Safety Research & Strategies, Inc., makes note of the NHTSA initiation of rulemaking on underride guards.
While they provided a good summary of the history of underride guard regulation, I would like to note that they apparently overlooked NHTSA’s mention of an underride guard petition from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) in the Footnotes of the Federal Register announcement.
Safety Research & Strategies, Inc. cut and pasted underride history from the internet, OK. What have they done for underride prevention and improvement of underride guard technology. The Insurance Institute has lead the way to improved life-saving technology on trucks and cars. We can talk about strong underride guards because the work of energy absorption can be shared with 40 mph offset collision crush zones in cars thanks to work by IIHS. The IIHS petition was turned down because NHTSA is attempting to harmonize to the weak 30mph Canadian Standard and thought they could push this past unknowing victims. Most trucks and trailers on the road already meet the minimums of this weak standard and NHTSA thinks they can have a new standard and not anger powerful interests in the industry. Victims will use this now opened door and show that we are not uneducated tools when it comes to underride. We have fought for a strong standard for twenty plus years and the Brazilian and Canadian Standards largely exist because of the work of underride victims and we will not let slip twenty years of emotionally costly effort for a strong standard. We will not let people die. We are here today because of the great works by IIHS and their petition was only not acted on because of it’s truthful strength!
Safety Research & Strategies, Inc.’s comment that 30% offset crash tests are run because that is the minimum overlap to kill is dangerously incorrect. My wife Tamara was killed in about a 10 inch overlap from the edge of the trailer, the guard creased the side of the car from the front to the back of the car until the car hit the truck tires 5 feet under the trailer. The underride guard did nothing. My wife would have survived if their statement were true. The 30% offset is an average of offset crashes to save money, you cannot afford to test for every scenario. We need guards to extend to the edge of the trailer with strong bracing support at the edge of the trailer. Statistics show extreme offset crashes do occur and they do cause fatalities.