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July 2004 NEWS UPDATE: Suzuki and Consumers Union Agree
on Dismissal of Lawsuit
We want to thank our readers who have supported Consumers Union throughout the
course of this litigation. The case has been dismissed by joint agreement, and
it cannot be re-filed. We no longer suggest that you write to Suzuki or General
Motors about the case. CU continues to stand fully behind its testing and report
on the Samurai, has issued no retraction or correction, and has paid nothing
to Suzuki. Click on this link to see the full text of the Joint
Public Statement announcing the resolution of the case.
Statement of
R. DAVID PITTLE, Ph.D.
Senior Vice-President, Technical Policy
CONSUMERS UNION
(1)
Before the
SENATE COMMITTEE
ON
COMMERCE, SCIENCE, and TRANSPORTATION
Washington, D.C.
February 26, 2003
Mr. Chairman, distinguished members
of the Committee, good morning. My name is David Pittle, and I am Senior Vice-President
for Technical Policy at Consumers Union (CU), the publisher of Consumer Reports.
We appreciate the opportunity to testify at this hearing to discuss the safety
risks of sport utility vehicles. With me are David Champion, Director of Consumers
Union's 327-acre Auto Test Center in Connecticut, and Sally Greenberg, CU's
Senior Product Safety Counsel here in Washington.
Each year, CU conducts comprehensive tests of some 40 to 50 new vehicles, which
we buy anonymously at retail. We provide consumers with objective comparative
ratings about performance, routine handling, fuel efficiency, comfort, braking,
emergency handling, and safety features of these vehicles. We don't take outside
advertising. Our only interest is to provide consumers with unbiased test information.
Each month, an estimated 17 million consumers read and consider our published
test reports, including product ratings and buying advice, as they ponder their
choices.
Since our inception in 1936, auto safety has been an overriding concern for
CU. For more than a decade now, surveys have shown that auto safety has become
a top priority for the car-buying public as well. We have learned from more
than six decades of conducting unbiased laboratory and consumer use tests that,
generally speaking, competing products that look alike do not always act alike.
This principle holds true for motor vehicles.
Undisputedly, auto safety is a matter of high national importance, affecting,
as it does, virtually everyone in the country, both in their personal and work
lives. The American consumer relies on NHTSA to set adequate safety standards
where necessary and to insure that automotive products offered for sale meet
those safety standards. If a product is found to be unsafe, it must be recalled
promptly and effectively. As charged by Congress, NHTSA has the unique authority
and the clear mandate to protect the public from unreasonable automotive hazards-hazards
often not seen, not measured, and not understood by the average consumer. In
short, NHTSA is the only entity empowered by federal law that can block unsafe
vehicles from the marketplace. Ideally, as a safety agency, its only client
should be the consumer. As I will discuss, for too long it has not acted assertively
to fulfill this role.
With the committee's help, this can change. Consumers need Congress to insure
that NHTSA has the authority and the resources it needs to protect the public
in a timely manner from unreasonable risks. Congressional oversight must also
insure that the agency is properly fulfilling its public safety mandate. Congress
needs to insulate the agency from inappropriate industry pressures so that important
safety regulations are not derailed whenever the industry voices objections.
Auto safety is not a political issue. When someone is injured or killed in a
motor vehicle, the pain and grief felt by those consumers and their families
is the same regardless of which party is in power or who occupies the White
House. Whenever a pattern of unreasonable or preventable injuries occurs, NHTSA
must be able to act quickly and decisively-based on the merits of its approach
to reducing risks, not on politics or industry pressure.
That is why we are here today. We believe that the pattern of injuries and deaths
associated with many of the SUVs on the road today is unreasonable and should
be greatly reduced. We also believe the potential solutions are economically
and technologically feasible. Implementing those solutions will take strong
leadership-leadership from this committee and strong leadership at the highest
levels of NHTSA.
We applaud the bold and very refreshing approach taken by the new NHTSA Administrator,
Jeffrey Runge. He is using the leadership of his office to express his informed
views on the unreasonable risks associated with certain sport utility vehicles.
In so doing, Dr. Runge, whose decades of work as an emergency room physician
provided him ample exposure to automobile related injuries and deaths, has enhanced
the fast-growing debate on SUVs by placing the public's safety at an appropriately
high level. The all-important question remains: How far will Dr. Runge's approach
go towards improving the safety of SUVs, and will it occur in a timely manner?
I will return to these questions in a few moments.
