Defective Fatal
Rollover Crash Lawsuits, Defective
Automobile Roof Lawsuits, Deadly
Defective SUV Rollover Crash Lawsuits,
Defective SUV Rollover Crash Lawsuits,
and Fatal Roof Design Rollover Lawsuits
by Texas Fatal Rollover Crash Lawyer
Jason S. Coomer
Many
different types of automobile defects
can cause a fatal crash to occur or a
minor accident to become a catastrophic
injury or deadly accident including
defective SUV design, defective SUV
rollover design, defective SUV roof
safety design, defective SUV tires,
defective steering column design, and
defective SUV child restrain design. In
the aftermath of a serious automobile
crash or deadly SUV rollover collision,
it is extremely important to investigate
how the rollover crash occurred and if a
vehicle defect was the cause of the
rollover crash or caused a minor
accident to become a catastrophic injury
or deadly crash.
If you have
lost a loved one in a fatal rollover
crash or have been seriously injured by
a defective SUV or other automobile with
defective brakes, defective roof design,
defective accelerator, defective
rollover design, defective tires, or
other defective crashworthiness
features, feel free to
submit an inquiry or
send an e-mail to Texas Deadly Rollover
Crash lawyer Jason Coomer.
Automobile Accident
Crashworthiness Safety Belt Lawsuits,
Fatal Crash Rollover Lawsuits, Fatal SUV
Rollover Crash Crashworthiness Unsafe
Roof Collapse Lawsuits and Fatal
Automobile Rollover Crash
Crashworthiness Lawsuits (Automobile
Defective Crashworthiness Product
Liability Lawsuits)
Federal Motor Vehicle
Safety Standards set minimum performance
requirements for those vehicle parts
that protect drivers and passengers from
death or serious injury in the event of
a crash (air bags, safety belts, child
restraints, energy absorbing steering
columns, motorcycle helmets). These
vehicle performance requirements,
defective automobile crashworthiness
lawsuits, manufacturer safety policies,
and the investigation efforts of the
The
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration are important to
identify unsafe vehicles with defective
airbags, defective seat belts, defective
child restraints, defective roof design,
defective designs that cause vehicle
fires, and defective designs that cause
vehicle rollovers.
Fatal Rollover
Crash Defective Design Lawsuits,
Catastrophic Injury Defective Design
Rollover Lawsuits, Fatal Roof Collapse
Defective Design Lawsuits, Catastrophic
Injury Defective Roof Design Lawsuits,
and Automobile Accident Collapsed Roof
Lawsuits (Product Liability Defective
Design Roof Collapse Lawsuits)
Manufacturers have
known for decades that vehicles roll
over in reasonably foreseeable
accidents. With the rise in popularity
of SUVs and pick-up trucks, the number
of people who are susceptible to
vehicles rolling over has increased
significantly over the last 20 years.
However, in light of the fact that more
people are affected by rollovers, most
vehicle manufacturers have not increased
the strength of the roofs in their SUVs
and pick-ups.
Roof crush, or “loss
of occupant survival space,” creates
many problems for occupants in the
vehicle. First, it rapidly reduces the
space in the vehicle for the occupant.
This will increase the risk that the
occupant will receive a spinal cord
compression injury. Second, roof
deformation does not happen straight
down but rather down and in toward the
occupant. This significantly increases
the likelihood that a properly belted
occupant will be partially ejected out
of the vehicle during the roll sequence.
Typically the force of the roll coupled
with the glass shattering out of the
window, the roof crushing down and
inward and the seatbelt not properly
securing the occupant to the seat will
result in the occupant having his or her
head and/or arm and shoulder out of the
vehicle during the roll. As will be
discussed below, there are other ways to
keep an occupant in the vehicle during a
roll but a roof that stays in place
during a roll reduces the risk of a
person being partially ejected or
receiving a compression injury even
without the other safety measures.
