this is a little late in the day, given the sad history of the 20th Century, the New Deal, the Great Society, etc, but some of us who
‘criticize’ government regulations do so out of principle.
It’s not that we don’t ‘consider the possibility that not all government agencies work against the public interest.’
But mandating specific roof strengths of highway vehicles (and B-vitamins in bread, and a billion other things)is not something the Constitution authorizes the U.S. Government to do, hence it can’t Constitutionally do it:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
– the 10th amendment, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution
This is news?
The 1967 Volvo 144 had a structure that would support SIX TIMES its own weight.
And Volvo proved it:
http://www.cabinnaise.com/vpage/stack.jpg
I hear you, powerglade. So you’d leave auto safety up to the states? Including California? That’s the worst nightmare of any automaker or big business, having to build products to meet multiple different standards. That’s why they endorse having a federal standard that supercedes any others. Meanwhile, other nations with large car markets are setting standards of their own. Don’t we want American products to be competitive overseas?
In a purely “free market,” we’ll each on our own to assess products and their risks. But how would you assess rollover strangth & safety? That activity isn’t part of many new-car test drives. You can’t take the car to a welder and have him cut through the pillars to see what’s inside. What’s your personal criteria for safety here?
Common sense tell us that it’s impossible for a buyer to assess vehicle roof strength. We’ll all better off for having strong standards in place. If you feel differently, you can always drive a convertible.
How about reducing the vehicle’s weight overall?
Reducing a vehicle’s overall weight won’t solve the problem. It’s not like the a roof is going to cave just from it’s weight. It needs to retain its form during the impact (and possible repeated impacts depending on how many times the vehicle rolls). For that you need a stronger frame with better reinforcing, which means a heavier car, which kills fuel economy.
It’s why it takes a batteryload of technology for a Toyota Prius to match the fuel economy of a Geo Metro.
Let CAFE make rollover regulations impossible to meet. Make it so only cars can pass. I won’t cry.
(all the usual disclaimers about not meaning that literally and not looking to start a fight with truck lovers etc. etc.)
To Quasimodo; reduce the weight of everything below the roof, and you reduce the rollover loads demanded of the roof itself. You can only go so far in this dorection, of course. I was just making the point that there’s two ways to rebalance the simple 1:2.5 ratio that’s the basis of the standard.
Check out this short video, subtitled “nasty roll over.” http://youtube.com/watch?v=PFgIzPSsFJM
You’ll see that the racing car loses a wheel and pole vaults onto its roof in a corner. Amazingly, there’s almost no roof deformation. I’m sure there’s a roll cage inside, but probably not a heavy one. The key thing is, the car weighed only 1,400 lbs. I know, because I drove one for ten years, happily and upright.
My point remains: the roof doesn’t have to be quite so massive if the entire car is lightened appropriately.
I actually witnessed a GMT900 Tahoe somersault three or four times as the yahoo who stole it was trying to get away from the cops. I assumed there would be a lot of damage but, in fact, there wasn’t. The whole greenhouse looked undamaged, actually. Like a cat it landed wheels down, but who knows how the roof would have fared otherwise. Unfortunately, the Darwin Award candidates inside survived.
Methinks if the feds would insist on a higher level of driver training rather than adding more steel to already obese vehicles, besides being cheaper and faster to implement, that would go a longer way to solving whatever the sky-is-falling insurance industry is fretting over this time.
Wheatridger,
Thanks for showing us that video. That was truly educational.
David
If there’s any place our cars need more steel, I’d like mine overhead, please. But a stronger roof doesn’t necessarily mean a heavier roof. It might mean more (expensive) high-strength steel in selected locations. It might mean (sadly) less heavy glass in big sunroofs, or thicker pillars. Problem is, even with thick-pillared cars, we have no way of knowing how much structure their roofs contain, under the trim. And without a strong rollover roof safety regulation, carmakers have the incentive to skimp in this key area.
That little NSU just hops upside down like a toy car, doesn’t it? Not much mass at play there. Likewise, I bet the SMART cars meet the stronger roof crush standards.
Once again passive safety first. How about a rating giving the rollover risk/resistance of a car (well, we’re really mostly talking high center of gravity SUVs here…)? This kinda reminds me of all the 15 person van rollovers that kill all the occupants. What’s the government doing about that? Oh yeah, nothing more than issuing “advisories”.
