Danger of Seat Belt Failures in Rollover Accidents

In the 1960’s, the federal government established the first standards for safety belts in motor vehicles. At the time, rollover crashes were a small subset of crashes. Today, rollover fatalities involving vehicles account for 10,600 deaths, fully a third of all occupant deaths.

The number of rollover accidents has increased as more light trucks, SUVs and pickup trucks are sold. Light trucks, which are more prone to roll over than cars because of their higher centers of gravity, now account for more than half of all new vehicles sold.

Current Designs of Seat Beats Reportedly Inadequate In Rollover Crashes

To counter evidence and criticism of the design of SUVs and pickup truck as posing too great a risk of a rolling over, automakers regularly claim that the drivers and passengers killed in rollovers died because they are not wearing seat belts, even though seat belt use is at historic high levels.

An analysis of government safety data and accident reports by the consumer protection group Public Citizen shows that this is not true. Almost 2,000 of the over 10,000 persons that died in rollover accidents were wearing their seat belts. About 1,000 of these persons were partially or fully ejected from the vehicle.

The primary benefit of a seat belt in rollovers is to prevent ejection. Yet, in almost 20% of rollover accidents seat belts fail to perform as expected. In SUV accidents where the SUV rolled over and the roof crushed, almost half of all deaths and injuries occurred to persons wearing seat belts.

Lack of Sufficient Government Regulation

In its analysis, Public Citizen observed that there has never been a federal requirement that automakers test their seat belts to find out how they perform in rollovers. As stated by Joan Claybrook, who headed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 1977 to 1981, "Seat belts simply are not doing enough to protect vehicle occupants in rollover crashes. Ejection while wearing a seat belt should happen rarely, if at all."  Claybrook added, "The fact is that rollovers not only are largely preventable through design changes, they also should be highly survivable, because the forces involved are generally much lower than in other types of collisions. Seat structures are not designed to keep occupants in place during a rollover, and vehicle roofs are so weak that they collapse, crushing the heads and spines of occupants. As a result of collapsing roofs, windshields and side windows break, providing ejection portals and further weakening the roof and side structures. And finally, outdated, inadequate belt systems fail."

SerIous injuries or death can result from:

• Seat belt buckles that inertially unlatch during a rollover accident
• Shoulder belts that allows too much slack (window shade seat belt design)
• Automatic or door mounted seatbelts that can cause serious injuries and death if a door opens during a rollover, overturn or collision
• Shoulder belt retractors that skip or fail to hold under load
• Shoulder only belt strangulations (clothes line effect) and neck and spinal injuries
• Lap only seat belts in rear seat and center seating positions of many vehicles