Penn mulls the safety of shuttle vans

A recent government study on van safety has set the wheels of change in motion, as the University begins to evaluate its usage of 15-passenger vans. According to a report released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, carrying 10 or more people in mid-sized 15-passenger vans makes them three times more likely to roll over in single-vehicle accidents. The University uses these types of vans to transport sports teams as well as for student shuttle services. Penn Athletic Department spokeswoman Carla Shultzberg said University officials are preparing to evaluate the report. "We haven't looked at all of the data yet," she said. "We will review the recommendations that the federal transportation people have made, and we're going from there at this moment." The Athletic Department owns several of the 15-passenger vans cited in the NHTSA report. Shultzberg said that all Penn teams use the vans when appropriate. "It depends on where you're going," she said. "We wouldn't take a [charter] bus to La Salle." Several fatal rollover accidents involving the vans and college sports teams have occurred in the past few years, including incidents at Kenyon College, Prairie View A&M; University and Urbana University. Penn Transit Services also uses these vans for the PennShuttle, PennBuses service and Handivan. "We're very familiar with [the report]," said John Gustafson, Assistant Manager of Transportation Services. "[These vans are] basically what our fleet has." Gustafson noted that Penn Transit Services complies with each of the NHTSA's recommendations, including using high-quality rear tires and keeping the fuel tank as full as possible at all times. Both are "standard operating procedure for us," he said. "A lot of these accidents are highway accidents on a major interstate, where the speeds are much higher than in urban driving, like we do," he added. He noted that PennShuttle drivers rarely need to swerve at high speeds around a car that has stopped short, a practice the NHTSA report lists as dangerous. "That's something we train all of our drivers [for], that with a vehicle like this, you're loading and unloading, so you're constantly changing the weight variable of the vehicle," Gustafson said. "So you have to drive the vehicle all the time like it's full, [if] there's a possibility that you're not going to be able to stop fast enough." The NHTSA's report found that overloading a 15-passenger van "causes the center of gravity to shift rearward and upward increasing the likelihood of rollover," according to a Department of Transportation statement. It added that the "shift in the center of gravity will also increase the potential for loss of control in panic maneuvers." Gustafson said that Penn Transit Services acknowledges and accounts for this physics phenomenon. "The characteristics of the vehicle are completely different when it's full, when it has people in it, than when it's lighter loaded," Gustafson said. "And that's something you have to be aware of..." The wearing of seatbelts, according to the report, dramatically increases passenger survival rate in crashes involving rollovers, and the administration strongly urges all institutions that use 15-passenger vans to require the use of seatbelts.

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