U.S. weighs new testing for vehicle roof strength

By John Crawley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. auto safety regulators, under pressure to upgrade an earlier proposal and reduce highway deaths, said on Thursday they may require a tougher test for determining roof strength of cars and other passenger vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sought public comment about whether to boost testing requirements for a regulation it proposed in 2005 but has not yet finalized.

Some regulators, members of Congress, and safety and consumer groups have aggressively pushed for stronger roof tests as a way to reduce deaths and injuries in rollover crashes.

Rollver-related deaths account for about a quarter of all U.S. traffic fatalities, which have topped 40,000 annually in recent years.

"Rollover crashes are among the most violent events on America's highways, and although they constitute a relatively small number of overall crashes, they account for a disproportionate number of deaths," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said in a statement.

Classic sport utility vehicles and pickups -- long the best-selling products offered by U.S. auto companies -- have historically been more prone to roll than cars, largely because of a higher center of gravity.

NHTSA proposed in 2005 that automakers build passenger vehicles up to 10,000 pounds (4.5 tons) that could withstand a force equal to 2.5 times their own weight in a rollover crash. The current standard that has been in place for 30 years has a threshold of 1.5 times for vehicle weight up to 6,000 pounds (2.7 tons).

The proposed requirement was limited to only one side of the car, SUV or pickup, and critics called it wholly inadequate to protect motorists. Many cars and trucks on the road, they said, already met the planned standard.