Tag Archives: trailer manufacturers

Additional response from trucking industry to our request for voluntary action on underride problem

February 21, 2016AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck SafetyNHTSA rulemaking, trailer buyers, trailer manufacturers, underride guards, Vision ZeroMarianne

In our efforts to not only improve regulatory federal standards on underride guards but, also, to catalyze voluntary industry improvement, we heard back from several companies to whom we had written, including:

UPS in Atlanta (Dan)
CR England (Chad England)
Extra Mile Transportation (Brent)
J.B. Hunt (Greer Woodruff, Lowell, AK
UPS (buys from Great Dane)
FedEx

Chad England committed his company to looking into the matter seriously. (CR England) And Dean Engelage (Great Dane) invited Jerry and I to visit their Research & Design Center in Savannah in June 2014:

Jerry,

We’re looking forward to hosting you and your wife next week. I thought we would start the day off with an 8:30 am breakfast at a local favorite, J. Christopher’s which is near the hotel 122 E Liberty Street. Brandie Fuller, our VP of Marketing, will join us. Parking for the restaurant is street-side at a meter.

We’ll then head to the Great Dane office which is also close by. A series of meetings and a tour of our R&D lab followed by lunch. If all goes as planned we should be finished right after lunch.

I look forward to meeting you both and safe travels to Savannah. If you have any questions, please email me or call me.

Regards,

Dean Engelage

President

Great Dane

This is what we learned from the Great Dane visit: Underride Guards: Can we “sit down at the table together” and work this out?

In addition, we received a letter from Brent Hudson at Extra Mile Transportation:

I am in receipt of your letter and packet dated 17 Feb 14.

First, let me offer you my most sincere condolences on the loss of your beautiful daughters. I have a daughter who is two months shy of her 18^th birthday, so I do not even want to imagine the heartache associated with this tragedy. I can only offer you my most sincere respect in working to turn such a tragedy into something good.

Extra Mile Transportation is a non-asset based, third party freight broker. That means that we don’t own any equipment, we contract out for everything we move. However, we are in a position to exert some influence on this matter. By copy of this email, I am requesting our Director of Logistical Solutions incorporate this awareness campaign into some of his efforts. I will be meeting with him to go over this issue and we’ll see what impact we may have.

I wish you only the best for the times you share with your other children and hope that your memories of Mary and AnnaLeah continue to have a positive impact on our safety.

My warmest personal regards,

Brent Hudson, Vice President

Extra Mile Transportation

For more details of our efforts in reaching out to the trucking industry and, in particular, the encouraging response from J. B. Hunt, see: An unexpected phone call from a trailer buyer with good news on underride guards

All in all, we are hopeful that the combination of calling for both more appropriate regulations through Vision Zero rulemaking and, at the same time, voluntary action will yield the desired result–SAVED LIVES. Together, we can do this!

Taking the Vision Zero Petition to DC on March 3 & 4! Sign & Share: Save Lives Not Dollars: Urge DOT to Adopt a Vision Zero Policy

An unexpected phone call from a trailer buyer with good news on underride guards

February 20, 2016AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safetytrailer manufacturers, underride guardsMarianne

Jerry was pleasantly surprised tonight by a phone call from Greer Woodruff, Vice President of Safety & Security at J.B. Hunt. J. B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. is a trucking and transportation company that was founded by Johnnie Bryan Hunt, and based in the Northwest Arkansas city of Lowell.

Greer was calling to let Jerry know that Wabash National, a trailer manufacturer, had redesigned their rear underride guard to provide better protection at the outer edges of the guard. And he also wanted us to know that J.B. Hunt was the first to purchase the new trailers–having ordered 4,000 of them in January.

We had already heard about that yesterday morning. Thank you, Wabash, for creating a safer truck rear underride guard!

But then Greer went on to say that he had wanted to be sure and tell us about it and thank us for the letters, which Jerry wrote to J.B. Hunt–along with the major trailer manufacturers and many other trailer buyers, back in 2014 before we launched our first petition. Those letters, he said, had raised their awareness about the underride problem and spurred them on to talk to the trailer manufacturers about producing safer trailers.

That brought a smile to Jerry’s face.

We look forward to finding out more details about its design features and what level of protection it provides. Also, we hope to see additional attention given to side and front underride protection and retrofitting existing trailers as well.

Meanwhile, we are encouraged to see that progress is being made in moving toward the best possible protection with both voluntary and regulatory action. The Vision Zero Petition Book has arrived!

First set of letters which Jerry sent to trailer buyers in February 2014 (a variation of this went to trailer manufacturers):

One of the letters which went out to trailer manufacturers in February 2014:

A second set of letters went out in March 2014 to clarify our role/position:

Another letter went out asking for support to our petition request for stronger underride guards:

And then Jerry sent a follow-up letter in the fall of 2014, including with it copies of the IIHS Status Reports which had articles on underride guards:

IIHS Status Reports with articles on underride guards, which we included with the letters to the trucking companies:

Finally, after setting up our non-profit, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, in the summer of 2015, we wrote to all of the truck companies again–asking for their help to voluntarily find safer underride guard designs:

Also, sometime after our letter writing, we were discussing our efforts with John Lannen at the Truck Safety Coalition. He asked for our list and said, “Thanks – I’ll follow up with Greer since I know him well. What reaction did you get?”

