Crashworthiness refers to the ability of a motor vehicle to protect its occupants during a collision, rollover, or other impact.
Many aspects of vehicle design contributing to crashworthiness, such as the design of the frame, engine compartment and other structures.
Passenger restraints such as seat belts and air bags, locks, suspension, engine mounts, tires, and many other structural elements also contribute to a vehicle's overall crashworthiness.
Car manufacturers around the world subject their vehicles in development to extensive testing to determine how safe they are for their passengers.
In the United States, consumers frequently see televised enactments of crash-test dummies placed in vehicles that are then placed in crash simulations, such as a rear-end collision,a sideways collision, or a vehicle rollover.
In each of these test scenarios, instruments are attached to the dummies which record the type of impact and its force.
This testing allows automotive engineers to evaluate the nature of impacts and the severity of potential injuries.
For years, concerned plaintiff's lawyers have brought actions against manufacturers of vehicles when seatbelts did not hold or when poor and unsafe design within the vehicle made collision injuries far worse than they should have been.
This type of litigation is often referred to as crashworthiness litigation.
Sometimes in a collision the seatbelt will break or come loose from its anchorage, causing a person's body to be thrown around in a way that results inserious injury.
Had the seatbelt held, the injury would have been relatively minor.
Sometimes there will be an implosion in the vehicle that causes part of the vehicle to intrude on the passenger space, causing massive injuries to passengers or driver.
Lawyers may demonstrate with statistical research that in better designed vehicles such intrusion injuries simply do not occur.
Sport Utility Vehicles, SUV's, have significant defects in crashworthiness because of their tendency to roll over.
Their high center of gravity makes them more likely to roll over in quick maneuvers, such as when the driver is turning quickly at highway speed to avoid an accident.
Insurance industry statistics show that in all but the heaviest SUV's, occupants have higher death rates in single-vehicle accidents.
The principal factor is vehicle rollover.
According to National Highway Transportation Safety Administration statistic, SUVs involved in fatal crashes rolled over 37 percent of the time, compared to a 15 percent rollover rate forfatal crashes involving passenger cars.
Rollover crashes account for 53 percent of all SUV occupant deaths in single vehicle crashes.
SUVs' poor crashworthiness has led to many lawsuits by survivors of rollovers and bereaved family members.