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'Rollover: The Hidden
History of the SUV'
With Marc Shaffer
Producer, "Frontline"
Friday, Feb. 22, 2002; 11 a.m. EST
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.
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 its rollover record? And why didn't the federal government do more to protect American drivers? FRONTLINE's "Rollover: The Hidden History of the SUV," airing on PBS Thursday, Feb. 21, at 9 p.m. EST, explores some of these questions.
Producer Marc Shaffer was online Friday, Feb. 22, to talk about what he learned about SUV safety, government regulations and a lawsuit in which a Ford engineer acknowledges that his company knew about fatal rollovers.
The transcript follows. Clarification
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control
over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Gettysburg, Pa.: Why is anyone surprised to learn that SUVs roll over at such a high rate? I remember hearing this a few years ago, when SUVs had become all the rage. It's just common sense (or maybe common physics) -- a high center of gravity and comparatively low weight makes an SUV an easy rollover target.
Marc Shaffer: There seems to be a broad demand on the public's end for safety in vehicles. And you see that in the purchasing choices of consumers and the popularity of certain safety measures. I think most consumers view their SUVs as very safe vehicles, and the rollover problem isn't necessarily something they think is wrong with their SUV. Most consumers don't understand physics the way you do.
Washington, D.C.: What role does driver error play in vehicle rollover?
Marc Shaffer: Good question. I was convinced by some I spoke with, who made the very clear point that whether a vehicle rolls over or not is a function of the vehicle. Whether it goes out of control, that could be the fault of the driver. So if a driver falls asleep at the wheel, or is yapping on their cell phone when they should be paying more attention, or is cut off by another motorist at a high speed and react in a way they learned they weren't supposed to in a driver's education class, that may cause them to lose control of the vehicle. Whether the vehicle rolls over, that's going to be related to the vehicle's inherent propensity to roll.
One last point: All vehicles roll over. But the statistics clearly show that rollovers happen more frequently in SUVs, and that the death rate in SUV rollovers is much higher than the rollover death rate in other vehicles.
Harrisburg, Pa.: Automobile industry testers evaluate their products intensely. It is now known the auto industry knew about the problems beforehand. What motivates a company to allow such a defective product onto the market? Is it greed and concern primarily for the bottom line? Or is this an organizational fault where, when too many people are involved, no one wants to be the one responsible for pulling the plug on a product where so much organizational investment in time and money has been made already? Do you have any thoughts on this?
Marc Shaffer: I would say that it's probably something slightly different than both of those things, though it includes both of those things. Car makers are in the business of selling cars. Their responsibility, legally and ethically, is to reward their shareholders. Driving is dangerous. All vehicles have some limitations in the areas of safety. Automotive companies make judgment calls on how much is enough in the design of certain vehicles and what kind of tradeoffs to make. Some of that is driven by financial considerations, certainly. Some of that is driven by competitive realities. What the standard for a competitive vehicle might be -- is my car like the other guy's car? -- therefore I don't have to make it different. In terms of internal debates about how safe to make a car or a truck, ultimately those decisions get made by management, and management makes the determination of balancing those pressures. People can disagree about whether those are the right choices. But we have a generally very weak federal auto safety regulation apparatus that provides enormous leeway to auto makers in making those decisions.
Shakopee, Minn.: Are SUVs in general a safer car for me to buy? I'm concerned about my families safety, even including the rollover risk aren't SUVs a safer vehicle?
Marc Shaffer: The industry argues that SUVs are safer than cars. Jacques Nasser certainly said so over and over again during the Ford Firestone scandal. SUVs, because they're big and heavy, typically, do well in collisions with other cars. Of course, they are designed in such a way that they inflict terrible damage to other drivers in collisions, which is a different moral question for a consumer: Do you want to control a vehicle that's dangerous to other people, not just yourself? But overall, of course SUVs differ one to the next, and people should do their homework as to their relative safety. But the folks that we spoke to said that larger cars or even minivans were safer than SUVs.
Washington, D.C.: You are wrong when you say that SUVs are more prone to rollover than other vehicles. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety statistics show that sports cars are 20 times more likely to roll over than SUVs. Of course, that's because sports cars are often driven aggressively. Too bad this fact, nor the other facts about the role of driver error in rollover, did not make it into your "objective" show.
Marc Shaffer: Thanks for the comment. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety was one of the organizations that we followed closely, as evidenced by our interview with their chief, Brian O'Neill. I did not see the data on sports cars, but the data on SUVs vs. other common vehicles used largely as family vehicles was indisputable. Most people are not choosing between a sports car and a Ford Excursion.
Portland, Ore.: My problem is twofold. The industry said that vehicle was safe, but herein lies the problem. Drivers believed that and became very aggressive drivers. I drove a Bronco II and never had a problem because I was and am a defensive driver. Why is this not addressed?
