Rollover ratings at SaferCar.gov

What with all the excitement about SUV rollovers and all, I thought I'd have a look at which were the most dangerous.

Not easily done, it turns out.

When you put "rollover ratings SUV" into Google, you get a ton of sites offering to be your lawyer and get money from your accident.

But I don't want money, a lawyer, or an accident: I just want the ratings.

Well, I told my crack research team to cut through the dross and bring back the goods.

They're right here, at SaferCar.gov.

Very nicely done: just put in the class of vehicle, year, make and model and bingo, back comes a nice page with ratings in stars (five is best, one is very bad, make sure you have a will before you take another trip in it) of the risk of rollover and injury to both front and back seat passengers from frontal or side collisions.

Wonderful use of my tax dollars, I'm impressed.

Even though Dr. Jeffrey Runge, director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, has been muzzled ever since he said, in a speech in Detroit in 2002, that he wouldn't let his teenager drive a vehicle rated two stars for rollover protection "if it was the last one on earth," he's still running a first-class ship.

The NHTSA website has tons of useful information that'll improve your chances of staying alive on the road.

Your risk of dying is higher there than almost anywhere else you can be on our blue planet.