Articles Posted in SUV Rollovers

Frank Kwangsu Kim, 49, of Lake Elsinore was killed in a Chino Hills rollover auto accident the morning of February 3, 2009 after his car hit some debris on the 91 Freeway and crashed. According to this news report, Kim was driving a Nissan Sentra eastbound on the 91 Freeway near Green River Road when the vehicle was struck by debris. Kim lost control of his vehicle and hit the center divider and overturned. Kim suffered major neck injuries and died shortly after the crash. Officials did not say what kind of debris Kim struck on the freeway.

My heart goes out to the family of Frank Kwangsu Kim for their tragic loss. I offer my deepest sympathies to the victim’s family and friends. It is heartbreaking to see that a man was killed because someone else carelessly dropped debris on the freeway.

Hundreds of deaths occur each year in the United States because of debris on the roadway. The California State Department of Transportation (Caltrans) says highway debris has caused 155 California traffic accident deaths just over the last two years. In fact this is the second freeway accident relating to debris in Southern California over the last one week! We just wrote about 52-year-old Leonard Vernon Maxwell who was killed in a January 30, 2009 accident on the 91 Freeway in Corona after his motorcycle struck debris on the freeway.
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The Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys Law Firm is proud to be suing Subaru of America on behalf of young Emma Thayer and her father Gregory Jones for the wrongful death of Emma’s mother, Lisa Ann Thayer, who was killed in a Subaru Forester rollover accident. According to court documents, Thayer was buckled up in the Forester and traveling north on Interstate 40 at highway speeds, when the SUV rollover accident occurred.

The sport utility vehicle suddenly veered into the south paved shoulder, rotated clockwise and then swerved north across both lanes of traffic into the desert. The Subaru Forester then rolled over two times causing injuries to Emma and killing her mother, Lisa.

In our opinion, the Subaru Forester was defectively manufactured. It has an unsafe seat restraint system and insufficient lateral and roll stability. We know that during the accident, Lisa’s seatbelt failed ejecting her through the vehicle’s windshield causing fatal injuries.
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Federal safety regulators are delaying a tougher vehicle roof-strength standard by three months, according to a news report in the Detroit Free Press. This more stringent standard is expected to prevent highway deaths in rollover accidents that caused vehicles with weak roofs to cave in and crush causing numerous fatalities, brain and spinal injuries.

The new roof crush standard, which was supposed to have been in place by July 1, will instead be issued Oct. 1, according to a recent announcement made by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). Safety advocates reportedly told regulators June 4 that the proposed rule was inadequate and that the federal safety agency should take more time to strengthen the proposed standard.

More than 10,000 people die in the United States each year in rollover accidents. Many of these auto accidents involve sport utility vehicles, which are prone to rollovers because of their high center of gravity. Recent studies by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that Ford Explorer and Chevrolet Suburban, especially the older models, had the worst roof strength which has been confirmed by our own testing.
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Three people were injured in a two-car SUV rollover accident on Highway 12 in Santa Rosa after a Chrysler sedan reportedly ran a red light and struck a Chevrolet Suburban sport utility vehicle, which flipped over. According to an article in the Press Democrat, both the driver and a passenger in the sedan and the driver of the Suburban were injured.

From the photo of the Chevrolet Suburban in this SUV Rollover accident, it appears that the vehicle’s roof crushed, which is common for General Motors Company SUVs. If the injuries to the occupants of the Chevrolet Suburban were severe head or spinal cord injuries or if any other injuries were caused by the collapsing roof or seat belt failures, the victims would be well-served by consulting with one of about a dozen auto defect law firms in the nation that are truly experienced in handling GMC SUV litigation. When considering hiring a SUV rollover accident attorney, ask them how many similar cases they have completed and how many they have in progress. Your might also want to know how many auto defect cases in total they have successfully completed against General Motors.
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An SUV accident in the Hollywood Hills on Monday, May 25th, near Crescent Drive killed an unidentified man in his 70s and a woman in her 20s, while critically injuring the driver of the vehicle, a woman in her 40’s according to an article in The L.A. Times.

Two people died and three others were critically injured in the wreck as a Range Rover sport-utility vehicle went off the narrow canyon road, rolled down the slope before stopping against the carport of a home. By the time the vehicle landed upside-down it had crashed into a house in the 8700 block of Duncamp Place, near Lookout Mountain Avenue and had injured the SUV’s driver, a woman in her 40s, the news report said. A toddler and another passenger suffered moderate injuries.

Los Angeles Police Capt. Nancy Lauer stated that the accident happened as the driver lost control after hitting a huge pothole. Fortunately, the child was properly restrained in a car seat, without which the child probably would have been ejected from the SUV as well. A torn sunroof helped the injured victims find a way out of the vehicle.
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A rollover crash in San Bernardino, which officials say was caused by speed and unsafe lane changes, sent six people to the hospital. According to a news report in the San Bernardino Sun, witnesses told police that the driver of a Honda Civic cut off a Chevy Suburban while making a turn. The driver of the Suburban then reportedly made a lane change and lost control causing the vehicle to rollover, the report said.

