A panel of experts discuss underride at a Briefing on The Hill, October 12, 2017, to bring greater understanding of the problem and solutions of deadly but preventable truck underride. Malcolm Deighton, engineer with Sapa/Hydro, discusses their aluminum rear underride guard — successfully crash tested at 40 mph.
For more information on the STOP Underrides! Act of 2017, go to https://annaleahmary.com/ and/or https://stopunderrides.org/
Because our crash involved the failure of the rear underride guard of a truck that we collided with, that was where our initial advocacy efforts were directed. We quickly saw that comprehensive underride protection was important to save countless lives.
Here are some of the things we discovered and did about rear underride:
- A grieving dad got the attention of the trucking industry & made a difference.
- https://annaleahmary.com/underride-guards/
- NPRM Upgrade Underide, December 2015
- IIHS Status Report newsletter, Vol. 49, No. 7, October 9, 2014
- TOUGHGUARD Award: IIHS recognizes semitrailers with good underride guards
- IIHS Truck Underride Guard Evaluations
- Do “at-fault” victims deserve Death Sentence? Underride issues deserve to be clarified.
- Setting the Record Straight: “Too Rigid” Underride Guards is a Myth
- Urgent Underride Discussion of Deceleration Forces/High Speeds. Don’t Dawdle.
- Underride Roundtable To Consider Underride Research From Around the Globe
- Media Coverage of the first Truck Underride Roundtable held at IIHS on May 5, 2016
- Knights of the Underride Roundtable: Finding Some Common Ground to Protect Travelers!
- Clarification-of-the-Comprehensive-Underride-Consensus-Petition.pdf
- VA Tech Student Engineers Shine in Underride Roundtable Presentation
- Media Coverage of the Second Underride Roundtable
- Stoughton improved underride guards–standard “at no cost or weight penalty.”
- Stoughton Offers Retrofit Kit For New Rear Impact Guard
- Large trailer manufacturers built 340,000 in 2015. How many purchased in 2017 will have strong rear guards?
- Why put rear underride protection on trailers but not Single Unit Trucks? Any underride is deadly.
This page leaves out recommendations for higher-speed underride protection. Truck parking is still legal in the U.S. on our Interstate Highway System where speeds average around 65 mph. These recommended and sickly even heralded stiff underride guards are generally only effective in crashes at around 30 to 35 mph. Which of your loved ones are you willing to sacrifice to these easily fixed speed differentials. Extending energy absorbing guards out from the back of the truck by about a foot could increase the effective speeds from 50 to 65 mph! These could be manufactured for a similar cost to the stiff guards with very little weight differential en-mass.