During 1977, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that 740 persons had died in highway accidents in vans. In 1977, the National Transportation Safety Board reported that 655 persons died in air carrier accidents, 653 died in railroad accidents, 43 died in pipeline accidents, and 216 died in commercial marine accidents. Thus, in 1977, fatalities in vans exceeded the total fatalities in several major transportation modes. Since 1970, the sales of multipurpose vans have increased threefold. Vans are popular because of their versatility; outdoorsmen, small businessmen, service technicians, and the "weekend vanner" are using vans for personal transportation business operations, and weekend outings. In fact, in the near future, vans are expected to replace the station wagon. Many owners have customized the interiors of their vans with sinks, bars, refrigerators, beds, and paneling to make them more convenient. Currently, there are no standards or voluntary specifications on how to install these types of items to the van structure. As a result, in a crash environment, they of ten break loose and injure or kill the van occupants. Further, several existing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) do not apply to vans. These include Standards 201, 202, 203, 204, 212, 214, 215, and 216. Since vans are now being used as pleasure cars by a large segment of the general public, many standards applicable to pleasure cars should be made applicable to vans as well. Van occupants should be afforded the same level of safety available to passenger car occupants. The National Transportation Safety Board has investigated 18 low-to-moderate speed crashes involving vans to collect data for this study. We have evaluated the safety of vans from the following standpoints: Injury-producing environments, occupant restraints, crashworthiness, postcrash fires, and ease or difficulty of escape. In addition, the Safety Board has evaluated the standards listed above as they affect each of the five main areas of investigation. The Safety Board undertook the study (1) to determine the injurious effects of custom interior furnishings and structural modifications to custom vans based on actual accident experience, and (2) to determine the injurious effects of customized vans on occupants because certain existing FMVSS's do not apply to vans.
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