I have to dissagree, not everyone that rolls their SUV deserves to die.
The big problem with the SUV manufacturers is that they advertise their
cars as rugged all purpose vehicles. They show how great it is to own an
SUV by showing scenes of how they accomodate large families, how you
can tow your boat, how great they are to pick up supplies at the hardware
store. They dont "in words" claim how safe they are, but they do show
SUV's blazing down trails at very unsafe speeds, spashing thru mud with
reckless abandom. They even show SUV's climbing Everest!! The worst
has to be the one for Honda that shows a couple of guys that have mtn
bikes on the roof, and get to a tunnel where the bikes wont fit, so instead
of taking the bikes off, they actually go off the road/trail and trailblaze around it!!
Not accounting how bad that is for our enviroment, it tells me that I would be
perfectly safe just driving off the trail on a hill with a top heavy SUV.
If I can drive an SUV like that off road, it must be invincible on the road, right?

I realize that most people on this board know the limits of their vehicles, but most
SUV owners do not, and they are very misinformed as to the handling characteristics
of their SUV. The current advertising campaigns by the auto makers, are very irresponsible
I think that the web site above makes assumtions, but does shed light as to the
basic physics of SUV's. Its flawed, but one can learn from it.

Most people really dont need an SUV. Maybe if gas prices keep climbing the number
of SUV's with fall, just like the gas guzzers of the 70's. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Keven, I agree with a lot of what you say, but what kind of damfool believes advertising claims?

I still get riled ever time I see the "tests" of rollover stability performed by the likes of Consumer reports (the ones with the LONG and HIGH added outriggers that drasticly raised the SUV's center of gravity, and the ones where they whip it from right to left to use the spring rebound to accentuate the body roll.

In response to the analogy of the 20' radius turn to an evasive maneuver, do you know the minimum turning DIAMETER of a Gen1 2dr (probably the shortest of the bunch). It's just under 40'! You'd have to whip the wheel to full lock AND have oversteer to achieve a 20' radius turn. The typical evasive maneuver is less than a half turn of the wheel, because you just don't have time to crank it further even with the reflexes of a gunslinger. I'm still one of the quickest people I know, and I can't do much more than a half turn, especially since that quickness outruns the power steering's boost.

That idiot's analysis is just GIGO.

I have actually tested the lateral adhesion of my Raider with a G-Tech, running on a huge parking lot with fresh asphalt on a 300' diameter circle, and the G-tech levelled on the side window, and I generated .84g just short of front tire breakaway. I could surge up to .86, but not hold it, because it picked the front inside wheel off the ground. I had a LARGE amount of body roll, but the tires stayed planted except for the above front wheel lift. With a tad more hp I could have thrown the rear end out a little and used rear wheel thrust to hold it to higher g's (the old timey 4 wheel drift like a dirt track car), but 180hp just wasn't enough with big meats on pavement. Works nice on the dirt, though.