Aaron Kiefer has designed an innovative combination side/rear underride guard for large trucks. Recently, he tallied up the number of side underride crashes which his crash reconstruction firm has investigated.
This is what he found:
-39 passenger vehicle/commercial vehicle underride accidents in 2014, 2015, 2016 YTD (16 average annual cases*) *Approx 90% of cases were sampled
-26 side, 13 rear
-19 into dry van trailers, (13 side, 6 rear)
-10 into flatbed trailers
-10 into other trailer types/other commercial vehicles
See one of his side guard crash tests:
Here’s my report on the first crash test of Aaron’s side guard prototype on March 13, 2016: Witnessed safety defect in action at underride crash tests; this is what snuffed out my daughters’ lives.