SUV Slam: NHTSA Boss Blasts Utes

2002 Dodge Durango SLT

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Auto manufacturers, led by General Motors Corp., were once again trying to contain the damage from a fresh assault on sport-utility vehicles last week, this one led by the Bush administration's auto safety czar.

Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge, an emergency room physician who is serving as administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, stunned vehicle makers by serving up a strongly worded denunciation of SUVs during an appearance at the Automotive News World Congress, an annual industry gathering where people from around the car business exchange views, gossip and opinions.
In his speech, Runge rolled out some new numbers that challenged the notion that driving sport-utility vehicles offered more protection in an accident than a garden-variety passenger car.
"There are about 10,000 fatalities in all rollover crashes each year. Rollover crashes represent 3 percent of all collisions yet account for 32 percent of occupant fatalities," Runge said in his speech. "Moreover, fatalities in single-vehicle rollovers increased 22.3 percent and they now account for 8,400 fatalities," he added. The rollover occupant fatality rate per registered 100,000 registered SUVs is about three times higher than it is for passenger cars, Runge noted.

A second look

Statistics are open to interpretation, however, and GM quickly challenged Runge's reading of the data in its own statement the next day.

"According to real-world government crash data, compiled by the NHTSA, SUVs are two to three times more protective of their occupants in frontal, rear and side-impact crashes that make up 97.5 percent of all crashes. The major reason for fatalities in rollovers, which represent only 2.5 percent of all crashes, is due to a lack of seat belt use," noted Jay Cooney, a GM spokesman, as he delivered the company's rebuttal.

GM also said 72 percent of those killed in fatal rollover crashes were not using safety belts. "Since Americans began buying SUVs in record numbers in the 1980s, sales of these versatile vehicles skyrocketed more than 600 percent. During this sales boom, the nation's fatality rate (fatality rate based on vehicle miles of travel) on America's roads dropped by more than 50 percent," added Cooney.

"According to the NHTSA's own factual data, SUVs are among the safest vehicles on the road and have contributed to the dramatic decline in the nation's fatality rate over the last decade," said Jay Cooney, a spokesman for General Motors.

Adrian Lund of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), however, said Runge basically used information that had been available to anyone who had studied the data on highway crashes. The tendency of SUVs and pickup trucks to roll over is a fact of life, Lund said.

Making his case

Runge, however, went beyond simply laying out a statistical case suggesting that SUVs aren't as safe as many buyers think. During the question and answer period and in subsequent interviews, he also told his audience that the teenagers with new driver's licenses are especially at risk in SUVs because of their quirky handling characteristics and tendency to rollover. "I would not put an inexperienced driver in a high, center-of-gravity vehicle (such as an SUV or pickup truck)," Runge told the audience of professionals and managers from automotive-oriented businesses from all over the country. At another point, Runge suggested that he wouldn't ride in some SUVs even "if they were the last vehicle on earth."

Runge also said wider use of seat belts would certainly cut the death rate on American highways, but added that ultimately, the Bush administration may have to demand tougher vehicle-safety standards if the automakers don't do more to make SUVs safer, he indicated. The NHTSA administrator cited the need for tougher roof crush standards and a standard for the deployment of side-impact air bags that some manufacturers have begun to install in SUVs and other vehicles.

By the time he was finished, Runge had emerged as top-rung a SUV basher, which dismayed the manufacturers who had counted on the pro-business Bush administration to look after their interests and their profit margins. In making his argument, Runge may also have set the stage for dozens of additional court battles over SUV safety.

Huff from Arianna

Only the week before, the SUV’s relative inefficiency had been made a target by the Detroit Project, which has taken to running ads on television around the country accusing the automakers and SUV owners of supporting terrorists. The ads suggest that by using fuel made from imported Middle Eastern oil, American’s gas money trickles out into terrorist cells.

Even as Runge was delivering his talk in Dearborn, speech writers were going over last-minute revisions in a speech that was delivered by GM Vice Chairman Robert Lutz, labeling the SUV slam as a stretch and absurd.

Ford and the Chrysler Group maintained a low profile as the dispute bubbled up. Ford issued a mild statement, emphasizing it was eager to work with the government on all safety-related issues. "He must have been talking about somebody else's SUVs " said Wolfgang Bernhard, chief operating officer of DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group, when asked about Runge's comments.

"Why don't they go ask Toyota about SUVs?" added another frustrated Chrysler official, who suggested that all SUV defenders can do is keep up hope that the anti-SUV storm blows itself out in the face of consumer indifference.