The most common
injuries associated with roof crush are
spinal cord compression injuries and
death. Many automobile manufacturers
have taken the position, especially in
spinal cord compression injury cases,
that the injury was caused by the
occupant “diving” into the roof. The
term “diving” comes from the analogy of
swimming pool diving injuries to
compression injuries sustained in
rollovers. With this defense, the
automobile manufacturers maintain the
injury occurs before the roof crushes in
by the head moving toward the roof until
it can go no further and the weight of
the occupant’s body moving toward the
head until there is such loading on the
neck that a spinal injury occurs.
Vehicle manufactures allege through
testing and expert testimony that when a
vehicle is inverted, the forces of
gravity and the roll sequence will lead
to an occupants head contacting the roof
without any roof crush. They allege that
there is no alternative roof design that
can stop this from happening.
Partial ejections are
also common in rollover accidents
because the roof crushes down and in
toward the occupant. When the roof
crushes down and in, the force of the
roll causes the occupant’s head to get
outside the plane of the vehicle. In a
partial ejection, it is common for an
occupant to hit his or her head against
the ground or pavement or get it caught
between the car and ground during the
roll. Vehicle manufacturers often argue
that no matter the strength of the roof,
a belted occupant can get their head out
of the car during a roll. But if you
keep the roof from deforming more than 3
inches during a rollover, restrained and
contained occupants cannot get their
heads out of the plane of the vehicle
and sustain a catastrophic injury. The
most important series of tests that
address the causal relationship between
occupant injuries and roof deformation
are Malibu I and Malibu II. These were
dolly rollover tests performed with
Chevrolet Malibus (some with production
roofs and others with reinforced roofs
that did not deform during the
rollovers). The vehicles were equipped
with Hybrid III test dummies (in Malibu
I the dummies were unrestrained and in
Malibu II the dummies were properly
belted). Vehicle manufacturers use the
Malibu tests to argue the roof crush
does not actually cause the injury.
The test data
demonstrates, however, that there is a
causative relationship between the
strength of the roof and significant
neck loading. Analysis of the Malibu
testing and other testing that has been
performed by the automotive industry and
others is beyond the scope of this
paper, but it is important for anybody
handling a roof crush case to be
well-versed in all of this testing. When
analyzing a roof crush case, it is
important to analyze the extent of the
roof deformation. This will require
measurements that can be done by a
trained attorney or investigator.
Further, as discussed above, the
accident reconstruction will provide
much information that will allow an
analysis of a roof crush case. Trip
speed, roll velocity, number of rolls,
drop height and the type of roll
(barrel, end over end or football) are
all needed to analyze whether or not a
safer alternative design existed that
would have kept the occupant compartment
space preserved during the roll.
United States
and Texas Fatal Rollover Crash Lawyers
for Deadly Rollover Fatal Crash Lawsuits
As a
Texas Fatal Rollover Crash, Jason Coomer,
works on Texas Fatal Rollover Lawsuits
involving serious injuries and fatal
automobile collisions all over the State
of Texas and throughout the United
States. In working on Texas Fatal
Rollover Crash Law Suits, Jason Coomer
commonly works with other Texas Fatal
Crash Rollover Lawyers throughout Texas
and the United States including Houston
Fatal Roll Over Crash Lawyers, Dallas
Fatal Defective Roof Collapse Rollover
Lawyers, El Paso Defective SUV Fatal
Rollover Crash Lawyers, and San Antonio
Fatal Crash Rollover Accident Lawyers.
In
working with other Defective
Crashworthiness Fatal Crash Rollover
Lawyers, he is able to more efficiently
investigate and litigate catastrophic
injury and fatal automobile crash and
deadly car wreck lawsuits that are
caused by defective automobile design or
parts.
Texas Fatal Crash
Rollover lawyer, Jason S. Coomer, helps
individuals that have been seriously
injured and the families of people that
have been killed as a result of
defective air bags, defective rollover
design, defective roof design, defective
safety restraint design, defective
steering column design, or other a
defective crashworthiness automobile
design or part. If you have a question
about a fatal rollover crash lawsuit or
a SUV rollover crash roof collapse
lawsuit,
contact Austin Texas Fatal Rollover
Crash lawyer Jason Coomer. |