The rollover issue is an issue more of high center of gravity vehicles than anything else. The smart thing to do is not by a truck when you need a car. I say, make a rating for likelyhood of rollover and crashworthiness in a rollover, and put it on the sticker with the gas mileage that’s in all the new cars. If people know the risk they will avoid the worst vehicles.
What’s so hard about putting a couple of lightweight alloy roll bars in, or as part of, the A and B pillars? I would think that would provide the necessary support, but still be fairly lightweight. Of course, vehicle cost would go up, but that’s going to happen anyway.
In “High and Mighty” Keith Bradsher talks about how a significant % of occupant deaths in light trucks are from rollovers.
In the same book he offers up the general formula that measures a vehicles “tippy-ness”. When you plus the wheelbase and center of mass of the 1st generation Ford explorer it is a big red flag.
Interestingly he notes that the Jeep Cherokee looks bad on paper but has a much lower incidence of rollover deaths than the model would indicate.
I say set the standard on a sliding scale based on the roll over likely hood. 5Xs weight at one end with the existing 2X on the other end of the spectrum.
The IIHS requirement of ESC on a vehicle to get its highest rating is their attempt to address this very issue — using the existing technology to prevent the rollover in the first place. Of course, they’ll still happen, so it’s a ‘stopgap’ measure until gov’t and automakers can get their act together.
Wheatridger :
In case you stop back by here, your technical points all well taken, also the bit about potentially 50 different state standards.
But:
1) Independent organizations, whether something like the SAE or UL, or even Consumer Reports, can do testing and rate safety of autos.
2) ONE state may decide to regulate, and so set a standard, so that once a vehicle meets that standard, it can be advertised as such as a selling point. Baked goods for decades have borne the label, “REG. PENNA. DEPT. AGR.” meaning that Pennsylvania inspects the company’s plant, operations for cleanliness, etc.
Given mass-production efficiencies, this could even be a foreign government, like the ‘CE’ designation on the bottom of your pocket calculator, indicating that it meets EU standards.
3) If, despite all this, U.S. Government regulation seems not only overwhelmingly compelling, but unavoidable, fine: but so amend the Constitution first.
I’m not sure anyone is better off if, say, it’s France or North Dakota who sets the safety standards. Their politicians aren’t answerable to me or to you. And though a constitutional lawyer could say it better, there’s a long, firm legal precedent for Washington to regulate “interstate commerce,” and auto manufacturing certainly meets that category.
I’m not crazy about “big government,” but in an age of multinational, megabillion-dollar corporations, it just takes a big public entity to watch over them, IMHO.
Wheatridger :
Sorely tempted to let you have the last word, on account of your intelligence and dignity, but here goes anyway:
“I’m not sure anyone is better off if, say, it’s France or North Dakota who sets the safety standards.”
It might be a lot worse. I wasn’t looking at whether we would be ‘better off’ under my proposed scheme of regulation. I was confining my comments to what is Constitutional.
We can’t have the U.S. Government–thousands upon thousands of armed men, women–sweeping down upon people’s homes, farms, businesses without their actions having been authorized by the Constitution.
“there’s a long, firm legal precedent for Washington to regulate “interstate commerce,”
(1) Yes, the Government can regulate interstate commerce. It doesn’t say they should.
(2) much of the Supreme Court’s holding, the precedents you mention, on these cases has been not only wrong, but deliberately wrong, in the interest of building up big government.
Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
especially this part:
—
“The Court’s decision”
“The intended rationale of the Agricultural Adjustment Act is to stabilize the price of wheat on the national market…Filburn argued that since the excess wheat he produced was intended solely for home consumption it could not be regulated through the interstate commerce clause.
“The Supreme Court rejected this argument reasoning that if Filburn had not used home-grown wheat, he would have had to buy wheat on the open market.
“This effect on interstate commerce, the Court reasoned, may not be substantial from the actions of Filburn alone but through the cumulative actions of thousands of other farmers just like Filburn its effect would certainly become substantial.
“Therefore Congress could regulate wholly intrastate, non-commercial activity if such activity, viewed in the aggregate, would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, even if the individual effects are trivial.”
—
If the Interstate Commerce Clause means they can keep you from growing not marijuana, but wheat, on your own land, for your own consumption, than it can mean anything.
And ‘anything’ is not what the Founders gave their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor for.
Check out:
http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Dozen-Radically-Expanded-Government/dp/1595230505
“in an age of multinational, megabillion-dollar corporations, it just takes a big public entity to watch over them”
Sure, a public entity is needed, at Federal, State, City and County levels. Only they must follow the Constitution.