Kentucky Injury Lawyer Blog

There were two SUV rollover accidents in Louisville Kentucky this week: both involved serious injuries to children and teenagers, including one tragic fatality, and both involved single car accidents of Ford Explorer SUVs.

It is not very popular for anyone in Louisville, Kentucky to be publicly critical of Ford—a company that provides many good jobs in this community. But sometimes it is necessary to speak the truth. And there is a lot of evidence that the Ford Explorer, especially earlier models, just are not the safest of vehicles (to be generous). The two recent rollovers of Ford Explorers here in Louisville, KY and the tragic, needless death of one young lady, have inspired this blog post on the Ford Explorer's rollover problems.

“According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), rollovers account for only four percent of crashes but represent 35 percent of all vehicle occupant fatalities,” said Shawn Cantley, a Louisville Kentucky personal injury attorney who handles, product liability, car accident and rollover cases. And, rollover fatalities continue to rise with the popularity of SUVs like the Ford Explorer. In 1971, there were just 1,400 rollover fatalities. In 1980, that number jumped to 5,000. And in 2000, it leapt to 10,000. In 2005, 10,816 people died in rollover crashes on America’s roads and another 16,000 were critically injured.

“Ironically, people buy SUVs, in part, because they believe them to be safer than cars,” said Cantley. However according to NHTSA, because of the lethality of rollover accidents, people driving or riding in SUVs in 2003 were nearly 11 percent more likely to die in an accident than people in cars, the largest gap in safety between SUVs and cars ever recorded.

The Ford Explorer has had particular scrutiny when it comes to deadly rollover accidents. The Explorer has the distinction of earning only one star in a 2002 SUV test by the NHTSA. There have been hundreds of successful lawsuits against Ford for injuries and deaths resulting from Explorer rollovers. Ford recently settled a rollover-death case involving its Explorer SUV as a Florida jury considered whether to award $48 million in punitive damages to the victim's family and then sought to seal and protect from public disclosure damning documents from that case relating to roof crush in Explorers relative to other SUVs.

“Ford has obtained protective orders in 24 courts prohibiting the public from seeing what we released today – dynamic roof crush tests that show Volvo XC90 occupants escape serious injury in multiple rollover crashes while Ford Explorer occupants suffer serious injury,” said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

According to consumer watchdog, Public Citizen, court documents show that upgrading the Ford Explorer to provide the same level of protection as the Volvo XC-90 would cost merely $81.01 per vehicle — at the high end of what most experts believe it would cost.

“There is an epidemic of SUV rollover deaths and injuries in the U.S. at the moment,” said Shawn Cantley, who handles car accident and rollover cases in Kentucky. “The automobile manufactures have proven unwilling to police themselves. Government leaders, consumer groups, attorneys, concerned citizens all need to keep fighting for some accountability from these companies, or people are going to continue dying over $81.”

To contact Mr. Cantley by email, click this link: email_shawn / or call (502) 587-2002.

For more on Ford Explorer and other SUV rollovers, here is another post on on the subject:

SUV Rollover Accidents: Kentucky Injury Lawyer Update