The American people, whether they know it or not, have already waited too long for DOT to take decisive action to stop underride tragedies. That’s why it’s encouraging to see Congress putting DOT on notice to move forward with the Underride Mandate. Yesterday, they sent a letter to Secretary Buttigieg:
Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand led 25 of their colleagues in a letter urging Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Pete Buttigieg to swiftly execute the provisions from their Stop Underrides Act, which passed in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.press release
The letter encourages DOT to act swiftly to release the Final Rear Underride Guard rule with IIHS TOUGHGuard strength and issue an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) in order to allow the Public to comment on side guards, as well as urging them to, “expeditiously establish the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection and to complete the life-saving side guard research which we hope will lead to a proposed rule on side guards. Together these provisions will help save lives and aim to prevent passenger compartment intrusion from crashes with trucks.”
Senator Gillibrand summarized it well, “Every day we don’t act, we are losing an opportunity to save the lives of innocent Americans.”
We are petitioning the U.S. Department of Transportation to take specific immediate action towards the goal of ending traffic deaths by including Single Unit Trucks (SUTS) and vulnerable road users in the scope of mandated and studied comprehensive underride protection, as called for in the STOP Underrides Bill. SUTs outnumber tractor-trailers and, in fact, comprehensive underride protection on them has already been recommended by the NTSB and the IIHS. Yet SUTs are not included in the Underride Sections of the recently passed Senate and House Infrastructure legislation.
Therefore, we are asking that you expedite work on the 2014 Karth Family petition for underride protection on Single Unit Trucks by taking the following actions:
Establish the Advisory Committee On Underride Protection, as called for in the STOP Underrides Bill and the Infrastructure Legislation in both the House and Senate.
Proceed immediately to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for comprehensive underride protection on Single Unit Trucks – front, side, and rear.
Add language explicitly stating that all mandated and studied comprehensive underride guards are to protect all road users, including Vulnerable Road Users (pedestrians, cyclists, & motorcyclists).
Respectfully submitted,
Marianne & Jerry Karth AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety
Petition for Underride Rulemaking on Single Unit Trucks (sign here)
We’ve been waiting 52+ years for DOT to move forward with side guards on large trucks — not to mention improving rear guard regulations and adding front underride protection. After numerous petitions, comprehensive underride rulemaking still has not made it the onto the DOT Unified Regulatory Agenda.
A public commitment to Vision ZERO is lip service when it does not result in substantive action. What would constitute tangible progress?
2013 & 2014 Petitions for Comprehensive Underride Rulemaking2016 Petition for Comprehensive Underride RulemakingD.C. Underride Crash Test less than a mile from DOT, March 26, 20192021 Petition for Comprehensive Underride Rulemaking
What is it like to compete for the attention of government leaders in order to get traction on the traffic safety problem which took your loved one’s life? Envision a press conference on a hot topic where a cacophony of reporters can be heard shouting out — vying for the opportunity to have their question be the one that gets answered.
Only it is much worse because it seems fundamentally disturbing that we should be pitted against each other in endless competition for action on issues which are all vital to saving lives. In this process, we are fragmented and quite possibly give more power to the opposing forces.
Something’s wrong with this picture. And what I think that we need to turn things around is an Office of National Traffic Safety Ombudsman. Let’s appoint an Advocate with authority to be a strong voice for all of us and a means to bring us together – someone who will strengthen our efforts rather than leave us struggling in some kind of tournament where it is always win or go home.
Congressional Offices are continuously overwhelmed by pleas from advocates representing a multitude of concerns. And, although the Department of Transportation may have many fine individuals working on our behalf, there are clearly too many factors which put a stranglehold on effective action. I have not found that I could count on tangible progress from the agencies which are supposed to represent Safety and traffic victims and which have publicly committed to Vision Zero:
“At FHWA, we believe that a single death is a tragedy; almost 90 deaths a day is unacceptable when we possess the tools and capability to help prevent them. Reaching zero deaths will be difficult, will take time and will require significant effort from all of us; but it is the only acceptable vision. We’re not at zero yet, but we know that by working together we will see a day when there are no fatalities on the Nation’s roadways, sidewalks and bicycle paths.” On TOWARD ZERO DEATHS
“Safety is the top priority of the US DOT. For FHWA, this means a road system that is designed to protect its users, through implementing life-saving programs and infrastructure safety solutions. FHWA’s goal is to reduce transportation related fatalities and serious injuries across the transportation system, and for this reason it fully supports the vision of zero deaths and serious injuries on the Nation’s roads. To support this vision, FHWA continues to work closely with our partners to advance safety culture and a safe system approach, encourage performance-driven transportation safety management practices, and advocate for the deployment of innovative safety countermeasures. Working together, we can strive toward zero, the only acceptable number. “Zero Deaths – Saving Lives through a Safety Culture and a Safe System
Words without meaningful action do me no good. What is going to bring about significant change? Can we even agree on the need for a united front, an appointed spokesperson, and a nationwide network of concerned citizens to more effectively address all traffic safety concerns?
