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This paper examines the directional handling characteristics of several vehicles in their original condition, then examines modifications to a few of these vehicles to determine if the handling characteristics can be made more forgiving of normal operators without sacrificing utility and without substantial increases in cost. These analyses of vehicles are made in the context of what normal operators are capable of performing with regards to steering response.

Typically the roll propensity of a vehicle is calculated from the assumption that the vehicle is a rigid body and that its roll propensity can be determined by taking the ratio of the track width and the center of gravity height. However, a passenger vehicle is not a rigid body; it is at least two rigid bodies connected through links and springs and shock absorbers. The objective of this paper is to derive a new second order rollover metric, which will predict whether a vehicle may be susceptible to rollover from simple physical measurements of the vehicle. The validation of the derived metric using a stock and modified vehicle configuration will be presented. Further validation with several vehicles is planned and will be reported in later papers.