Which Vehicles are Most Prone to Rollovers and Occupant Injuries: Passenger Cars, Vans, Sport Utility Vehicles or Pickup Trucks

摘要

With increasing speed limits and more light trucks penetrating the market, concern over rollovers is growing. This paper presents a study of how vehicle platforms influence rollovers and injuries. Specifically, we explore: 1) The rollover intensity of vehicle platforms, given single-vehicle crashes and 2) the severity of the resulting driver injury. A federally maintained NASS-CDS (National Automotive Sampling System-Crashworthiness Data System) database was used for crash analysis. This is a detailed and relatively clean stratified sample of police-reported tow-away crashes nationwide. Rigorous multivariate methods were used to explore the effects of vehicle-platform while controlling for various factors. Specifically, rollover intensity (captured by the number of quarter-turns) was investigated using weighted Poisson and negative binomial models; injury severity (measured on the AIS scale: maximum, critical, severe, serious, moderate, minor and none) was examined using weighted ordered logit models. New insights emerge about the factors that increase rollover intensity and injury severity in real-life crash situations. We found significant differences in rollover intensity across vehicle platforms. Although SUVs were more likely to roll over and therefore injure drivers more severely, they more than compensated for this increase in injury by their greater crashworthiness. The implications of the findings are discussed.