Eight major trailer manufacturers have designed stronger rear underride guards to withstand a crash test at 35 mph all the way across the back of the trailer — earning them the TOUGHGuard Award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This is significant because their previous designs — though meeting the current federal standard for rear guards — have been proven too weak and ineffective by IIHS.
There are about 300,000 new trailers sold every year. Some manufacturers are selling the stronger guard as Standard on all new trailers. Others are selling it as an Option, meaning that trailers may still be sold with guards known to be too weak to stop cars and save lives.
In addition, if we don’t retrofit the existing 11 million+ trailers with stronger guards — which will meet the TOUGHGuard criteria (plus side and rear underride protection) — it will be years before the entire fleet will be safer to drive around.
Fortunately, some of the trailer manufacturers have a retrofit kit for the rear guards, so that a trucking company could theoretically purchase kits to make their trucks safer. However, without a mandate to do so, I don’t imagine that will happen too quickly.
But I am encouraged by the work of Aaron Kiefer, a North Carolina crash reconstructionist who has seen so many underride tragedies that he decided to design some solutions on his own — primarily out of his own pocket and on his own time, with the support of his family who share their husband and dad with his life-saving project.
Just this weekend, Aaron installed the latest version of his Rear Reinforcement Attachment to a 53 foot trailer. Over the last five years, Aaron has been developing a design for two aluminum triangles, which are fastened to both sides of the trailer and then attached to both ends of the existing rear underride guard.
This reinforces the strength of the rear guard — improving its capability to stop a car and prevent underride. But it, also, serves as the point of attachment for Aaron’s side guard invention, the SafetySkirt — polyester webbing which can be combined with a side skirt to both save fuel and save lives.
You can see the SafetySkirt being tested at the D.C. Underride Crash Test Event on March 26, 2019:
We are looking forward to the day when Aaron’s SafetySkirt System can be tested at IIHS to prove its usefulness as an affordable, lightweight solution, which could theoretically be available as an option to retrofit any truck on the road with effective side and rear underride protection.
Aaron, like Perry Ponder who invented the AngelWing side guard, and countless other engineers, who should be given a green light to solve the underride problem, are amazing members of my Underride Hero Hall of Fame — along with my husband Jerry who has contributed a wealth of ideas in this underride advocacy journey.
