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As part of a comprehensive plan to reduce the risk of death and serious injury in rollover crashes, NHTSA has proposed upgrading the roof crush resistance standard, FMVSS 216. To evaluate the benefit of this proposal, the agency examined real-world data on injuries and fatalities that would be prevented by the proposed rulemaking. This paper provides a detailed discussion of the statistical and engineering approaches used to derive benefit estimates on fatalities calculated by NHTSA for the proposed upgrade. It concludes the NHTSA estimate of 13-44 lives saved annually is not reliable due to extreme sensitivity of the benefit calculation to the paucity of field data and questionable engineering assumptions.

Various factors were evaluated to determine their influence on the odds of front seat occupants receiving either fatal or serious/fatal injuries in single-vehicle rollovers. Factors evaluated included roof strength-to-vehicle weight ratio (as measured in accordance with FMVSS 216), and SAE H61 Effective Headroom. Roof strength-to-weight ratio had no statistically significant effect (p>0.05) on the likelihood of fatality or serious/fatal injury for belted or unbelted drivers. SAE H61 Effective Headroom had no statistically significant effect (p>0.05) on the likelihood of fatal or serious/fatal injury for seat belted drivers in rollovers.

The analysis presented here updates and expands previous research in which rollover critical events were classified based on a detailed review of about 500 police-reported single-vehicle rollover crashes of ESC-equipped vehicles. In order to compare the rollover performance of vehicles with and without ESC for the present study, an additional sample of 150 police reports on non-ESC passenger cars and 196 police reports on light vehicles with ESC in single-vehicle rollovers were obtained, and detailed coding of rollover scenarios was performed. The coding effort was undertaken by an engineering team and focused on critical events leading to rollovers (departure from road, loss of directional control, impact with an object, and departure from road with possible driver's input); driver factors (alcohol/drug involvement, speeding, inattention, distraction, fatigue, and overcorrection); and environmental factors.

NASS/CDS data (1993-2013) was used to examine serious injury rates and injury sources for belted drivers in near- and far-side impacts. Frequency and severity of near- and far-side impacts by crash severity (delta-V) were compared for older (1994-2007 MY) and newer (2008-2013 MY) vehicles. For 2008-2013 MY, individual cases were examined for serious thorax injury in far-side impacts. Results show that, for newer passenger cars, about 92% of side impacts have a delta-V under 15 mph and, for older cars, the percentage is about 86%. The rate of serious injury is higher for nearside compared to far-side crashes for both older and newer models, and the near-side injury rate is much lower for newer models. Safety features, including side airbags, are effective in reducing injuries to near-side belted drivers in newer models. The serious injury rate for near-side belted drivers in older cars is 5.5% for near-side crashes and 1.2% for far-side crashes.