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That’s…Concerning: Rollover Testing A 1998 Ford Expedition With Nobody Buckled In!


That’s…Concerning: Rollover Testing A 1998 Ford Expedition With Nobody Buckled In!

As we make progress on turning the rolled-over Explorer we drug home into a pile of parts, we couldn’t help but wonder just what the rollover crash test footage looked like. Ford’s midsize SUV became a social pariah due to crashes involving under-inflated tires and under-performing drivers, and there has been some question about whether or not the A-pillars were too thin for the weight of the truck. We went looking for the footage…but what we found instead was even more horrifying. The vehicle in question is the Explorer’s big brother, the Ford Expedition, and it’s filled to the brim of crash test dummies that aren’t buckled in. This test was done to prove how seat belts save lives. That’s not to say that in a rollover this dramatic, that there wouldn’t be injuries, but we highly doubt that anybody wearing a seatbelt would see the kind of airtime that these dummies do. Two of the dummies are launched into low orbit, while the other two get steamrolled by the tumbling Ford. If this didn’t make you want to buckle up, nothing would. Yikes.


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11 thoughts on “That’s…Concerning: Rollover Testing A 1998 Ford Expedition With Nobody Buckled In!

  1. john t

    I have to say growing up in Australia we have had ironclad seatbelt laws since at least the 70’s – nobody dares to drive without belts on – its one of the most reliable ways of getting your ass pulled over…seeing stuff like this its hard to comprehend why anyone would drive without a belt on, yet so many American shows and movies, even car shows, show people getting around without them…

    1. jerry z

      I:ve been driving for 37 yrs and wouldn’t be lying for maybe the 1st 3-4 yrs I didn’t wear a seatbelt. When I drove my first V8 car (70 Cuda 383 4spd), the seatbelt maybe necessity. Too many times when the car almost put me in the hospital for as guilty as I was for careless driving. What can I say it was a fast car!

  2. Shawn Fox Firth

    anything I drive is ’60s or earlier I don’t mind lap belts can’t stand ratcheting shoulder belts

  3. dan barlow

    I used to almost never wear them . Then around 20 when a had a V8 Monza I would put it on if I was going to get a little enthusiastic with it . Finally I realized I couldn’t always decide when things were going to get dangerous and started wearing them all the time.

    I have a friend that still thinks we live in the land of the free , home of the brave and would rather drive down the road with the warning dinger going of every 10 seconds .

  4. Mike Morgan

    During the time when Ford Exploders were making the nightly news, my wife and I took a drive to Vegas; on the way up, we passed one, on it’s roof, in the middle of the road. Same trip, on the southbound part of the trip, we see a lot of dust up ahead. When we get closer, we see 2 young women sitting in the median, atop their luggage, which had been ejected from their pile of Ford’s finest SUV junk, which lay upside down, several yards from the women.
    In the following weeks, I saw another upside down, with toys scattered all across the rodeway in Los Angeles. Then, in Orange County, another, on the sidewalk, upside down…nobody, anywhere in sight!

  5. cap'n fast

    seem to say a lot more about driver qualifications than vehicle stability. three tons of pickup with a station wagon body is not as nifty handling as an VW Beetle.
    been wearing seatbelts since my first physics class. flying military, you learn to tighten them down until the straps leave bruises over the bones. folks who think shoulder belts are uncomfortable should consider how uncomfortable a steering wheel inside their sinus cavity would be.

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