The effect of roof crush on occupant injury in rollovers has been the subject of a considerable number of technical publications. One very simple way to determine whether occupant injuries result from roof crush is to conduct pairs of inverted drop tests with instrumented test dummies and to compare the results between stock deformable roofs and structurally modified roofs. This was done in 1990 in a study conducted by General Motors. [1] This study compared the axial neck load, in restrained instrumented Hybrid III test dummies in drop tests with stock production vehicles, against those with roll cages. The authors concluded that roof crush was not causal to injury. Much of the literature has addressed this study and the general consensus is that there are many fatal flaws in the GM study. We have endeavored to expand the knowledge base and conduct additional drop tests to explore this idea further. Our tests have shown a clear and direct link between roof crush and injury.
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