The Safety Record Blog has been most pleased to inform our readership, from time to time, of the skullduggery emanating from the corporate offices of the Goodyear Rubber Company. Goodyear has made quite name for itself as champion discovery hardball player – years-long production delays, withholding relevant documents, offering less-than-truthful testimony from corporate reps and lying repeatedly right to the judge’s face about the evidence in its possession.

Editor’s Note: A Bus Crash, Litigation, and a Surprising Result is a complex and extraordinary story involving crash deaths, corporate malfeasance, regulatory gaps and litigation that produced significant results – not just for the plaintiffs, but for public safety. Given the length necessary to do this story justice, The Safety Record has decided to publish it in two parts.  Following is Part II

Editor’s Note: A Bus Crash, Litigation, and a Surprising Result is a complex and extraordinary story involving crash deaths, corporate malfeasance, regulatory gaps and litigation that produced significant results – not just for the plaintiffs, but for public safety. Given the length necessary to do this story justice, The Safety Record Blog has decided to publish it in two parts.

On March 1, the Epicenter of Worship Church held a prayer vigil for Omberi Erasto, the 18-year-old East Lansing High School student who died in a 15-passenger van rollover crash last month. Erasto was one of 17 occupants in a 2002 Chevrolet Express homeward bound on I-96 after a choir performance in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The left rear tire of the Express failed, leading to a loss-of-control crash that left several passengers severely injured, including Erasto’s younger sister, who lost her leg.

Two weeks later, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, issued yet another warning about the proper use of a 15 passenger van, in advance of the “spring driving season.” The agency is, once again, urging “colleges, church groups, and other users of 15-passenger vans to take specific steps to keep drivers and passengers safe.”

This is the agency’s eighth consumer advisory about the dangers of 15-passenger vans since 2001. The number one tip? Never overload a 15-passenger van because they “are particularly sensitive to loading.”

Funny, though, the agency neglects to define “overload” for the consumers they presumably want to warn. Fifteen-passenger vans have the dubious distinction of being a vehicle that is inherently unsafe if used for its intended purpose. Back in 2001, the agency issued specific information related to overloading, and emphasized the deadly consequences of failing to heed this warning:

Saturday’s 15-passenger van crash that killed six and injured eight members of a Bronx church is a somber reminder that the vehicle remains the only one in the U.S. fleet today that is deadly if used as a 15-passenger van. NHTSA long-ago whiffed on recalling the unstable vehicles, instead relying on manufacturers’ good intentions and consumer warnings, and the preventable carnage continues.

The 1997 Ford Econoline van, loaded with 14 members of the Joy Fellowship Christian Assemblies and their luggage, was on its way to a church event in Schenectady, NY when the left rear tire failed on the New York Thruway. The van rolled over, scattering occupants and suitcases on the median.

Reprinted from The Safety Record, V3, Issue 3, Nov. / Dec. 2006

CROWNSVILLE, MD - Despite the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's assertions to the contrary, their warnings about the rollover propensities of 15-passenger vans have not stemmed the death toll, according to a new analysis of government data.

Statistician Randy Whitfield of Quality Control Systems Corporation says that the cumulative rate of deaths in 15-passenger van rollovers has actually risen since NHTSA started issuing the first of four consumer advisories from 2001 to 2005. One third of all the 15-passenger van rollover deaths since 1982 occurred after April 9, 2001, when the federal government first started warning the public about the vehicle's hazards, once loaded to capacity with occupants and cargo.