AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY Engineers design safer, efficient SUV

Designers say the traditional SUVs are heavier and higher but not safer.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Sport utility vehicles don't have to be the gas-guzzling, road-hogging menaces their detractors make them out to be.
Engineers say they have designed a safer, more fuel-efficient SUV, one that's based on the popular Ford Explorer and modified with readily available technology.
The Union of Concerned Scientists and the Center for Auto Safety say their SUV, dubbed the "UCS Guardian," uses the same amount of gas as a car and is significantly safer than the sport-utes currently on the road, while maintaining the power and size that motorists covet.
Don't look for this SUV at your nearest Ford dealership -- it exists in concept form only. But the Guardian's designers say it could be produced now if automakers wanted because the safety features and fuel-efficient engine in the Guardian already exist.
"Families deserve to know that they can get a better SUV, one that is safer, saves lives and saves them money at the gas pump," David Friedman, an engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists and co-designer of the Guardian, told a news conference Tuesday in Philadelphia.
SUVs are notorious gas guzzlers and critics have contended for years that they're unsafe. In January, Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said SUVs' rollover fatality rate is triple that for passenger cars.
Here's the argument
SUV owners "think SUVs are safer than regular vehicles, because they're larger, heavier and sit up higher," said Guardian co-designer Carl Nash, former chief of accident investigation for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "Unfortunately, that perception turns out not to be true."
Automakers insist that sport utility vehicles are safer than passenger cars in the vast majority of crashes, and SUVs' popularity hasn't been dented a bit by the critics: The SUVs now comprise up to 25 percent of total U.S. vehicle sales.
Industry spokesman Eron Shosteck derided the Guardian concept as a one-size-fits-all approach, saying that some consumers want an SUV with safety features and are willing to pay for them, while others prefer less-expensive models.
"If they can build this Guardian, why don't they do it?" Shosteck asked. "It's nice to put something in blueprint form, but we have to build vehicles that go on pavement."
The make-believe Guardian comes with a unibody steel frame, a stronger, crumple-resistant roof, pretensioner seat belts that cinch automatically in a rollover, lower bumpers to protect other drivers in a crash, and a seat-belt reminder that emits a noise until all passengers are belted. It also has a six-cylinder, fuel-efficient engine.
A more expensive model, the Guardian XSE, has electronic stability control to reduce the threat of rollovers, side-curtain air bags for all passengers, and a six-speed automatic transmission to improve gas mileage even more.
If all SUVs on the road were outfitted with the Guardian's safety features, the designers contend that thousands of lives would be saved -- between 2,275 and 2,900 each year, depending on the Guardian model.
Comparisons
At $29,935, the base Guardian would be $735 more expensive than the 2002 Ford Explorer XLT (the model on which the Guardian was based), and the Guardian XSE would cost nearly $3,000 more than the Explorer.
However, designers say that both Guardian models would be less expensive than the Explorer in the long run because of their superior gas mileage -- the base Guardian would get 27.8 miles per gallon, the XSE model 36.3, while the Explorer is rated at 21.2 miles per gallon.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a lobbying group that represents General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG and others, says SUVs already offer plenty of safety features.
More than two-thirds of new SUVs are available with side air bags, and one-third have electronic stability control systems, the group says.