Raise the roof-crush standard.(VIEWPOINT)

ONE MORNING seven years ago, Patrick Parker was driving to work on a rural Texas road when a deer jumped in front of his truck. He steered to avoid it but hit a second deer that appeared from the median. Parker's truck flipped up and rolled over. He was wearing his safety belt, but the rollover flattened the roof, crushing his spinal cord and partially paralyzing him. Parker and his wife, Dena, pushed for tougher roof-strength standards but nothing changed. Some 24,000 people are severely injured each year in rollovers in the U.S., and more than 10,000 others are killed. Crushed roofs most likely contribute to serious or fatal injuries in more than a quarter of rollover crashes.

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The current standard for vehicle roof strength was set in 1973 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It requires a roof to be strong enough to withstand 1.5 times the vehicle's weight. Roofs are tested by pressing a metal plate on the roof over the driver's seat.

A 2005 law ordered NHTSA to rewrite the standard by July 2008. NHTSA postponed the decision until October, then December, then April 2009, effectively handing it off to the new administration.

Ordinarily, a delay in updating standards is not good. But in this case, ...