Witness disputes seat-belt usage in crash
Engineer says evidence not consistent with two victims being strapped in

Published: Saturday, August 5, 2006 - 6:00 am

By Julie Howle
STAFF WRITER
jhowle@greenvillenews.com

A mechanical engineer testified Friday in a trial about a 1999 wreck that killed one and injured another that "physical evidence does not support" that the two occupants were wearing seat belts at the time of the crash.

Attorneys in the case against Ford Motor Co., TRW Vehicle Safety Systems Inc. and D&D Motors Inc. are at odds over whether two people in the 1995 Ford Explorer in the wreck on Interstate 385 were wearing seat belts.

Plaintiff attorneys have said Sonya Watson, who was 17 at the time of the wreck, was driving and is now a quadriplegic, and Patricia Carter, who was in the seat behind Watson and died in the wreck, were wearing seat belts and that the seat belts came unlatched.

But defense attorneys have said they weren't wearing seat belts.

Gregory Miller, a witness for TRW, said Friday the "load-bearing tongue" of the seat belt in the driver's and left rear seats of the 1995 Explorer didn't have marks consistent with the seat belts having been worn in a severe wreck.

Miller testified that the two seat-belt tongues have marks of "normal wear," but contrasted that with marks he said were on the two right seat belts in the front and rear of the car that he said showed the occupants were wearing seat belts in a rollover crash.

In cross-examination, Alan Thomas, an attorney for Ford, said there was no disputing that Sonya Watson's grandmother and sister, who were seated on the right side of the vehicle, were wearing seat belts. Miller said that was correct.

The testimony came at the end of the third week of trial over two product liability lawsuits that question the 1995 Ford Explorer's occupant restraint system, electronic cruise control and vehicle body and chassis. Closing arguments in the case are expected today.

Miller testified that another part of the seat-belt system, called the slide bar, was bent on the right front seat, as it would be after a severe crash if the passenger had the seat belt on, but that the slide bar on the driver's side wasn't bent.

In previous testimony, a professor of mechanical engineering called as a witness for the plaintiffs said evidence from the scene is consistent with Carter and Watson's seat belts coming unlatched.

Plaintiff attorneys have said the belts unbuckled because of inertial unlatching -- a phenomenon when a seat belt unlatches after a force is applied to the back of the buckle along with other criteria like low tension on the webbing of the belt.

Miller testified Tuesday that when he sat in the front seats, the firmer part of his hip couldn't reach the back of the buckle to hit it because of how the buckles were mounted at the seat's side.

In cross-examination, Edward Bell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, asked if there are papers in peer-reviewed publications where engineers have said inertial unlatching does happen in the real world.

"I think that's true. I may not agree with them," Miller said.

Bell asked if someone's seat belt came unlatched early in a rollover crash if then his comparison of marks wouldn't apply to this case. Miller said no and that he thinks it is a matter of degree.

Bell said if a seat belt came unlatched in the first roll of a crash versus a seat belt that came unlatched in the fourth roll, then the first seat belt would have fewer markings. Miller said that doesn't mean there wouldn't be "crash loading" marks.
  
Evidence: The wrecked Ford Explorer at the center of a case against Ford Motor Co. sits on a trailer in the back of the Greenville County courthouse Friday.
OWEN RILEY JR./Staff