Ah yes, the infamous Slow Speed Chase. I wonder how old I'll have to be before I forget about things like the OJ trial, Geraldo Rivera's "unveiling" of that tomb(?) which turned up nothing more than, what, a modern glass bottle or bottle cap?, etc.

 

A lot of the stuff in the Owner's Manual about safety is really intended for the lawyers to use not to protect the consumers.

The video looks like a police chase gone wrong, hitting the rear of the car to make it loose control and stop works fine with a car, but with an SUV or Minivan can cause the vehicle to roll. It is not so much the driving technique, it is the high centre of gravity of the taller vehicles combined with the high speed. I don't think the driver of the SUV could have done any better.

 

It wasn't a police chase at all. Cop cars have their cameras on any time the vehicle is in service. It was just a case of someone trying to change lanes into their blind spot without checking, the vehicle in that lane then swerving out of the way and rolling over once they were sideways off the road.

The fact is that for some reason, people seem to have drummed in to their heads that slamming on the brakes makes you a bad driver and that you have to try and be a Hollywood stunt driver. The overwhelming majority of wrecks can be avoided or mitigated simply by slamming on the brakes, NOT by swerving! If the SUV driver had simply jammed the brake pedal to the floor, he would have been fine.

For the record, one of the more famous videos used in court is of a BMW sedan rolling over on dry pavement during a slalom test on BMW proving grounds by a BMW engineer. Everything was perfectly fine until the vehicle simply hooked a rear wheel and catapulted over. Yes, even cars can be rolled over with surprising ease. High CG vehicles are of course easier to roll, but I would NOT guarantee that if it had been a car, it wouldn't have rolled over just as easily given the same circumstances.

FWIW, at least the driver of the SUV is ok.

http://woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4940480

 

I might agree just slamming the breaks would be the less of evils, but not a great move either.

The best thing is to be in a defensive driver's mode and anticipate what to do if something happend that demands evasive action.

 

Politics of lawyers aside, the higher center of gravity is exactly why drivers of SUVs/pickups/etc. need to be especially careful when swerving and especially when losing the roadway and trying to return to it.

From page 199 of FEH Owner's Manual:A little excessively worded? Yes. Patently false? Not at all.

 

This is a perfect example of how dangerous non-SUV drivers can be, drove that SUV off the road and just kept going, looked like a hit and run to me.

 

That's generalizing a bit much... I've had both SUVs and small cars nearly run me off the road when they're not paying attention.

Bad drivers are bad drivers, unfortunately, put a bad driver in an SUV and you have a bad driver with a lot more momentum!

 

Indeed, being somewhere else is of course the best thing, but once something DOES happen, jamming on the brakes while remaining pointed straight is easier to control than swerving wildly into the median. Because I've been autocrossing and doing open track events since 1999, I've had plenty of cars up over 100mph on the track. I actually locked up the brakes completely on accident on my 1988 Civic with a B16A at 115mph a few years back. Didn't even know they were locked at first. Nothing happened, I did not spin out or flip over 8 times. Braking is actually very safe.

Cars with soft suspension will nose dive a lot more than stiffly suspended cars, but Car and Driver does 70-0 mph braking on every vehicle they test. I've done maximum force braking in at least three different vehicles from > 100mph. It may seem foreign to most people, but it's really not hard to keep a vehicle that's traveling straight to remain traveling straight. Now whipping a car back and forth at 70+ mph? That's scary. In an Explorer of all things, and with swerving into the median? No thank you, sir!

In terms of risk exposure, you're many, many times better off just keeping it pointed straight and standing on the brake pedal. This is especially true for modern vehicles which have EBD and ESP to help you keep it pointed straight while braking.

 

It's not clear who bumped the SUV.

Was it an officer on a police chase? If so, it's a textbook illustration of how not to stop a suspect.

If it was not someone in law enforcement, then hopefully they were caught and had charges filed.

This video would make an excellent buckle-up public service spot.

One criticism of SUVs is the poor rear visibility promotes a feeling of safety, which this video obviously dispells. Of course the bumped driver did not have a lot of options.

 

If it was a police "precision ramming manouver" it was really stupid.

If it wasn't, it was probably a driver that tried to change lanes without turning his/her head to check the blind spot, it also seems that the driver of the car didn't signal before changing lanes.

Most people don't realize that the speed limits are set for a reason, not just to annoy us. The speed limit is also for low centre-of-gravity cars driving on a clear day and dry road conditions.

The problem is modern mini-trucks and mini-vans feel like regular automobiles and get driven by people without any truck driving skills. All it takes is a small distraction, flat tire, rain, snow, etc. and these vehicles loose control. The rest of us also pay the price.

I have owned a couple of mini-vans but I never drove them like I drive a regular car. I knew how unstable these vehicles are and how annoying and dangerous on the passing lanes with cars trying to pass you.

A mini-van or an SUV is not built to be driven like a sports car, even if it has the same size engine and power as a sports car. The problem is car manufacturers give you one message when they market them and a different one in the owners manual after you've purchased the vehicle.