Monday, January 31, 2005

Ad campaign urges driver safety in SUVs

By Sharon Silke Carty / USA TODAY

Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

A coalition of state attorneys general is launching an ad campaign today aimed at SUV safety and funded with money received from Ford Motor to settle a deceptive ad suit.

The campaign shows people riding on a large, hairy fictitious animal, dubbed the Esuvee, to illustrate the point that drivers need to treat SUVs differently than cars. SUVs sit higher than cars, making them more prone to roll over.

The $27 million campaign is part of a $51.5 million settlement attorneys general from all 50 states reached with Ford after suing the automaker in December 2002 for depicting their SUVs as safe in advertisements. A recent University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute study found that 37 percent of drivers under the age of 25 involved in a single-vehicle crash roll over, compared with 29.9 percent of all drivers. Almost 40 percent of SUVs in single-vehicle accidents on roads with high speed limits overturned, compared with 15.2 percent on roads with speed limits under 25 miles per hour.

In a statement, Ford said: "We agree with the state attorneys general that drivers should always remember to wear seat belts, avoid excessive speed and operate their vehicles safely. This applies to all vehicles -- cars, trucks and SUVs.

One safety advocate says the campaign doesn't address the real problem: The trucks themselves.

"I chafe at the idea that there's an educational campaign that's going to help deal with an inherent design-related flaw," says Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies, an automotive safety consulting firm. "A warning is not going to change how our reflexes take over in the event that we have to make an avoidance maneuver. The only thing that's going to change that is a design change."