If we do not, my daughters’ deaths become diminished – their lives apparently not worth saving, along with 40,000 other precious loved ones lost last year and the year before that and the year before that and some 40,000 this year and the next and the next. . .
When supporters of the STOP Underrides! Act of 2019 first hear the news about DOT’s new “rule on rules,” they might moan and sigh and scramble to figure out what next. On December 5, Transportation Secretary solidified the Trump administration’s approach to rulemaking:
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced she has signed a “rule on rules” that will ensure the department’s regulations aren’t too complicated, out of date or contradictory.
When it comes to investigating suspected wrongdoing and enforcing its regulations, the new rules also require the department “where feasible, foster greater private-sector cooperation in enforcement.”
On the one hand, there are hints of good things there in calling for rules that are not out of date, cooperation from the private sector, and greater transparency. But those who have been around the block in safety advocacy are right to be skeptical and devoid of hope for future traffic safety rulemaking.
Yet I remain hopeful knowing that the STOP Underrides Act fits the bill by calling for a Committee On Underride Protection (COUP), whose role is to gather a diverse group of stakeholders to collaboratively keep DOT truly transparent and progressing in underride rulemaking. Will the COUP be included in the upcoming FAST Act language? I’m doing everything that I can to make it a reality.
Now, understandably, it could cause concern that, “The new Transportation Department action formalized a Trump administration requirement that for each regulatory step a department takes, it has to undertake two deregulatory moves.” However, I’m not worried because I know that it would be procedurally acceptable for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to remove the existing 1996 rear underride rules, (two of them — FMVSS 223 & 224), which would satisfy that requirement.
Then, NHTSA could issue a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) as a revision of the December 2015 NPRM underride rulemaking, which was intended to update the 1996 rear underride guard rule. In fact, SNPRMs are a valid means of improving a NPRM — based on Public Comments and new information received subsequent to the initially issued proposed rule.
No one can argue that there has not been plenty of new information on underride which has come to the surface in the last seven years. In fact, the STOP Underrides! Act nicely packages straightforward rules, based on performance standards, to address every form of deadly underride and can easily lead to an Underride SNPRM — all with the help of the Committee On Underride Protection to mold it into the best possible underride protection.
So, in this season of expectant hope, let us eagerly continue a national conversation on the elimination of preventable underride tragedies. Let our goal be to change the face of the trucking industry by making truck crashes more survivable, thus promising a better chance that more people will be home for the holidays.
Members of Congress, Secretary Chao, trucking industry, eager engineers, and families of underride victims, let’s do this together.
(p.s. Let’s also appoint a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman so that motorists and vulnerable road users — victims of every form of traffic violence — can count on a strong voice to authoritatively advocate on their behalf.)
Last night, I was reading “Truck by Trailer”; The History of the Truck Trailer Manufacturing Industry, published by the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association(TTMA) in 2017. It had come in the mail this week, and I thought that I would see what I could discover. What I discovered was that there was a photo of a May 29, 1969, Western Union Telegram from the Director of the National Highway Safety Bureau (equivalent of today’s NHTSA at DOT) to the TTMA. The message was:
THE TIME FOR COMMENT ON DOCKET 1-11–REAR UNDERRIDE PROTECTION–HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL AUGUST 1, 1969.
That was referencing the rulemaking which was posted in the Federal Register on March 19, 1969, and in which DOT had stated their intention to add underride protection to the sides of large trucks. Interesting, I thought. So I started searching online to see if I could find a copy of that telegram to post online. After all, I was reading it 50 years later on August 1, 2019.
What I found instead was a Congressional Record from September 3, 1969, which included discussion of the National Traffic & Motor Safety Act of 1966 to fund, extend, & expand upon it. After some in-depth discussions about safety head gear and tire safety, Congressman Vanik from Ohio was given the floor. He made a lengthy statement, with noteworthy comments about underride protection, including the inadequacy of the proposed regulation for rear underride and the absence of regulations for smaller straight trucks, as well as protection on the sides and front of trucks.
