New York City’s effort to increase fuel efficiency has hit a significant snag. The Ford Escape Hybrid, which many NYC taxi fleets chose to replace the venerable Crown Victoria, doesn’t react very well in a crash.

A new report by a noted automotive engineer exposes several safety hazards of hybrid taxis in New York City, including rollovers as well as other safety-related concerns.

The report found several safety hazards, many of which can be attributed to the unintended use of the Ford Escape Hybrid — a standard passenger vehicle with a three star crash rating — as a New York City taxicab. In analyzing the rollover accident, the report found:

• The side-curtain airbag did not deploy normally due to insufficient space between the partition and the top of the car.
• The L-shaped partition interfered with the 3-point unibelt because it changed the anchoring position of the belt.
• The partition did not stay in place during the crash and may have resulted in a violent head strike against the hard partition if there had been a passenger in the right front seat.

A direct result of these findings means that NYC’s mandates likely won’t be enforced next month.

Much to the dismay of industry watchdogs, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has delayed its new roof crush standard and has gone back to the drawing board.

The NHTSA has not updated its roof crush standards in 35 years, and a study released earlier this year that found that there is a lower risk of injury to vehicle occupants when the roof of the vehicle is stronger has spurred their revision.

Watchdog groups say most American cars barely meet the new standard and, even so, it is to blame for nearly 10,000 deaths from car and truck rollovers each year.

Currently, a vehicle’s roof only has to support 1.5 times the vehicle’s weight. The proposed update would require roofs to support 2.5 the weight of the entire vehicle, but Congress and consumer advocate groups say the 2.5 standard isn’t strong enough. They claim that most new vehicles already conform to a 2.5 standard and that the proposed standard should be raised to 3.5.

Watchdog groups also object to a provision in the proposed rules that would prevent consumers from suing manufactures after death or injury in a rollover.

43,200 Americans were killed in motor vehicle accidents on highways in the United States in 2005.

One fourth of those fatalities – 10,816 people – died from vehicle rollovers, and rollovers accounted for less than 5 percent of all vehicle accidents in that year. More than 5,000 people suffered from injuries that caused them to become quadriplegic. Injuries and fatalities from rollovers are caused by the roof of the vehicle crushing the passengers, or from glass shattered from the roof crush.

Common sense would say that the the automobile industry is working to cut the amount of injuries – but it is not. In fact, these manufacturers are trying to use a federal agency, the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), to eliminate the rights of car crash victims seeking justice and compensation from their injuries – injuries that could be prevented with stronger roof crush standards.

Hopefully, with pressure from Congress and consumer advocate groups, the NHTSA will maintain citizen’s access to our court system and revise their standard to more stringent – and safer – levels.