....the "Transportation Analysis Institute". I appreciate that the Volvo scores "worse" than the Cadillac.

The Volvo also supposedly scores "better" than the Porsche Boxster and the BMW Z3, both cars with VERY low centers of gravity, so the entire hypothesis that this index actually contains meaningful information is highly suspect.

When I took the Skip Barber high performance driving course a couple of years ago, a large part of the course was devoted to skid control. The vehicles they used for this were Dodge pickup trucks with bald rear tires. All that would ever happen is that we'd spin out and slide to a halt in the far reaches of the skidpad. The instructors unequivocally stated that NO ONE at any one of their courses -which are given all over the country - had EVER managed to roll one of the pickups. They further unequivocally stated that, no hatter WHAT you do to the steering wheel, it is IMPOSSIBLE to roll any car or truck made today unless you do something like hit a curb, Jersey barrier, or another vehicle. Skid, yes, but not roll over. Recall also that most of the news photos of the inverted Explorers seem to show that they've left the pavement.

I saw the "Dateline" piece on rollovers on MSNBC last night. They supplied a handy rollover calculator (avaliable below) which seems to show that trucks will roll over more easily than cars (DUH!).

Seems NHTSA wants to require a rollover rating system, one to five stars, presumably to be put on the window sticker with the EPA fuel economy numbers.

-Uncle Olaf

'98 V70T5M 53k mi., IPD stabilizer bars, Volvo strut tower brace and skidplate, Valentine One, Dunlop SP8000s