Car makers reject call for extra estate car safety
Manufacturers' round up
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By Maurice Glover - Vehicle manufacturers have rejected a fleet industry call to build higher safety reserves into estate cars...
Ford and Vauxhall have both defended the safety features on models such as the Mondeo estate and the Vectra estate
Contract hire company Lex is claiming the workhorse models offer inadequate protection from loads that can intrude into the passenger cabin in accident situations.
Associate director Graham Kerr said: “This is a serious problem. Many people carry work samples stacked well above the height of the rear seat backs. Should they be unlucky enough to be involved in head-on collisions, these items could well be travelling at a force sufficient to take off a head restraint.
Dog guards
“But all the vehicle manufacturers can offer by way of protection are dog guards.”
With more than 250,000 vehicles on its books, the country’s biggest fleet supplier believes manufacturers should make moves to bring estate car load retention up to the standard achieved in light commercial vans, which are available with protective metal bulkheads.
“One in five of the cars we supply is an estate and more of our customers are asking if it is possible to offer drivers and passengers better protection from moving loads. Concern over this issue is growing, but this does not seem to be shared by the vehicle makers,” said Mr Kerr.
Sample
“Everyone accepts that people use estates to carry work samples and it’s often the case that these are packed well above the height of the rear seat. The consequences of loose items flying about in a head-on collision at speed don’t bear thinking about – in an accident at 70 mph, goodness knows what would be the damage from packages retained by nothing more than a dog guard.
“Salesmen at one of our double glazing company clients are switching from estates to vans with full bulkhead panels to separate the load from the cabin. They are high-mileage users and regard protection as a critical factor.
“We see this as a hot potato. Cars are built better to last longer, but they also go faster and accidents still happen. Even if drivers pack their vehicles in a responsible manner, we wonder if guards that are only good for dogs may be next to useless in accident situations.”
According to Rugby-based German kitchen manufacturer Hafale UK Ltd, which has a high proportion of estates in its 70-strong fleet, tests have shown the problem to be of particular significance.
“Our reps operate nationwide and most of them transport samples of mainly small items such as lighting boards and kitchen handles. We conducted our own risk assessment trials and reached the conclusion that none of the samples they carry are secure in the back of an estate car,” said health and safety manager Andrew Bryan.
“It’s pretty obvious that in the case of an accident, they have the potential to go flying from the back into the front, possibly causing injury to the driver or passengers.
“We tried out a dog guard and I’d be surprised if it would be strong enough to keep a dog sufficiently secure in an accident, let alone restrain a load.”
According to Mr Bryan, Hafale is so keen for its drivers to continue using estate cars that it has set it’s in-house design team the task of creating ideas for a driver safety panel.
“We have attended fleet presentations and seminars but found nothing on the market as an accessory, so we’ve started work on it ourselves. Our designers have plenty of ideas, but the stumbling block is how a safety panel can be secured,” he said.
Difficult
“Another problem is that what looks good on paper often proves to be difficult to produce, but the hope is that we will eventually beat the manufacturers to it and come up with something that does the job.”
Road safety experts say that in a 30 mph crash a ‘flying’ laptop computer hitting a vehicle occupant could cause such severe skull trauma and brain injury that it would kill them. In a 35 mph impact, a piece of luggage in the boot would travel forward with a force equal to a baby elephant or three tonnes, breaking through the rear seats in 0.11 seconds and hitting the windscreen in 0.37 seconds.
A Ford spokesman told RoadSafe: “Ford offers a range of load retention barrier nets and guards approved to regulation ECE-R17 and compliant with the German DIN 75410-2 requirements for all estate cars. In addition, detailed descriptions of what customers should do to safely restrain loads are given in the owner’s manual.
“We offer also special solutions for fleet customer needs – for example, a special load floor for the Ford Focus that is supplied to the telecom industry in Germany – in close cooperation with the customer. But we do not specifically offer bulkheads for estate cars. Vehicle owners have a responsibility to ensure that the loads they carry are appropriately restrained.”
A Vauxhall spokesman added: “Estate car users who are concerned about the movement of loads are recommended to fit the dog and load restraining mesh that we offer as an accessory and to avoid cheaper options that simply clip into place. Of course, we also recommend that loads should be lashed to keep them in place.”
Richard Parry Jones, Ford’s former chief technical officer and vice president of global product development, told RoadSafe: “A lot depends on where you want to put the bulkhead. If it is going to be placed behind the second row of seats, then it is feasible. But if any kind of bulkhead needs to go any further forward to cope with bigger loads, there’s going to be a fundamental incompatibility with a folding rear seat system.
Thought
“This is an idea that needs to be thought through pretty carefully. Many makers already put massive strengthening into the rear seat backs, so the chances of a heavy load finding its way through are negligible.
“I think the load retention net is a better idea for estate car users who are concerned about loads that might be stacked higher than the rear seatback. These are usually made of webbing, extend from the top of the seat back to the roof and are very strong and flexible.
“I’ve never seen one of these deployed behind the driver’s seat, although I’m sure this could be done. However, the idea of having a bulkhead behind the driver in an estate car doesn’t seem to me to be on, unless you want to dedicate it to simulate a van – and I don’t really see the point of that.”