Marc Shaffer: Drivers need to take a lot of responsibility when they're behind the wheel. Driving without drinking, driving within speed limits, wearing seat belts -- but certain circumstances occur. There are plenty of people who have rolled over their vehicles who were driving responsibly and were confronted with a circumstance that in the moment they weren't able to handle.
Warrenville, Ill.: Marc --
Two questions. Some new and luxury class SUVs are based on unibody car platforms, are more compatible with smaller vehicles and have safety features like roof crush reinforcement and stability control.
Are these features too expensive to incorporate in ALL the mass market SUVs?
Since many people don't offroad or tow with their SUVs, why don't automakers market these types of car-based SUVs much more?
Marc Shaffer: Many of the newer SUVs are getting better in terms of their design. There's certainly a positive evolution underway. Why certain manufacturers continue to build designs that are inherently less safe, I don't have an answer for that. Is it that they're too expensive to build? Possibly. Are there other considerations? Probably. One interesting side note: Keith Bradsher of the New York Times, who's been the best reporter on SUVs over the last several years, reported in a story in the last year that Ford had begun the process of making its SUVs more compatible with cars by lowering their bumpers. The interesting piece here is that Ford's not marketing that development, despite the fact that it's a positive statement about the country. And as Bradsher reports, sources tell him that consumers of SUVs don't really care about the other guy. So telling them that the SUV's not going to kill somebody else isn't really a high selling point. Isn't that a little sad?
McLean, Va.: This is the first time that I have ever participated in an online chat. I do so now only because I was do disappointed in your PBS show. You glorified trial lawyers -- and somehow you never questioned their profit motive. Why didn't you show all those vehicles in the lawyers' warehouse and then say how much he made off each lawsuit?
Marc Shaffer: The trial lawyers make a good deal of money off of these lawsuits. They also take considerable personal financial risk in bringing these lawsuits. One of these lawsuits can cost a lawyer $300,000-$400,000. In the film, there are references, albeit subtle, to that fact. There's a moment when we describe the system that was built up by the lawyers of lawsuits and settlements in secrecy. And we say in the film that plaintiffs and their lawyers looking for a quick and certain payoff settled suits quietly. The point of the film was not a critique of plaintiffs' lawyers, but an examination of SUVs. The motives of lawyers, which can be questioned, does not change the fundamental analysis of the program or the truth about SUVs.
Oakton, Va.: No, Washington, D.C., YOU are wrong about sports cars being 20 times more likely to roll over. To even suggest such is to insult one's intelligence. What you (and maybe IIHS) fail to point out is what we are dealing with is not the likelihood of rolling over but what actually does happen. Sports cars, indeed, are often driven more aggressively than SUV's, but they are so low to the ground that it takes a real driving idiot to flip one... and it does not occur very often. An SUV may be driven by a more conservative driver but when that driver has to make a sudden swerve, (and sooner or later that almost certainly WILL happen) that's all she wrote. I am a part-time auto consultant who drives a LOT of different products and I see at least 10 flipped SUV's for every flipped sport car.
Marc Shaffer: Amen, Oakton.
Washington, D.C.: Another safety question. The DC metro area recently had a large fatal accident (five deaths) caused by an SUV (whose driver was also on a cell-phone). The SUV went through a guard rail, over a large grassy median, through another guard rail to land on top of a minivan. Authorities are investigating why the guard rails did not help to mediate the severity of the accident. One thought that I have: These guard rails were designed in the '70s, before monster SUVs hit the roadways. Shouldn't the NTSB re-examine how the enormous size of some SUVs really do put others (and their drivers) at danger on the road? I look forward to reading your book!
Marc Shaffer: Sounds reasonable to me. But the 1970s certainly had their share of large, heavy cars -- not as big as the SUVs that are out there now, but you remember the old LTDs -- the old American boats. These were not Honda Accords. But certainly the height of the SUVs is a new dynamic, and maybe we need to revisit that question.
Alexandria, Va.: What kind of car do you drive?
Marc Shaffer: I'm not a product spokesperson, but I drive a beat-up old Nissan Maxima to my office. And my family and I drive a Toyota Camry. We are not car aficionados, and we got the Camry because it was highly rated, mid-sized and affordably priced.
Silver Spring, Md.: You praise Keith Bradsher, but you fail to mention how many times he's committed egregious errors in his stories -- so many that the New York Times has had to run dozens of corrections. That's why he is no longer their Detroit bureau chief and is being shipped off to Hong Kong. Or didn't he tell you that as you filmed him?
Editors Note: The New York Times disputes this questioner's characterization.
Times Business Editor Glenn Kramon says, "Keith Bradsher is one of the most accurate reporters at the New York Times, with almost no corrections despite the huge number of articles he's written. And his move to a new
correspondency after six years in Detroit should be viewed as the promotion that it is."
