Caught On Tape: SUV rolls 10 times; driver survives

By KATU.com Web Staff

MICHIGAN - Police say a woman who rolled her large SUV 10 times trying to avoid a collision on a Michigan highway is probably still alive because she was wearing her seatbelt.

The harrowing crash was caught on a dash-mounted camera in a patrol car driving behind the woman's SUV.

The video shows a small car easing into the lane occupied by the SUV.

The SUV driver then moves onto the sloping shoulder of the road to avoid the collision, but over corrects while trying to get back onto the highway.

The SUV then begins to roll repeatedly, narrowly missing another vehicle and showering debris across the highway.

The SUV eventually comes to rest in the grass on the other side of the highway.

The woman was extracted from the wreckage but only suffered cuts, bruises and other minor injuries.

Police are searching for the driver of the small car that caused the accident.

Watch this story on video : CLICK HERE

 

Yea I saw this on the news yesterday. Pretty crazy. Glad she survived.

 

Was that a Tahoe/Yukon?

 

So many dumb women drivers! Stupid! An American people learn hard way! End up in jail and death!

 

^
|
|
|

 

DON'T point fingers at that poor woman without knowing more of the facts.

We only saw a few seconds of the whole event on the video...we don't know everything that happened and exactly how she got run off...or what kind of surface her wheels were on and how the steering wheel was reacting. We also don't know how much weight was in the vehicle, how that weight was distributed, and where the center of gravity was. Tall, narrow, SUV's, by their very nature, though, are prone to this type of accident.....as we have discussed here many times.

What we CAN deduce from this, however, is that the police were probably right...it looks like the belts DID save her life, and in combo with side air bags if her vehicle had them.

 

Agreed, Looks like a newer Ford Explorer to the view I caught when it started to go over. She tried to correct but sometimes you can't do much in a SUV. Trust me I use to own a Pathfinder and swerving was scary. That is why I had 15k of damage on it in the first 2 weeks I owned it. I wasn't use to a SUV and didn't swerve.

 

Yes, the new Explorer, and its brothers, the Mercury Mountaineer and Lincoln Aviator, have new suspensions and tires and revised tire pressures designed to minimize the chances of this happening, but you still can't defeat the laws of physics.....everything else equal, the higher the center of gravity, the more body roll you will get.
What is interesting is that if this WAS a new Explorer ( my video was a little fuzzy and I couldn't tell for sure ) that vehicle benefits from the new roll-stability system ( not just yaw oversteer / understeer ) that Volvo pioneered on the XC-90. Ford, being Volvo's owner, is of course free to adapt that technology to any Ford vehicle it chooses...and has put it on some of its newest SUV's, for obvious reasons.

 

Two good arguments for not buying a Ford Explorer:

1. It will flip over pretty easily
2. All of the pieces will come off if you ever have an accident! I couldn't believe all the debris flying everywhere! It must be all the cheap-*** plastic trim pieces and stuff. Sure, it was a bad accident, but that thing came apart like it was glued together... Oh wait, it is.

 

Well, a very respected CL member just bought a new Explorer a few weeks ago and seems to be quite pleased with it. And the new Explorers, at least, are probably no worse than competing models like the Chevy TrailBlazer, Dodge Durango, Jeep Grand Cherokee, etc..... when it comes to being unstable, and, with the new Volvo-designed anti-roll systems, may in fact even be LESS unstable and LESS likely to roll than they are.
As I said in my earlier post, whatever made that SUV ( whatever model it was ) flip so suddenly like that may have been unavoidable......we just don't know all the facts.

 

OMG, this reminds me of my swirving in my GS300 last month

some guy was swirving into my car and i had to swirve too
thank god for VSC, i got control back soon