The crash caused minor to moderate injuries to four people in the Suburban and two in the Civic. The Suburban hit a Jeep Cherokee as it flipped over, but thankfully the driver of the Jeep did not suffer any injuries.

It is a miracle that this accident did not result in catastrophic injuries. It seems as if the driver of the Honda Civic was who triggered this rollover accident, but had the Chevy Suburban been better designed, it would not have flipped over. The Suburban has been known to cause serious injuries in rollover accidents because of its weak roof that caves in when it flips. The roof crushes the occupants within leaving them with severe traumatic brain injuries or spinal cord injuries. The occupants of the Suburban are very fortunate that they did not suffer major injuries.
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It turns out that personal injury attorneys and advocacy groups were right all along on the issue of SUV rollover and roof crush. A study released this week by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS) reveals beyond doubt that there is a definite connection between a vehicle’s roof strength and passenger safety. The study concludes that more than 200 deaths could have been prevented in rollover accidents in 2006 had the roofs been stronger, an article in USA Today reports.

Here’s an excellent example to help you visualize what these guys mean when they say “roof strength.” When the 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee and 2000 Nissan Xterra were subjected to the crushing force of up to 10,000 pounds, the Xterra’s roof crushed about 2 inches while the Grand Cherokee’s roof crushed 10 inches, according to the study. And still some carmakers deny there is any connection between roof strength and passenger safety. The Ford Explorer performed even worse, especially the 1996 to 2001 model years.

The study was released even as federal officials in the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) are preparing to come out with more rigorous standards to test roof strength. But these have been a long time coming. NHTSA has been talking about new roof strength standards for a decade and proposed new standards two years ago but nothing has been implemented. The standards have not been updated in nearly 30 years giving auto makers like Ford the excuse that they have been complying with the federal standard.
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Ford Motor Company has lost an appeal in an $82.6 million lawsuit involving an Explorer rollover accident, which left Benetta Buell-Wilson, a mother of two, paralyzed from the waist down. Ford’s attorneys had previously succeeded in reducing a $109 million damage award to $82.6 million. But an appellate court in San Diego has ruled that Buell-Wilson was entitled the reduced award, out of which $55 million was punitive damages, according to a news report.

The 4th District Court of Appeal took on the case after the U.S. Supreme Court asked the appellate court to review it. Ford had appealed the award arguing that they were being unfairly punished even though its design met federal vehicle safety standards. Buell-Wilson was reportedly driving her 1997 Ford Explorer on a freeway in San Diego when she lost control of her vehicle while swerving to avoid some debris on the road. Her Explorer rolled over four and a half times and the roof of the SUV collapsed on her neck severing her spine.
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Two people died and six suffered severe injuries after their 2003 Ford Expedition lost control and ran off Interstate 19 in Tucson, ramming into a tree. According to reports on KOLD News’ Web site, Idalia Montano, 34, and Margarita Gonzalo Leon, 55, died in the SUV rollover crash. Both women reportedly did not wear a seatbelt, according to the Tucson Citizen. In fact, the article states that other than the driver, no one in the Expedition was wearing a seatbelt, including four children who were in the vehicle, ages 11, 10, 4 and 1.

Officials are looking into why the Expedition went off the highway. It’s really unfortunate that a majority of occupants were not buckled up – not even the children. But the fact that they were traveling in a Ford Expedition also raises some questions. We just got off a case involving one of our clients, Gloria Levesque, who was severely injured in an Expedition crash and rendered paraplegic. Her trial ended in a hung jury, but soon after, Ford settled for an undisclosed amount.

Our firm has conducted several crash tests involving Ford sport utility vehicles such as the Explorer and Expedition. About 10,000 people die each year in the United States in rollover accidents. We have particularly found that Ford SUVs are unstable, ineffective and fail to protect their occupants, especially in rollover accidents. These vehicles have been known to tip over even in moderate speeds. What happens when the vehicle flips over is the weak roof caves in on the driver or the passenger, crushing their head and spine causing catastrophic injuries.

A Florida jury has ordered auto maker Mitsubishi to pay $11 million in compensatory damages to a couple whose son was killed after being partially ejected from the Montero sport utility vehicle that rolled over, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The lawsuit brought against Mitsubishi by Donna and Peter Laliberte, alleged that the carmaker put its Montero SUV on the market in spite of knowing about problems with the seatbelt.

Their 25-year-old son, Scott, was thrown backward through the rear window in the SUV rollover crash, which occurred nearly four years ago. Scott was a passenger in the vehicle and was reportedly wearing his seatbelt. Jurors were convinced after attorneys argued that Mitsubishi took the unprecedented step of releasing a new version of the Montero halfway through the 2000 model year to fix those problems. But Mitsubishi officials never told consumers about the seatbelt defect in their earlier model.

Attorneys for the auto maker still denied that, which is typical. However, they did acknowledge that the changes in the Montero happened because of “poor crash test results,” the newspaper reported. Jurors awarded the couple $10 million for pain and suffering and the rest for funeral expenses and losses. The newspaper also reported that the trial was emotional for jurors and that many of them embraced the couple teary-eyed after the verdict.
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