WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to controversy about the safety of 15-passenger vans, federal regulators and safety advocates are proposing ideas for making the vehicles less likely to roll over, the Washington Post reported.
The vans, often used by church groups and school athletic teams, have drawn increased scrutiny and have been the subject of lawsuits in recent years. Regulators warn that the vans are three times as likely to tip over when carrying 10 or more passengers as when carrying fewer people. Safety advocates estimate that more than 400 people died between 1991 and 2000 in 15-passenger vans that rolled over during an accident. About half a million of the vans are on the road.
Current 15-passenger vans are too large to be subject to most passenger-vehicle standards and too small to trigger other safety measures, such as the standards that apply to school buses and the commercial licenses required for drivers of vehicles carrying 16 or more passengers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week proposed its own solution to the problem: a more structurally sound van required to meet the same safety requirements as school buses.
On Nov. 1, the National Transportation Safety Board, an advisory agency with no enforcement power, sent letters to General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and NHTSA recommending better braking systems and more extensive safety testing of the vans. The NTSB also said NHTSA should include the passenger vans in its rating system, which tests the rollover resistance of passenger vehicles, including sport-utility vehicles.
Lauren Peduzzi, a spokeswoman for the safety board, said the board may release more recommendations next summer after it completes a review of several 15-passenger van accidents.
Public Citizen, an advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader, said yesterday that, short of a total redesign, it hoped owners would pay to have an extra set of rear wheels installed on the vans, making them more stable and less likely to tip over.
Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen’s president and a former head of NHTSA, said the safety board’s proposals don’t address the fundamental problem: that the vans were originally designed to carry cargo and, with few modifications other than the addition of seats, are now marketed to carry people. The vehicle NHTSA envisions would include nearly all the special safety features of a school bus and could be manufactured almost immediately once it is approved.
The “multifunction school activity bus” could not be used daily to take children to and from school, but it could be used to take them on special trips.
“All in all, it seems like a smart way to get through this is to create a subcategory of school bus,” said Stephen R. Kratzke, NHTSA’s associate administrator for rulemaking. “They have many safety features that other vehicles in that size class don’t have in a crash and even after a crash. I hope we can get people to see there is a reasonable alternative out there.”
Those safety features include federal requirements that school buses have brakes with short stopping distances, emergency exits, high front seats, stronger roofs to protect passengers in case of a rollover, and a fuel system that is protected in a crash.
The vehicle would be designed to carry 11 to 29 passengers, and the smallest model would require seat belts.
Cost is one reason 15-passenger vans are popular with nonprofit organizations such as churches and schools. A new 15-passenger van costs about $28,000, compared with about $35,000 for a similarly sized school bus that meets more stringent safety standards.
But the vans don’t last as long as school buses and have higher insurance costs because of their accident record. GuideOne Insurance, which caters to churches, schools and nursing homes, refers to 15-passenger vans as “inherently unsafe” in a handbook it distributes to its members. It recommends people use school buses instead.
The recent safety board recommendations urged Ford and General Motors, which produce the majority of 15-passenger vans, to add special traction systems to help drivers control the vehicles. DaimlerChrysler AG quit making the vans earlier this year, citing poor sales.
General Motors will examine the safety board’s suggestions, spokesman Jim Schell said yesterday, without saying whether the manufacturer would make the suggested changes.
Representatives for Ford did not return calls for comment yesterday.