Consumer Union has long been concerned with the rollover propensity of SUVs,
and in recent years with SUV aggressivity. In the November 2002 issue of Consumer
Reports, in which we rated a group of full-sized SUVs, we offered our readers
the following advice:
There are good reasons not to buy a large, full-sized sport utility: They are
gas gluttons, create excessive pollution, handle ponderously, and as a class
SUVs tend to roll over more easily than passenger cars. Full-sized SUVs can
be hard to park and difficult to climb into and out of. And higher, heavier
SUVs inflict excessive damage to cars in collisions. For most people, there
are better choices.
Consumer Reports does not dictate what consumers should buy. We recognize and
believe that consumer choice is the cornerstone of our consumer marketplace.
Indeed, to meet consumer demand for in-depth product information, we publish
annually a special issue on light trucks-which includes SUVs, minivans, pickups,
and even station wagons. Our advice, based on our own testing, on crash tests
by NHTSA and IIHS, on injury statistics, on market research, and other published
data makes clear in an objective manner the advantages and the disadvantages
of SUVs. The facts speak for themselves: Too many SUVs get very poor gas mileage,
produce greater air polluting emissions per mile traveled, roll over more easily
than other classes of vehicles, have large blind spots, and inflict excessive
damage on other vehicles in a crash.
These are not newly revealed facts. They have been written about and discussed
for many years. A major problem has been that the corrective force in the marketplace,
NHTSA, has not acted assertively to bring about the positive changes needed
to protect the public. And it's not that consumers have not wanted safer vehicles.
For example, a December 2002 J. D. Power survey found that safety continues
to be one of the top factors for consumers in the market for new cars. The J.
D. Power survey found that nine of the top 10 most desired features are safety
enhancing items, including features like vehicle stability control, external
surround sensing, adaptive headlight systems, tire pressure monitoring gauges,
anti-whiplash seats, and night vision systems topped the list.
FEDERAL ROLLOVER TESTS-TOO LONG
IN COMING
CU's efforts since 1988 to get NHTSA to either develop a minimum stability standard
for all vehicles or develop a dynamic rollover test for SUVs has been a long
and frustrating struggle. Preventing rollovers is critical because though rollovers
account for a small percentage of crashes overall, they are extremely dangerous
when they occur, leading to a disproportionately large number of fatalities.
SUVs have the highest rate of fatal crashes involving rollover.
According to NHTSA's 2000 report on vehicle fatalities, 9,882 people were killed
as occupants in light vehicle rollover crashes, representing 31% of the occupants
killed that year. Of those, 8,146 were killed in single-vehicle rollover crashes.
SUVs, because they are tall vehicles and have a higher center of gravity than
cars or minivans, are more prone to roll over. Statistics bear this out: in
1998, for example, while 10 % of cars and 10% of vans in single vehicle crashes
rolled over, 18% of pickups and 27% of SUVs rolled over in single vehicle crashes.
Some 36% of fatal SUV crashes involved rollovers, compared to only 15% in cars.
According to NHTSA's 2000 fatality data, passenger vehicle deaths in rollover
crashes declined slightly from 10,133 to 10,108 in 2000. However, for occupants
of sport utility vehicles, rollover deaths increased 2.8% from 1,898 in 1999
to 1951 in 2000.
CU's first experience with rollover began on our test track in 1988. While testing
the emergency handling of a group of SUVs, the Suzuki Samurai tipped up suddenly
and severely. Based on our repeated testing, including a second sample of the
Samurai, we rated the Samurai Not Acceptable. Since 1988, we have evaluated
the emergency handling of 134 SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks and found several
models that tipped up severely in those tests and were rated Not Acceptable:
the 1995-96 Isuzu Trooper, the 1996 Acura SLX, and the 2001 Mitsubishi Montero
Limited.(2) Several other SUVs were rated Poor
in emergency handling: 1989 Ford Bronco II, the 1998 Chevrolet Blazer, the 2000
Toyota Landcriuser.
Based on our testing in 1988, we petitioned NHTSA to develop a minimum stability
standard for all vehicles. NHTSA granted the petition in 1988 but ceased work
in 1994, stating that setting a standard for vehicle stability would be too
expensive because manufacturers would have to redesign their vehicles. Based
on our testing in 1996, we petitioned NHTSA again, this time to develop a test
for assessing the emergency handling and stability of SUVs, to test new models
using such a test, and to make the results available to consumers. The agency
granted that petition in 1997, but it ended up proposing not a dynamic test
but rather the Static Stability Factor in 2000 as the measure for a vehicle's
rollover resistance, much to our surprise and our disappointment.
Which brings us to the critical role played by Congress. In response to the
notorious Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall controversy, the TREAD act (Transportation
Recall Enforcement, Accountability, and Documentation Act), spearheaded by this
Commerce Committee, passed Congress unanimously in 2000. NHTSA was directed
to develop a dynamic test for rollover, and based on what NHTSA proposed last
November, we are optimistic that they have been put on the right track. We believe
that consumers will be able to see rollover resistance ratings based on dynamic
tests of SUVs and other vehicles sometime this year. This rating system at long
last will enable consumers to make rational choices for the safety of their
families. There is no question that Congress played the decisive role in bringing
this about.
VEHICLE SIZE MATTERS
Largely fueled by extravagant industry advertising, consumers have come to believe
they are safer in SUVs. Indeed, the automakers have continued to defend SUVs
publicly by stating that a larger, heavier vehicle is safer for its occupants
than the occupants of a smaller, lighter vehicle in a crash. They promote this
message, despite the negative impact such larger vehicles may have on the occupants
of smaller vehicles in a crash-and despite data indicating that motorists are
not necessarily safer in SUVs than in cars. Researchers Marc Ross and Thomas
Wenzel, at the request of the Los Angeles Times, just this month updated a survey
they completed last March, finding that most mid-size and large cars are as
good or better than the average SUV at protecting their own drivers, and much
more protective of drivers than the average pickup. Further, Ross and Wenzel
found that SUVs have a higher combined risk than mid-size and large cars because
of the inordinate damage they can inflict on other motorists in crashes.
Further, the impact of the automotive size race is already seen in highway death
tolls, which have seen modest declines over the past 20 years but seem to be
stuck at about 42,000 per year for the past decade, despite the ubiquity of
safety features like air bags, seat belts, improved vehicle design in some cases,
and aggressive anti-drunk driving efforts in the states. One cannot help but
wonder how much lower the death rate would be if not for the greater aggressivity
of SUVs and pickup trucks in multi-vehicle crashes.
We also fear that the worst is yet to come. Older, larger, more aggressive SUVs
will soon be available on the second- and third-hand market in significant numbers,
where younger drivers-less experienced drivers with inherently higher accident
rates-will be able to afford them. One of the biggest SUVs on the road-the Ford
Expedition-weighing 5300 pounds, sold new in 1997 for $27-33,000. Today, the
same 5300 pound vehicle can be bought for a mere $9,000.
Researchers Tom Hollowell and Clark Gabler, in a report prepared for NHTSA and
delivered at a conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1997, found
that SUVs were nearly three times as likely as cars to kill other drivers in
a crash; they also found that when a car crashes into the side of another car,
the driver of the struck car is 6.6 times as likely to die as the driver of
the striking car. But when an SUV hits a car in the side, the driver of the
struck car is 30 times as likely to die.
CU believes that when it comes to affecting other people's health and safety,
none of us is completely free of responsibility. Just as we have decided as
a society not to permit smoking in most public buildings, workplaces, and restaurants
because of the ill effects on the health of our neighbors, we shouldn't encourage
consumers to drive vehicles that present unreasonable dangers to others.
Further, while every vehicle has blind spots, the problem is particularly severe
behind pickup trucks and SUVs and poses increasing danger, especially to small
children. While NHTSA should, but does not, keep these data on children injured
or killed in and around cars, a nonprofit safety group in California, KIDS 'N
CARS, does. It found that last year alone, a total of 58 small children were
backed over and killed, most often by their own parent in their own driveway
because they simply couldn't be seen.
CU's Auto Test Division recently measured the blind spots in trucks and SUVs
using cones the size of an average two year old to test the extent of this problem.
We found a 30 foot blind spot in back of pickup trucks, 14 feet in back of SUVs,
compared to only 10 feet for cars. To address this growing safety problem, as
the fleet becomes more dominated by SUVs and pickup trucks, we recommend that
Congress direct NHTSA to test backover warning devices and require them within
the next two years to be standard equipment in SUVs and pickup trucks. We think
these devices will not only save lives but also untold millions of dollars in
bumper and other property damage.
VEHICLE INCOMPATIBILITY AND ITS
IMPLICATION FOR SAFETY
What special safety risks do SUVs pose to cars? As Hollowell and Gabler's research
notes, the large differential in mass, stiffness, and geometry between cars
and SUVs and pickup trucks results in greater injury to car occupants when they
are hit by an SUV or pickup truck. Simply put, heavier, stiffer vehicles with
higher bumpers are a lethal menace to any passenger car they collide with.
According to a 1999 report from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS),
for every million registered cars weighing 3500 to 3,999, 45 deaths occur in
the other cars they collide with. For every million sport utility vehicles in
the same weight class, 76 deaths occur in the cars they collide with. The corresponding
rate for pickups is 87.
Front-to-side collisions between cars and sport utility vehicles or pickup trucks
are among the most deadly because the sides of cars don't offer nearly enough
protection against the high battering ram effect of an SUV or pickup truck.
Moreover, car doors don't provide the same level of protection that is built
into the crumple zone in the car's front end.
TO PROPERLY PROTECT PUBLIC SAFETY,
NHTSA MUST LEAD
When Dr. Runge began speaking out on his safety concerns about SUVs, the Alliance
of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM) and IIHS responded by meeting to discuss what
might be done to address the growing problem of more SUVs on the road with their
greater potential to injure or kill passengers in cars. After two days of meetings,
the two groups wrote to Dr. Runge, saying that the greatest danger to vehicle
occupants from incompatibility is in front-to-side crashes, and recommending
that the highest priority, "in the short term," should be placed on
enhancing "the protection for occupants inside the vehicles struck in the
side. Enhanced head protection is one obvious way to improve self protection
in side impacts."
The letter, in our opinion, sidesteps the major safety issue by stating that
"possible changes to front and side structures to improve compatibility
in front to side crashes also need to be explored. However, any specific recommendations
on how to implement structural changes are likely to occur in the longer term."
With 20 million SUVs on the roads today, we agree that greater protection for
vehicle occupants is critical. But we strongly disagree with the notion that
structural changes to SUVs should take a back seat to adding protective safety
features inside the struck vehicle, which is the gist of the IIHS/Alliance letter.
The problem all along has been that the auto industry has paid too little attention
to the safety of other motorists while they designed heavier, high stance SUVs.
The approach proposed by IIHS and the Alliance places the lion's share of responsibility
on passenger vehicle occupants to equip themselves with devices that protect
from a side collision by a higher, heavier vehicle. This program in essence
tells occupants of mid-size and small vehicles that they must worry about their
own safety-and virtually all but removes responsibility from manufacturers of
SUVs and pickup trucks to design more forgiving vehicles. We think this is one
step forward-but two steps backward.
CU believes that NHTSA should have asked Congress for funding to develop compatibility
crash tests between SUVs and cars in the mid-1990s, when it became clear that
SUVs and pickup trucks were becoming tremendously popular with consumers. Unfortunately,
no such test program emerged. Indeed, researchers for NHTSA and other organizations
have been concerned about the growing impact of vehicle incompatibility for
many years-first between large and small cars and more recently, between cars
and SUVs.(3) But it is not too late to start-consumers
buy more than three million new SUVs each year.
Congress should direct NHTSA to develop these crash tests, and based on those
results, NHTSA should begin to set standards to reduce safety risks posed by
vehicle incompatibility and SUV and pickup truck aggressivity. The public's
safety cannot rest upon industry self-regulation. Such efforts have not worked
well in the past, and it is highly unlikely it will lead to significant changes
now. These hazards have been recognized for several years, and little has been
done by the industry. The levels of redesign and change needed to reduce the
risks are significant-and not likely to flow voluntarily in such an environment.
Rather, the situation needs an agency with authority and an unyielding determination
to correct the problem-and a strong sense from Congress that anything less is
not acceptable.
Based on NHTSA's track record over the last two decades, we have come to believe
that the agency has too often had a blurred sense of mission. It was set up
to protect the consumer, but it has been a reluctant watchdog. The Bridgestone/Firestone
recall revealed all too clearly an agency that had long needed a strong sense
of direction. In that instance, Congress responded with an unambiguous message
in the TREAD Act. If not for Congress, there might never be dynamic tests for
rollover resistance; if not for Congress, there might not be an upgraded federal
tire standard; if not for Congress, there might not be an aggressive early warning
system for possible defects at NHTSA; if not for Congress, there might not be
an upgrading of child safety seats.
We are encouraged by Dr. Runge's public commitment to safety, but we believe
he needs help to bring about needed changes. I want to recall the chilling but
all-too-true words of former NHTSA Administrator Ricardo Martinez. In a recent
interview reported in The Wall Street Journal (February 7, 2003):
"Any chief of the safety agency is "always outgunned, outmanned and outspent by the industry," says Ricardo Martinez, a NHTSA administrator during the Clinton administration and friend of Dr. Runge. "You've got the regulations and the bully pulpit, and you've got to use both."
In our opinion, Dr. Runge and the
NHTSA staff need from you a strong unambiguous message about its consumer-focused
mission and vigorous oversight on results. In the case of the serious risks
posed by SUVs and pickups, we urge this committee to reject NHTSA's reliance
on a voluntary approach by the industry.
We recommend the following specific actions:
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCING ROLLOVER RISKS:
· NHTSA's plan to conduct rigorous dynamic testing of SUVs and other vehicles and provide that information to consumers, as discussed above, will have a strong impact on SUV design. However, the agency will need additional resources to conduct the testing needed to make the program useful.
· CU's testing of collision avoidance or electronic stability control (ESC) in SUVs indicates that they are very effective in helping drivers to maintain vehicle control. These systems should be standard equipment in all SUVs. Their widespread use is virtually certain to result in fewer rollover-related deaths and injuries.
· Dynamic interior head air bag protection systems have also been shown to reduce occupant ejection during a crash. These systems should be standard on all SUVs to give occupants more side protection in a rollover and also prevent unbelted occupants from being ejected.
· NHTSA is currently reviewing comments for an updated standard on vehicle roof crush. This committee should urge the agency to speed it's work on that critical area; even belted drivers in SUV rollovers have been killed or gravely injured as a result of injuries to the spine from impact with poorly designed roofs.
· NHTSA should continue its research on improving seat belt usage in all vehicles especially in Pickups and SUVs.
· NHTSA should, as part of its rollover information testing, assess the handling capabilities of vehicles. In many cases today vehicle manufacturers equip their SUVs with tires that limit the lateral grip of the vehicle to reduce its instability. However, this compromises the normal handling of the vehicle and can lead to other non-rollover accidents. The handling test proposed by NHTSA would ensure that vehicles are designed to be stable and not "corrected" by fitting a specific low-lateral grip tires. When a consumer is at a tire dealer buying new tires they are not aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of buying the wrong type or size tire. Also the extensive advertising of larger wheels and tires that are likely to improve the lateral grip intensifies the possible consequences. Many SUVs have specific tire types that are permitted, but few consumers are aware of. Many SUVs specify All Terrain type tires only.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REDUCING THE
RISKS FROM VEHICLE INCOMPATIBILITY
· SUVs should be redesigned to provide lower bumpers and less rigid front frames so that they impart less of the crash energy to the vehicle they hit, and do so at a height that is more comparable to the crumple zones on sedans. Designers should aim for less aggressively designed vehicles, such as the "cross-over" vehicles emerging in today's market.
· Congress should direct NHTSA to develop crash tests to assess crash incompatibility, and NHTSA should begin to set standards to reduce vehicle incompatibility and SUV and pickup truck aggressivity.
· New passenger cars should be equipped with side and head air bags as standard equipment to protect them in a crash with a larger, higher and more aggressively designed vehicle.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PREVENTING
BACKOVER INJURIES AND DEATHS
· Require NHTSA to begin keeping
track of data regarding injury and death to children in and around cars
· Require NTHSA to test backup warning devices, set performance standards
for these devices, and make them standard equipment on SUVs and pickup trucks
in the next 2 years
Thank you for your attention, and
we look forward to your questions.
_______
(1) Consumers Union is a nonprofit membership organization chartered in 1936
under the laws of the state of New York to provide consumers with information,
education and counsel about good, services, health and personal finance, and
to initiate and cooperate with individual and group efforts to maintain and
enhance the quality of life for consumers. Consumers Union's income is solely
derived from the sale of Consumer Reports, its other publications and from noncommercial
contributions, grants and fees. In addition to reports on Consumers Union's
own product testing, Consumer Reports with more than 4 million paid circulation,
regularly, carries articles on health, product safety, marketplace economics
and legislative, judicial and regulatory actions which affect consumer welfare.
Consumers Union's publications carry no advertising and receive no commercial
support.
(2) Isuzu and Suzuki raised legal challenges to CU's testing in the federal courts. A California federal jury found for CU in April 2000 and dismissed Isuzu's claims. As the prevailing party, CU was awarded its costs. Suzuki's suit has not yet gone to trial.
(3) See Chillon, "The Importance of Vehicle Aggressiveness in the Case
of a Transversal Impact," First Internatinoal Conference on Enhanced Safety
of Vehicles, 1971. Wolfe and Carsten, "Study of Car/Truck Crashes in the
United States," Highway Safety Research Institute, University of Michigan,
1982, Monk and Willke, "Striking Vehicle Aggressiveness Factors for Side
Impact,"National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1986.
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