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15-Passenger Van Rollovers
There is growing concern regarding the crash involvement and safety of 15-passenger vans and the resulting injuries and fatalities. Between 1990 and 2002, there were 1,576 15-passenger vans involved in fatal crashes that resulted in 1,111 fatalities to occupants of such vans. Of these, 657 vans were in fatal, single vehicle crashes, of which 349 rolled over. Heavily loaded 15-passenger vans are particularly susceptible to rollover. Confounding this problem, the rate of safety belt use among occupants of large vans involved in fatal crashes is very low compared to other types of vehicles. While this plan focuses on 15-passenger vans, the actions identified also relate to 12-passenger vans, which are similar to vans configured for 15 passengers in terms of design, handling characteristics, and safety problems. NHTSA defines vehicles designed to carry more than 10 persons as buses for purposes of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).
Crashes involving large vans, especially rollover crashes and the resulting fatalities and injuries, have raised the level of public and NHTSA attention to this issue. In 2001, 130 occupants of 15-passenger vans died in crashes involving these vehicles. Single vehicle crashes represented 42 percent of fatal crashes. Eighty-seven percent of people who died in single vehicle rollovers of these vehicles were not wearing safety belts. Between 1990 and 2001, 15-passenger vans represented .25 percent of the passenger vehicle fleet, .26 percent of passenger vehicles involved in fatal crashes, and .25 percent of all passenger vehicle occupant deaths. During this time, 8 percent of belted occupants in these vehicles in fatal single vehicle crashes were killed, compared to 22 percent of unbelted occupants.
In March 2003, Senator Snowe introduced S.717 bill to address 15-passenger van safety. Representative Mark Udall introduced a similar bill in the House, H.R. 1641. Senator Snowe's bill called on NHTSA to develop a dynamic test to assess rollover risk for 15-passenger vans and to issue the results as consumer information; to test these vehicles at different loading levels as part of the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP); to test stability control and other technologies to assess effectiveness in reducing rollovers; and called on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to apply Federal motor carrier safety regulations (FMCSR) to the commercial operation of 15-passenger vans.
A 2004 study explored the relationship between vehicle occupancy and several other variables in the NHTSA Fatality Analysis and Reporting System (FARS) database and a 15-passenger van's risk of rollover. The study examines statistics on fatal crashes involving 15-passenger vans from 1990 to 2002. The study also constructs a logistic regression model to model the effects of various factors, most importantly occupancy level, on the risk of rollover. The model is constructed using data from 1994 to 2001 on police-reported motor vehicle crashes in five states that are part of NHTSA's State Data System (SDS).
The data show that between 1990 and 2002, there were 1,576 15-passenger vans involved in fatal crashes that resulted in 1,111 fatalities to occupants of such vans. Of these, 657 vans were in fatal, single car accidents, of which 349 rolled over. In 450 of these vans, there was at least one fatality, totaling up to 684 occupant fatalities in single-vehicle crashes. The majority of fatally injured van occupants were not wearing seat belts. Only 14 percent of the fatally injured were restrained. Analysis of data from NHTSA's SDS reveals that the rate of rollover observed for 15-passenger vans that are loaded above half their designed seating capacity is 2.2 times the rate observed for vans loaded to or below half their capacity. The odds of a rollover for a 15-passenger van at its designated seating capacity is more than five times the odds of a rollover when the driver is the only occupant in the van.
If you or someone you know has been injured in an accident involving a 15 passenger van rollover or accident, please fill out the form below to contact an attorney.
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