Marc Shaffer: When we interviewed Ford Motor Company, someone in their PR department, when I asked, told me that probably the most knowledgeable person about SUVs in the press was Keith Bradsher. Keith has taken on SUVs in a way that no other reporter has, and his work is really fundamental to understanding the nature of these vehicles.
Marc Shaffer: More: One last point. The information that Keith shared with us was consistent with and supported by evidence from other sources. Inside industry, inside the government and inside private interest groups.
Littleton, Colo.: Marc, I'm curious about your response to this:
"...One thing must be said. The whole Frontline story on SUVs is very tough on Ford and barely mentions General Motors, which is a major underwriter of PBS programming. I think too highly of Frontline to believe there's a connection, but the disparity is obvious. It is true that Ford's Bronco II and Explorer have had the most central roles in the SUV debates. ..."
-- John Carman, San Francisco Chronicle
Marc Shaffer: I'm glad you asked. There was no hush money from GM. And in fact, if you saw the show, you see that we show different models of SUV and we talk broadly about the problems of SUVs. The second TV commercial you see of an early SUV is a Chevy S-10 Blazer, which is a GM product. But if you're interested in knowing why we did not go into the kind of internal dealings and details of vehicles other than the Explorer and Bronco II, it's because the Explorer is the world's best-selling SUV, that the Explorer was at the heart of a very public and messy scandal, and that we felt that tracing the origins of that vehicle within the time constraints we had through the Bronco II was a more powerful way of dealing with those issues than trying to investigate five, six, seven different brands of SUV.
Again, I would just point out that the program went out of its way to make the point that the Ford Explorer is not the problem. All SUVs rolling over was. That in the wake of the Ford Firestone scandal, the public seem to be getting the message that Firestone tires were to be avoided, not that there might be something wrong with the Ford Explorer. And we wanted to make sure that folks understood the big picture. I don't think we went easy on GM.
New York, N.Y.: On the PBS Web site, a newspaper article says that you were soft on CHEVY -- A major contributor to FRONTLINE and/or PBS. You do show a Chevy Blazer overturned in the very last segment of the program -- but discreetly not mention its name. Your thoughts please?
Marc Shaffer: We weren't trying to go easy on GM. Anybody who saw this program I think would agree that it's not going to be excerpted for television advertisements by the General Motors Company. The fact that you know what the car was in the final scene speaks for itself. The point was not that it was a Chevy Blazer. The point was that it was not a Ford Explorer. And it was the Ford Explorer that the public had been conditioned by the scandal to associate with the problems of rollover. Had we gone after GM vehicles, would we have received criticism that we had not included material on the Toyota 4Runner?
Charlotte, N.C.: Whom should I be pressuring to get the Federal government to regulate rollover hazards? The NITSHA? My congressman of choice? Something tells me the president may not be the first place to go.
Marc Shaffer: Certainly your congressman and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are places to try to put pressure. There's more room for improvement.
Baltimore, Md.: I'm a soccer mom. How am I supposed to get the kids to practice if the Sierra Club confiscates my SUV?
Marc Shaffer: Big cars don't have to be unsafe cars. That's the question you should be asking. There are technologies that if the marketplace demanded, could improve fuel economy even in large vehicles that families want, for obvious reasons. Those are not being implemented adequately.
Washington, D.C.: This report would lead some to believe that SUVs have a tendency to just rollover like a dog during normal driving conditions. What percentage of SUVs on the road are actually involved in a rollover event?
Marc Shaffer: You might want to check the Frontline Web site.
Fairfax County, Va.: The Sierra Club, the Naderites and the other special interest groups you interviewed are hardly objective observers on this topic. Nor are they experts. Why didn't you interview someone from the other side? Why are you doing the bidding of the extreme special interest groups? Are you a member of the Sierra Club?
Marc Shaffer: We interviewed the Sierra Club. We interviewed Jerry Curry, who's on the other side on the fuel economy question and on the SUV regulation question. We requested interviews with Diane Steed, who was the NITSA administrator under President Reagan, who declined those requests. We interviewed Jacques Nasser of Ford Motor Company.
The piece was not unbalanced in terms of its spokespersons, but our objective is not to create some kind of pro-con public forum, but to understand the facts of the story and report them fairly. We think we did that.
Wheaton, Md.: Since so many Americans bought SUVs to improve their self images (and because so many other people had bought them (so much for individuality), despite how their lousy mileage drives up gas prices and harms the environment (and our health), do you think the rollover problem is enough in their self-interest to lead to a drop in sales?
Marc Shaffer: Obviously not, as these vehicles have reached record sales numbers even as occasional stories about the rollover problem have made it into the press.
One last thing. It's not likely, in fact it's very unlikely, that the federal government will regulate sport utility vehicles to any significant extent in the future. Their popularity will likely have more to do with marketplace considerations like the price of gasoline or public awareness about the relative dangers of different kinds of details. That's where shows like ours come in.
washingtonpost.com:
That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the
discussion.
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