Rollover: the hidden history of the SUV

By: PBS press release

Date: Thursday, 04. January 2007

They're the most popular "cars" on the road.

Big yet sporty. Rugged yet luxurious. And so sought after by consumers that one in every four new cars sold in America today is a sport utility vehicle.

Read more articles about SUVs: Sport f/utility?New emissions regulations may reduce production of SUVs, but the author suggests that rising fuel prices, awareness of reduced safety, and guilt may slow sales, too. SUVs--not so tough, not so ruggedNew crash tests show a little bump could cost a lot of money, depending on which SUV you buy.

The SUV has been credited with single-handedly saving the U.S. auto industry, with some manufacturers making up to $15,000 in profits on every SUV that rolls off the assembly line. But the SUV has a serious safety problem that has put the public at risk: its tendency to roll over.

How did a vehicle with such a serious safety problem become so popular? How much did automakers know about the SUV's rollover record? And why didn't the federal government do more to protect American drivers?

These are some of the questions Frontline explored in "Rollover: The Hidden History of the SUV," which originally aired February 21, 2002 on PBS.

12,000 deaths

More than 12,000 people have been killed in SUV rollovers since the first SUV hit the road nearly two decades ago. Yet Congress ignored the dangers of SUVs until the fall of 2000, when it began a series of hearings that focused solely on deaths and injuries related to faulty Firestone tires mounted on Ford Explorers. Nearly forty times as many people have died in SUV accidents unrelated to tire failure.

"The Firestone deaths are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problems with sport utility vehicles," says Keith Bradsher, former Detroit Bureau Chief for The New York Times. "There's a lot bigger problem out there that people aren't really paying attention to."

Through interviews with federal auto safety regulators, auto industry figures, policymakers and observers, Frontline investigates the hidden story behind the staggering number of SUV rollover accidents and examines the regulatory free ride that the SUV has enjoyed. The documentary also explores how auto industry opposition and a political commitment to deregulation kept regulators from issuing rollover rules and, at the same time, protected the SUV from fuel efficiency standards.

"Detroit has practically gone to political war to protect the cash cow that is the SUV because it is the thing that is generating most of the money for the auto industry," says Daniel Becker, director of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program.

"Rollover" traces the origins of the SUV to the efforts of U.S. automakers to circumvent "CAF," the stringent fuel economy laws of the 1970s that sent Detroit into a tailspin. Because light trucks were exempt from the tough new standards, U.S. automakers came up with the idea of putting the body of a passenger car on a truck frame.

Thus was born the SUV

"When the law was passed, light trucks were used for hauling hay to the market and the silo," Becker tells Frontline. "But today, they're used for hauling lattes home from Starbucks."

The new vehicles caught on big. But there was a downside to the love affair: Because SUVs were tall and relatively narrow, they had an alarming tendency to roll over--sometimes at speeds as low as 20 miles per hour. And Detroit knew it. Frontline focuses on perennial SUV market leader Ford, and uses internal corporate documents, federal regulatory deliberations, and filings from lawsuits to tell the story.

"Rollover" includes footage of a lawsuit deposition in which a Ford engineer reveals that his company knew its first big-selling SUV, the Bronco II, was killing people in rollovers much more often than other SUVs. What's more, the rollover problem had actually been discovered in early road tests conducted prior to the Bronco II's release.

To address the problem, Ford engineers recommended lowering the vehicle's center of gravity and widening its track by two inches to increase its stability. Doing so, however, would have delayed production and pushed back the vehicle's release date--a decision that would have been extremely costly. Ford executives opted not to make the design change.

"There was nobody working at Ford Motor Company that had the courage to knock on the chairman and chief executive's door and say By the way, we need another eighteen months," says Tab Turner, an attorney who has handled hundreds of SUV rollover lawsuits. "Nobody was going to do that."

The same dilemma would confront Ford Motor Company several years later, when a highly negative Consumer Reports review of the Bronco II threatened to sabotage the debut of what would eventually become the world's best-selling SUV: the Ford Explorer. When the Explorer's prototype exhibited the same rollover problem in test runs as the Bronco II, engineers once again proposed lowering the vehicle's center of gravity and widening its track. Again, company executives opted for less costly modifications.

"They came to a fork in the road," Turner says. "Do we fix this vehicle and take the time to do it right and save lives? Or do we go in this direction and cosmetically fix the vehicle? They chose to cosmetically fix the vehicle instead of really fixing the vehicle."

Ford marketing consultant Martin Goldfarb tells Frontline that such criticism of Ford executives is unfair. "The reality is that there are choices to make," Goldfarb says. "[Ford] wanted to produce a product that would sell to this segment of the market at this price point. You couldn't put everything in it that you want. Something had to come out. And management has to make those choices."

Frontline sought interviews with then Ford president Don Petersen and Explorer project manager, Roger Simpson, both of whom declined to talk to Frontline. But in a court deposition, Simpson testified that the company was concerned about the cost of making engineering changes that "did not offer that much improvement to the vehicle."

Rising death toll not investigated

"Rollover" also examines why the SUV rollover problem and rising death toll weren't investigated more forcefully by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency charged with overseeing auto safety standards. The program interviews a number of former NHTSA engineers, officials and observers, who claim that the agency's public safety mandate was compromised by the Reagan and first Bush administrations commitment to deregulation and their desire to boost the American auto industry.

A case in point: NHTSA's refusal in 1990 to order a recall of the Bronco II.

"The Bronco II was the big investigation," says Joan Claybrook, NHTSA Administrator under President Carter and a critic of the agency's later handling of the SUV issue during the 1980s and 1990s. "It was the bad actor, and when [NHTSA] refused to do a recall of that vehicle it gave a pass to every other SUV. It essentially sent a message to Detroit: You can make your SUV as rollover-prone as you want to."

But General Jerry Curry, NHTSA director under George H.W. Bush, counters that it is all a matter of consumer choice. "I like to go off-road where I live, and I think people like me want that kind of vehicle," Curry tells Frontline. "Should I have the right to buy that vehicle? Absolutely. Should the manufacturers then make than kind of vehicle? Yes. Is it more dangerous than a vehicle that is lower and wider? Yes. I'll take the tradeoff."

Live, on-camera crash

"Rollover" concludes on an ironic note: Outside the Texas State Capitol, Frontline is interviewing the organizer of a group of parent activists whose children were killed in SUV rollovers, when a loud crash is heard. As the cameras roll, viewers watch as rescue workers attempt to free a female driver from her overturned SUV.

Access the "Rollover" web site for more on this report, including:

• A summary of the SUV's history, focusing on regulatory efforts to ensure safety;

• Special reports including rare audiotapes of secret meetings and memos during the Nixon administration between White House officials and auto industry executives;

• Frequently Asked Questions: some of the most common questions asked about SUVs;

• Tips for consumers: up-to-date information for SUV owners and prospective buyers.

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