Wait! What? Imagine! Fifty years ago, not only was DOT proposing rulemaking, but the U.S. Congress had become informed on this issue and wanted to see immediate action taken to make comprehensive and effective underride protection on all trucks THE LAW!
Are you listening, Congress? NOW is the time to act! What are we waiting for? Too many people — maybe well over 50,000 — have already paid the price since that public Congressional discussion which took place on September 3, 1969.
Mr. VANIK. . . I would like to take this time to ask the chairman of the committee whether any consideration was given in this proposed legislation to direct the Administrator to provide for regulations which would bring about uniformity of bumper levels. With the intermix of automobiles and trucks on our Interstate Highway System, I ride in terror, as does everyone else on the public highways, when approach is made to trucks which have no bumper levels to meet those of an automobile. The fear of telescoping under a truck is something that haunts every driver on our highways.
There are thousands of accidents and hundreds of deaths that occur every year as a result of the telescoping problem. Some people have been decapitated in this way. And, it seems to me that some definite action should be taken to provide for uniformity of bumper levels between all vehicles. . . I would like to ask, Mr. Chairman, whether or not your committee considered this matter in connection with this legislation?
Mr. STAGGERS. I might say that the Secretary and the agency or the bureau has this authority now. I am informed that they have probably been looking into it. We do not know whether they plan to come up with any recommendations. But this is their duty and I might say that we can call to their attention now the fact that they should come up with some recommendation in the manufacture of trucks and cars so that there might be, as nearly as possible, developed some safety device as the gentleman has suggested that will prevent these accidents in order to keep these vehicles from overlapping upon impact.
I think the gentleman has raised a very good point. When this bill was brought up in 1966 this authority was given to the Secretary and to the National Safety Bureau.
Mr. VANIK. . . I understand that the Department of Transportation has published, as of March 19, 1969, a proposed rule which would become effective as of January 1, 1971, to provide rear underride protection for trailers and trucks with gross vehicle weight of over 10,000 pounds. . . {this rule was actually not finalized and effective until 1998}
But the Department’s rule is inadequate. The rule does not “apply to truck tractors, or any vehicles with gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less.” What these smaller trucks lack in danger in weight they make up for in speed. The standard should be applicable to all vehicles and trucksso that the risk of damage and fatalities resulting from nonmatching bumper guards is permanently and forever removed from American highways.
All trucks should be covered under the ruling and the ruling should have the force of law behind it. If such a regulation is not adopted during this year, I hope that your committee will issue a mandate for this regulation next year.
Following is a letter which I received on this subject from Mr. Robert Brenner of the National Highway Safety Bureau on August 4, 1969:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Washington, D.C., August 4, 1969. Hon. CHARLES A. VANIK, House of Representatives, Washington, D .C.
DEAR MR. VANIK: This is in further reply to your letter of July 14, 1969, requesting that the Secretary of Transportation issue regulations to improve bumper surface relationships between heavy trucks and passenger cars.
We concur with your views on the benefits that can be realized in reducing highway injuries and collision damage by requiring improved performance capabilities from motor vehicle bumpers. The National Highway Safety Bureau is, in fact, in the midst of developing several regulations that should alleviate, to some extent, the problems created by mismatched vehicle bumpers. . .
For your added information, the unsafe conditions resulting from the use of high front bumpers on heavy trucks are to be evaluated for eventual development of a regulation. . .Sincerely, ROBERT BRENNER, Acting Director.
He then lists specifics of the proposed rear underride rule, including this statement which was also included in the March 19, 1969, Federal Register:
It is anticipated that the proposed Standard will be amended, after technical studies have been completed, to extend the requirement for underride protection to the sides of large vehicles.
Just found a 21st Century Truck Partnership Third Report in which SAFETY is mentioned. Front override is also mentioned! I have not yet read every single word, but I see little mention of Front Underride/Override Protection (only crash avoidance technologies).
Please read it with the STOP Underrides Bill in mind (in which Front Underride Protection would be mandated by Congress).
(Note: How is it that I brought up the 21st Century Truck Partnership with NHTSA officials in 2017 but they did not once mention this report!)
p.s. Some quotes:
The review of LTCC cases produced evidence that front override and side underride are significant problems in serious crashes between heavy trucks and light vehicles. Front override and side underride were found in most of the crashes examined. Preliminary estimates from this review are that override occurs in almost three-quarters of crashes involving the front of the truck and in over half of the crashes when the sides of the trucks were struck (Blower and Woodrooffe, 2012).
