NSTB Issues 7 Safety Recommendations for Tractor-Trailers

We are encouraged by the news that the National Safety Transportation Board, on April 3, 2014, released seven recommendations urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (part of DOT) to improve the safety of tractor-trailers. We hope that, together with the message that we deliver with our petition on May 5, Secretary Foxx and his administration will take this seriously and make significant changes in a timely fashion.

http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/NTSB-Issues-Recommendations-to-Improve-Safety-of-Tractor-Trailers-253786341.html

We do not want to see DOT/NHTSA drag their feet doing more studies when research has already been done. See http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletters/2014/H-14-001-007.pdf , starting at page 8 re: rear underride guards and especially on page 11:

“As a result of the research that was published in 2010 and 2011, IIHS submitted a petition to NHTSA requesting that the 1998 rear underride guard standard be upgraded.55 The following changes were requested:

(1) Increase the strength of the guards by modifying testing requirements,

(2) Require that the guards be designed to protect passenger vehicle occupants in collisions that occur with only a portion of the guard (off-set collisions),

(3) Strengthen requirements for attachment hardware,

(4) Require testing each type of guard “while attached to the trailers for which they are designed,”

(5) Determine whether it is feasible to lower the maximum guard ground clearance from 22 inches, and

(6) Include additional types of trucks (i.e., single-unit trucks) and trailers in a revised rear underride guard rule.56

As of December 2013, NHTSA has not formally responded to IIHS’s petition, but the agency has sponsored additional research on rear underride.57”

See the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) 2011 and 2013 Status Reports on underride guards here: