Published on Sunday, January 22, 2006
in the Lehigh News Star

Rollovers prove deadly in Lee

When Lindsay Pankow has to take her father's Ford Explorer to Fort Myers High School, she's a bit afraid.

"I'm really scared to drive it," said Pankow, 16. "Because my mom told me it can roll."

And rollovers are deadly. An analysis of Lee County's record 145 traffic deaths in 2005 shows 19 people died in passenger vehicle rollovers.

The tragedy of this statistic is most of these deaths were preventable.

Only one victim wore a seat belt. And none of the vehicles were new enough to have a device that helps prevent rollovers.

"Typically rollovers represent a small percentage of crashes but are disproportionately high in the number of deaths because they're so lethal," said Russ Rader, of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, only three in 100 passenger vehicle crashes are rollovers. But one in five deaths in Lee County in 2005 involved overturned vehicles.

"There are more rollover deaths now than there used to be. And that's entirely due to more SUVs on the road," Rader said.

Sport utility vehicles have a higher center of gravity and are more likely to roll over in a crash, he said.

The size of SUVs and trucks make people believe they are safer than passenger cars, leading parents to choose these vehicles for their teens a bad idea according to Rader.

"You're taking a vehicle that already has a stability problem

and putting an inexperienced driver behind the wheel of it," he said.

In the Lee County statistics, of the 17 vehicles involved in 19 rollover deaths, only four involved cars. Six were trucks, six were SUVs and one was a van. Four of the 19 people killed in rollovers were teens.

Fort Myers High School junior Garrett Tinsley, 16, drives a new Jeep Rubicon he got as a Christmas gift. He said he's not concerned about rollovers with his Jeep. "My dad drove a Jeep all of his life," he said. "I don't think about it."

Jake McMahon, 17, shares his lack of concern despite driving a Ford F-150 pickup that towered over the surrounding cars at Fort Myers High School's junior parking lot.

"I don't drive really fast, I keep to the speed limit," McMahon said. "So I'm not worried about rolling over."

If these teens stay at the speed limit and go even slower when conditions warrant, they're rollover chances diminish, said Lt. Doug Dodson of the Florida Highway Patrol.

When a vehicle goes from the road to the berm or grass at a high rate of speed it can flip over. Drivers attempting evasive maneuvers may over- correct the steering and flip the car too, or they can hit the curb and the car will roll over, he said.

The chances of surviving a rollover improve when the occupants are buckled in, Dodson said, because unbuckled occupants often get ejected. In the Lee County crashes, 14 of the victims were ejected in the rollover crash.

"I've seen crash after crash where people would have walked away if they only had there seat belt on," he said. "We wouldn't be going to do a next of kin notification."

If all the people who died in Lee County's fatal rollover accidents had been wearing seat belts, statistics indicate only five people of the 19 would have died.

An electronic stability control device that comes standard on Chrysler SUVs also can prevent rollovers, said John Scanlan, sales manager at Galeana Chrysler & Jeep in Fort Myers. The devices help when drivers are turning too quickly or not fast enough or when the steering wheel angle and the speed could lift the car.

There are two devices in the cars that can help prevent rollovers, Scanlan said. One prevents the driver from over- correcting by turning too quickly or not turning fast enough and the other applies brakes when it determines the steering wheel angle and the speed could lift the wheels.

The devices are options on other new vehicles, Scanlan said, and raising the cost of the car by about $1,000.

Electronic stability devices also are available on other manufacturers' cars and people should check to see if it's available when they make a new car purchase. It can't be retrofitted, however, Scanlan said.

The federal government rates vehicles for their susceptibility to roll over and consumers can check out vehicles at safercar.com.