In our efforts to not only improve regulatory federal standards on underride guards but, also, to catalyze voluntary industry improvement, we heard back from several other companies to whom we had written, including:

UPS in Atlanta (Dan)
CR England (Chad England)
Extra Mile Transportation (Brent)
J.B. Hunt (Greer Woodruff, Lowell, AK
UPS (buys from Great Dane)
FedEx

For more details on the response we got from them, see: Additional response from trucking industry to our request for voluntary action on underride problem.

Photo Album of Jerry and his girls: With Dad. . . Family Man Jerry prays for his children every morning (lifting them before their heavenly Father/Abba). He is proud of them, teases them, enjoys spending time with them, and treasures each of his special children.

Jerry shares our story at the Fall 2015 Sorrow to Strength conference in DC hosted by the Truck Safety Coalition:

Does a vehicle manufacturer bear responsibility for death and injury caused by a safety defect in their product?

July 21, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyauto safety recall, manslaughter, manufacturer liability, motor vehicle crash fatalities, safety defect, second collision, trailer manufacturers, underride crash, underride guards, Vision ZeroMarianne

After writing a post yesterday, https://annaleahmary.com/2015/07/who-should-bear-the-responsibility-for-deaths-injuries-due-to-known-safety-defects/, I have been wrestling with this question:

Does a vehicle manufacturer bear responsibility for death and injury caused by a safety defect in their product:

ever?
and, especially do they do so when it is publicly known (in the engineering realm) that there is a solution to the problem which could — if implemented — prevent death and horrific injury?

Or, are they protected by following the letter of the law — which likewise might have been negligent to require the best possible protection?

Furthermore, if they do bear responsibility, then what price should they pay for negligence to act on that knowledge in a timely fashion?

I have been trying to look at it every which way and not merely as the mother of two daughters, AnnaLeah (forever 17) and Mary (forever 13), who happened to get killed by a truck underride crash in which the underride guard met current federal standards, and possibly even the Canadian standards, but did not make use of safer known technology and did not withstand the crash.

I am plagued by so many questions:

Did the manufacturer’s act of omission contribute to Mary’s and AnnaLeah’s deaths? (omission: http://tinyurl.com/o2z6meb )
If so, why are they not being held responsible for such a heinous action? (heinous: http://tinyurl.com/ncak6o2 )
What consequences should they pay for their negligence?
Can it be considered criminal negligence? (criminal: http://tinyurl.com/p5syqnl )
Can a charge of manslaughter be applied? (manslaughter: http://tinyurl.com/nl6ms8l )
Is the manufacturer excused from responsibility for their deaths because it was not technically illegal (they abided by the letter of the law)?
If current and future research shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that safer underride prevention systems can, in fact, be put in place on trucks, can truck manufacturers be freed from responsibility to implement such technology due to supposed “unreasonable” costs? (A frequent reason for less-than-adequate rules to be issued — if issued at all.)
Do informed regulators who do not write into law the safest possible technology bear any responsibility?
Do informed truck purchasers who do not buy trucks with the safest possible technology (even if not required by law) bear responsibility?
I even have to ask myself if I am taking the chance of sabotaging our goal of seeking stronger federal standards by raising these controversial, potentially-inflammatory questions.

So you see, I am not struggling with easy questions. But you have to admit, don’t you, that they are questions with life & death implications.

This question of manufacturer criminal liability is addressed in a New York Times editorial today (July 21, 2015):

“The Senate bill also falls well short of addressing important issues raised by recent scandals involving defects in General Motors’ ignition switches and Takata airbags. While it would raise the maximum fine that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration can levy against automakers that do not promptly disclose defects to $70 million from $35 million, that increase is a pittance for companies that make billions in profits. And by not proposing criminal liability for executives who knowingly hide the life-threatening dangers of their products, the bill simply sidesteps the issue of individual accountability.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/opinion/a-senate-bill-that-makes-roads-and-railroads-less-safe.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=1

From my morning reading: “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The Law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.” Psalm 37:30-31

IIHS Reports on New Crash Testing for Improved Underride Guards

October 9, 2014AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck SafetyIIHS, NHTSA, trailer manufacturers, truck safety, underride guards, VanguardMarianne

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has just released a report on recent crash testing for one trailer manufacturer’s improved design for their rear underride guard. Vanguard has now passed the 50% overlap test–with testing still needed for the more narrow overlap test at the edges of the trailer’s guard.

Additional companies have plans to get their guards tested in the future.

Our story is featured in this fall’s edition of the organization’s Status Report. We are thankful for their efforts to research and report on this vital truck safety issue. Their previous reports helped us to better understand the weakness of the current federal regulations for underride guards.

Read the report here: IIHS Status Report October 2014

Also, the Truck Safety Coalition has issued a press release on this issue: http://trucksafety.org/press-release-industry-makes-improvements-while-rule-for-better-underride-languishes/

Link to IIHS Status Report Issues: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr

November 2015 IIHS Status Report with an update on Single Unit Truck Underride Rulemaking: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/sr/statusreport/article/50/9/2

Trailer Manufacturers…in some stage of redesigning their guards

July 11, 2014Truck Safetytrailer manufacturers, underride guardsMarianne

On top of Wednesday’s good news. . .we heard earlier this week that — according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety — 5 out of the 7 trailer manufacturing companies which did not pass the IIHS narrow overlap crash test in 2013 (i.e., the rear underride guard did not hold up when a car crashed into it at the outer edge of the horizontal bar) are in some stage of “redesigning their guards to improve their crash performance.”

IIHS would “like to be able to conduct new tests demonstrating the improvements,” and are “hopeful that this approach can result in meaningful changes even before an upgraded standard from NHTSA, which could still take years to implement.”

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