Vehicle Roof Crush Standards Increased

Each year over 10,000 people are killed from rollover crashes or accidents. Many of these deaths are attributable to the weak roof of the vehicle caving in and crushing the occupants. The current NHTSA roof crush standard requires that a vehicle withstand 1.5 times the weight of the vehicle, applied to one side of the roof, for "light vehicles" up to 6,000 pounds in weight. Anyone who has seen this test can tell you how useless it is. Literally, a large metal plate is placed against the roof and slowly pressed against the roof up to the required testing limit. This is what is called a static test. This test fails, in my opinion, and many others, to adequately duplicate a real world rollover event where a vehicle can be traveling at anywhere from 15 to 60+ miles per hour when it suddenly flips and lands on its roof--a dynamic event, requiring a dynamic test. This roof standard has been in force since 1971 and has been heavily criticized in recent years.

The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) has passed a new rule specifying that both the driver and passenger sides of the roof must be capable of withstanding a force equal to 3 times the weight of the vehicle. Heavier vehicles (6,000 to 10,000) must now have both sides of the roof capable of withstanding a force equal to 1.5 times the weight of the vehicle. The phase in schedule begins in September 2012. While the increased weight limits are much needed, as was the testing to both sides of the roof, this still remains a static test and does not duplicate the forces applied to a roof as it is crashing to the ground in a real world rollover event. A step in the right direction but still woefully inadequate to protect the consumer.