Automotive Defect: Rollover Stability
2009 March 2
“Stability,” in the automotive product liability context, is the likelihood that a car will rollover. This is a product of factors such as center of gravity and width of wheel-base. Vehicles that are flat and low to the ground are more stable and less prone to rolling over than a vehicle with a high center of gravity. As is probably clear to all readers, the stability of SUVs, truck and vans is more often an issue than with passenger cars.
There are many safer alternative designs available to make vehicles more stable. First, by improving a vehicle’s handling, you increase the likelihood that a vehicle will stay on all four wheels. ESC, electronic stability control, is a groundbreaking technology that significantly increases a driver’s ability to keep a vehicle under control in a variety of driving situations. A vehicle with a lower center of gravity and wider wheel-base is necessarily more stable and less likely to roll. Some luxury SUVs have attempted to lower the center of gravity by mounting the engine lower in the vehicle.
Vehicles should be designed such that they do not roll over under foreseeable accident and avoidance situations. In 2004, 33% of passenger vehicle occupant fatalities were in vehicles that rolled over. The stability of SUVs and subsequent rollovers was a widely covered subject in the last fifteen years. While vehicles have continued to improve their stability characteristics, the automotive industry has a long way to go to ensuring that vehicles do not roll over.