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Finding 7-1. Many safety technologies could be effectively evaluated and demonstrated in a safety-focused program— for example, a Safety SuperTruck similar to the DOE fuel consumption reduction SuperTruck program.
Recommendation 7-1. DOT should consider implementing a Safety SuperTruck program to develop, integrate, and evaluate safety technologies such as cab structural integrity, side curtain airbags, advanced forward warning and collision mitigating systems to help industry attain a more integrated and complete safety package with a view to generating greater purchaser acceptance of safety technology not mandated by law.
I learned this week about the money being poured into the SuperTruck project administered by DOE. I can’t get past amazement that they have not included safety goals in this project. Here is the perfect opportunity to transform the SuperTruck into an Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) — without having to do it as a totally new project.
Okay, I can get past it because I am not going to stop until I find answers to my questions and agreement to transform this into an interagency collaborative effort to save fuel/costs and, by the way, lives, too!
I will be in Washington, D.C., anyway on March 1 for a Road to Zero Coalition quarterly meeting. How about I find a way to instigate a joint meeting at that time between DOE, DOT, and someone from a Transportation Committee on The Hill? Like maybe Senator Thune?
This emphasizes the need for a White House Traffic Safety/Vision Task Force to facilitate better collaboration and communication on matters related to road safety, including establishing a position of Traffic Safety Ombudsman to be a vigilant voice for vulnerable victims of vehicle violence. Not to mention the better application of trucking industry money toward joint safety efforts in projects like this, including establishing and funding an Underride Specialist/Consultant/Researcher/Engineer to work full-time on these issues, with a budget to do safety testing at places like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Here is our chance to harness the resources of our government and creative minds in the trucking industry to advance comprehensive and effective underride protection on large trucks. What are we waiting for?
Jerry, Isaac, and I are taking over 19,000 Vision Zero Petitions to Washington, D.C., next week. This time we are not taking them in individual envelopes. Instead, we have compiled a printed book (designed by Isaac) with the 16,516 signatures which we had on February 12–along with:
the petition letter to Secretary Foxx
the petition letter to President Obama
explanations of what we mean by Vision Zero, along with examples of practical application of a Vision Zero Goal
and links to all of the Vision Zero posts on the annaleahmary.com website.
We will also be making a pdf of the book available. And Care2 (ThePetitionSite) will be printing off all of the petition signatures, as of next week, and delivering them to us in a binder to take to Secretary Foxx.
On March 3 and 4, we have multiple meetings scheduled in Washington to discuss our requests and petition our country’s leaders to take decisive action.
This is our current Washington schedule (subject to change):
9 a.m. March 3, Rep. Ellmers’ staff
10 a.m., March 3, Rep. Cartwright’s staff
11 a.m., March 3, Rep. Holding’s staff
noon, March 3, Sen. Isakson’s staff
2 p.m., March 3, joint meeting with Sen. Blumenthal’s staff & Sen. Markey’s staff
9 a.m., March 4, Sen. Burr’s staff
11 a.m., March 4, DOT policy officials
1:30 p.m., March 4, Underride Roundtable planning meeting
We have also arranged to have a Petition Book delivered to President Obama. When my granddaughter, Vanessa (6), saw the stack of books in my bedroom, she asked why they were still there. I explained that we were going to Washington next week and about the meetings and all of the people to whom we were going to be giving books.
Vanessa remembered going with us to deliver the first petition in May 2014. At 4, she sat quietly and “took notes.” Yesterday, she decided that she wanted to write a letter to the president to tell him that she missed Aunt Mary and Aunt AnnaLeah. So we will be taking that as well.
Is the U.S. Department of Transportation repeating history by expecting the automotive industry to resolve safety issues voluntarily (i.e., without being mandated to, do everything within their power to prevent unnecessary motor vehicle-related untimely deaths and serious injuries)?
Such an approach certainly never has led to the best possible underride protection being voluntarily produced. If it had, my daughters (and thousands of other Americans–face it, inhabitants of our planet) might not have died from truck underride. And it denies the possibility that someone should bear the liability for deaths due to SECOND COLLISIONS–other than the victims. (https://annaleahmary.com/tag/second-collision/)
In my personal opinion, DOT’s approach is not consistent with a national Vision Zero goal. Okay, America, do we or do we not want to do everything within our power to stop our citizens from senselessly being slaughtered on our highways and byways?!
