ANOTHER PENNSYLVANIA SUV DRIVER ACCIDENT AVOIDANCE MANEUVER CAUSES YET ANOTHER SUV TO FLIP OVER SERIOUSLY INJURING A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER IN BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
According to the Bucks County Courier Times, an Upper Makefield woman and her daughter were injured on Monday, August 26, 2008 after their SUV flipped over on Route 1 Superhighway in Middletown, PA. The cause of the accident initially was indicated to be a wicker chair flying off the back of a pickup truck, landing on the highway, causing the Upper Makefield woman to make an emergency accident avoidance maneuver, swerving around the chair, causing her black Suburban to overturn. The driver of the SUV was listed in critical condition at St. Marys Hospital in Middletown, PA and her daughter was flown to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. The mother was ejected from the vehicle.
At the Pennsylvania SUV rollover firm of Reiff & Bily, we have been investigating, researching and litigating SUV rollover and 15 passenger van rollover cases for many years. These vehicles all have a high center of gravity and are noted to be the most unstable vehicles on the roadways. Almost always, the press and the automotive manufacturers are quick to blame the driver who was simply taking an evasive action to avoid an emergency situation, such as the one mentioned in the Bucks County case. A chief hazard in operating SUVs occurs when the driver takes an emergency action, steering in one direction and then rapidly correcting in the opposite direction, resulting in the rollover of the unstable vehicle. If you watch the television advertisements or read the newspaper advertisements, one would think that sport utility vehicles are built for strength and safety and designed to be driven off the road. Yet very few of them have roll bars and, worse yet, very few meet the National Highway Safety Administration roof safety standards for automobiles. Even though those standards are minimal.
In the last 10 years, sport utility vehicles have taken over America’s roads. One of every six new vehicles sold in the United States is an SUV and now there are over 20 million of them in the nation’s garages. Auto makers defend SUV rollover cases vigorously and do not want consumers to know about their abysmal safety record. When people spend upwards of $35,000 for upscale SUVs, they assume that they are purchasing the safety and stability of vehicles used in off road experiences and in the case with the Hummer, the stability of a vehicle used in combat.
SUV rollovers are the most common cause of spinal cord injury and paralysis due to roof collapse. Most of the SUVs lack an adequate roof strength to withstand a rollover accident. When the car rolls over, the roof generally collapses on the head of the occupant causing crushed necks and spines leading to paralysis. As the roof collapses, the windows are caused to break, setting the stage for an ejection from the vehicle. Most of the American made SUVs do not have roll bars and the older models lack electronic stability control, which was placed in newer models, and has been fairly effective in preventing more serious injuries. Not only does the SUV have a higher center of gravity, making them top heavy and prone to rollover, the distance between left and right tires and the middle of the vehicle reveals a very narrow wheel base, causing the vehicle to easily tip over in an accident avoidance maneuver. Since SUVs and 15 passenger vans are top heavy, any quick turning of the steering wheel in an accident avoidance maneuver can cause the SUV to flip over.
Unfortunately, most of the people using SUVs are Moms transporting children to soccer games or after school events or families on outings. The SUV apparently has replaced the station wagon as the general family car in the American household. According to statistics, more than 10,000 people die in single vehicle rollover accidents every year. Rollover accidents are noted to be the most dangerous type of vehicle crashes due to the high incident of occupant ejection and head injuries as noted above. Many readers are familiar with the multitude of Ford Explorer rollovers that occurred when the car was equipped with allegedly defective tires from Firestone, which would delaminate causing an unstable situation. Much has been written, broadcast and litigated about the lethal combination of Ford Explorers and Firestone tires. When Firestone ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires were found to be overheating with highway usage, this caused the treads to separate causing an unstable situation, leading to catastrophic Explorer SUV rollovers and a multitude of deaths and catastrophic paralysis injuries.
Many years ago, our law firm was involved in a single vehicle SUV case where a prominent Philadelphia executive was traveling on a bridge that was struck by high winds, causing his vehicle to be buffeted, whereupon he lost control of the vehicle, causing it to go off the side of the bridge and falling several hundred feet into a ravine. This was a lighter and shorter SUV, whereupon the wind had a severe destabilizing effect causing loss of control and a violent rollover off the highway resulting in catastrophic injuries. Of course, the defense claimed that the accident was caused by driver error and tiredness of the driver but we were able to successfully demonstrate otherwise.
So another week passes in Pennsylvania and another SUV has rolled over, critically injuring its passengers. 280,000 people will be injured this year in SUV rollovers. Over 24,000 of those people will have serious injuries and over 10,000 will be killed. The America automakers will continue to claim that it was driver error that caused the crash and the injuries and continue to deny that the roof crush or the defective structural standards of the vehicles was the proximate cause of injuries when their internal documents say just the opposite.
At the experienced Pennsylvania SUV rollover law firm of Reiff & Bily, we have reviewed, investigated and litigated many SUV rollover cases where innocent passengers and drivers were catastrophically injured or killed and the driver has been blamed for an accident that the manufacturer knew was not the driver’s fault. We have seen and examined the documents that the automobile manufacturers so deeply vault in secrecy, revealing known defects.
Our Pennsylvania SUV rollover attorneys and team of experts have litigated these cases in Pennsylvania and nationwide and we and our experts understand the science and dynamics of a rollover accident. It is my hope that Mrs. Krause and other victims that are injured in SUV rollover and 15 passenger van rollover accidents will not take the blame for easily preventable accidents had the manufacturers placed the concern of safety over profits. It is my hope that they will look deeper into the causes of the car accidents for which they are being blamed. Every year thousands of people are unknowing victims of these defectively unrightfully designed vehicles.
The experienced SUV rollover lawyers of the Pennsylvania SUV rollover law firm of Reiff & Bily demand that manufacturers require safe occupant restraint systems and roof strength to protect the occupants of these vehicles to avoid catastrophic injury or death. We have consistently worked with the finest automotive engineers and design and testing experts to identify steps that manufacturers should and could have taken to prevent rollovers that injure unsuspecting clients.
If you or a loved one has been seriously injured in an SUV rollover or 15 passenger van rollover, you are legally entitled to hold the automotive manufacturer responsible for your physical injuries and associated financial costs. The Philadelphia law firm of Reiff & Bily represents clients throughout Pennsylvania and nationally who have been injured in SUV or 15 passenger van rollovers. We work on a contingent fee basis, charging a small percentage of the recovery. We do not get paid unless there is a successful recovery. We have handled thousands of automotive accident cases for almost 30 years. If you would like more information regarding an SUV rollover or 15 passenger van rollover, please feel free to contact us for a free consultation with an experienced SUV rollover accident attorney at 1-800-421-9595 or www.reiffandbily.com.
