The Associated Press
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Jury selection started Monday in the first class-action lawsuit to reach trial over an issue that has plagued the Ford Motor Co. for years: whether its Crown Victoria police cars explode too easily in rear collisions.
More than a dozen law-enforcement officers nationwide have been killed in such fiery crashes in Crown Victorias since 1983.
Although none of those crashes happened in Illinois, the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office and Centreville Police Department sued on behalf of all law-enforcement agencies in the state, seeking to force Ford to pay to retrofit its Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with special safety gear that they say would make the car safer.
“We’re just trying to get safe police cars for Illinois police officers,” said plaintiffs attorney David Perry of Corpus Christi, Texas.
Ford contends the cars are as safe as they can be, and the Dearborn, Mich.-based company cites government tests that it says prove that contention.
“Real world data show Crown Victoria Police Interceptors to be a safe vehicle,” said Ford spokeswoman Kathleen Vokes. “It is the vehicle of choice of the majority of police departments in the nation.”
The federal government investigated the Crown Victoria’s safety following fiery crashes in the 1990s. In October 2002, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration released findings that found no defect in the vehicle and that said the Crown Victoria exceeded federal standards for fuel system safety.
Ford said shortly before the release of that report that it would pay for retrofitting the 350,000 Crown Victorias then used by police departments to install shields around the gas tanks. The Illinois lawsuit seeks additional safety equipment.
Opening statements in the Illinois case are expected to begin Wednesday in St. Clair County Court, said Patricia Murphy, another plaintiffs’ lawyer involved in the case. The trial is expected to last five weeks.
Several similar lawsuits are pending in other states.