In response to the DOT’s recent announcement of “proactive” safety principles, this is what Joan Claybrook had to say in the following statement which she issued yesterday (pasted below in its entirety):
STATEMENT OF JOAN CLAYBROOK ON U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION’S “PROACTIVE” SAFETY PRINCIPLES
January 15, 2016
Today’s announcement that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is collaborating with the auto industry to develop “Proactive Safety Principles” is a dramatic step in the wrong direction especially following a year of record recalls and an increase in motor vehicle fatalities. The set of four principles is toothless, lacks any implementation authority and is worth only the cost of the paper they are written on. There is nothing preventing the auto industry from disregarding or outright violating these principles. In fact they could be considered subterfuge to violate reporting requirements by doing “data dumps”. The safety of the American public will not be best protected with a kumbaya between the federal agency charged with issuing regulation and the industry seeking to avoid regulation. Also completely absent from this “Best Friends Forever (BFF) moment” between DOT and the auto industry are the people NHTSA was created to protect—car users.
In fact, a reader of the “Principles” document would not know that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was created in large measure to regulate the auto industry, with substantial authority to issue motor vehicle safety standards to protect vehicle occupants in a crash, conduct research independently of the auto industry on which to base such standards, to require the recall of vehicles with safety defects and that do not comply with NHTSA’s standards, and to sue companies that refuse to do so.
The “Principles” document emphasizes that 94% of all vehicle crashes are “attributable to driver choices and human error”, but amazingly it omits the fact that most vehicle crash DEATHS and INJURIES prevented result from the improved vehicle safety performance largely based on NHTSA’s many dozens of mandatory safety standards. In fact, NHTSA estimates that over 600,000 deaths have been prevented by such safety rules since the 1960s when NHTSA was created.
Another contradiction is that NHTSA is now negotiating with the auto manufacturers to develop a “voluntary” (not mandatory) standard for Automatic Emergency Braking, rather than issue a required safety standard under its primary statutory authority. This is the most important life-saving standard NHTSA could issue now. The crash prevention systems are already installed in a large number of higher end cars, showing it is feasible. Yet NHTSA is delegating the content of requirements to manufacturers under a process that is secret and excludes other interested parties including consumers and suppliers; is not enforceable, under which any company can initially agree and then secretly discontinue compliance without informing car buyers or NHTSA; allows any company to charge additional prices for installation of the safety technology as optional equipment, often at high prices out of the reach of many consumers; undercuts the lower costs for standard equipment and faster deployment of a mandated regulation; and, also harms public confidence in NHTSA.
As to achieving the goals outlined in the Principles, and taking each one as listed, the agency has the authority to take many steps it has failed or ignored to implement that would improve safety without hoping the vehicle manufacturers will act:
“Enhance and Facilitate Proactive Safety”: NHTSA already has numerous meetings and discussions with industry representatives on a regular basis in Detroit about key safety issues, at Society of Automotive Engineers and other technical group meetings, and hears industry concerns and issues both at NHTSA meetings with individual companies and in group meetings, and at Congressional hearings. In addition companies submit detailed comments to agency rulemaking dockets, to the Early Warning Reporting of safety defects system, and through negotiations with NHTSA over submission of information about defective vehicles.
“Enhance Analysis and Examination of Early Warning Reporting Data”: Early Warning Reporting (EWR) can be improved by industry complying with existing federal law and filing accurate and timely reports (rather than ones designed to confuse the agency) and NHTSA enforcing this key rule and fining companies that abuse it. EWR information should also be made public and the reporting categories should be consistent with the reporting codes for consumer complaints so it can be used effectively.
“Maximize Safety Recall Participation Rates”: The major steps companies can take to improve recalls is to conduct them on a timely basis (rather than covering them up and only publicly declaring a safety recall years later), sending strong and effective letters to consumers giving them the incentive to get their vehicles fixed (which NHTSA should monitor and enhance), and give priority to making replacement parts quickly rather than make them secondary to continued new vehicle production. Also the DOT should encourage states to not issue new license tags to any consumer who has not complied with a defect recall correction notice sent by the manufacturer.
“Enhance Automotive Cybersecurity”: NHTSA has new authority under the FAST Act of 2015 (the highway bill) (Pub. L. 114-94) to conduct cybersecurity research with other federal agencies – not the auto industry – and should do so independently of the industry. Specifically, modal administrations of the DOT are charged with assisting in the development of cybersecurity research to “help prevent hacking, spoofing, and disruption of connected and automated transportation vehicles.’’
