Monthly Archives: June 2023

So, what did you think of the PBS/Frontline Underride Documentary?

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , ,

We’ve been anticipating the final result of a year-long investigation by @propublica and @frontlinepbs on the truck underride issue. Their team pulled together an immense amount of information on a century-old problem. Of course, an hour could never cover it all. But I think that they created a compelling argument. The question is, what did you think?

If you haven’t had a chance to see the documentary or read the accompanying stories, here are some useful links:

My next question is, what are you going to do in response to what you heard and/or read? And what kind of reaction and action should we hope to see from:

  • Congress?
  • Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (who declined to be interviewed)?
  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration?
  • USDOT Inspector General?
  • Trucking Industry?

Anyone can act on their personal convictions and sign our petition: Secretary Pete, It’s Past Time To End Death By Underride! We will be submitting a spreadsheet of all signatures & comments made on the petition to Secretary Buttigieg and to the NHTSA Public Comment docket for the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Side Guards. Here are some other things you can do: How You Can Help!

What do I think? Among other things. . . I think that we need a Congressional Oversight Underride Field Hearing and an investigation by the DOT Inspector General. I’d also like the opportunity to have a meeting with Secretary Buttigieg to discuss underride. Beyond that, I think that we need a long-term solution for this and other roadway safety issues. I think that we need a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman, in place at the USDOT Office of the Secretary, whose role will be to ensure that the voice of victims is appropriately heard and heeded — so that industry no longer has a disproportionate, unfair voice.

In Memory of Chad Lentz (June 9, 2023)

Underride Crash Map, , , , ,

Witnesses reported that the semi-truck was heading north on Merle Hay Road when it hit the curb and then swerved over the median, colliding head-on with the sedan. . .

50-year-old Chad Lentz, the driver of the car, was pronounced dead at the scene. Ankeny man identified as person killed in crash after car hit by semi-truck near Merle Hay Mall

Because the bottom of a truck is higher than the bumper of passenger vehicles, when there is a collision the smaller vehicle easily slides under the truck and the first point of impact is the windshield. Seatbelts, airbags, and car crumple zones do not function as intended in underride crashes —front, side, and rear — leaving passenger vehicle occupants vulnerable to life-threatening injuries.

Chad Lentz, Precious One Gone Too Soon

See Underride Crash Memorials posted here and at #STOPunderrides Tweets. To add photos or more information on this story or to add other underride crashes to be remembered, send an email to underridemap@gmail.com. Please use this Interactive Underride Crash Map Crash Location Input Form to provide us with accurate information . (Note: the map is currently not online; but we would keep the information for future updating and to aid in underride advocacy efforts.)

How You Can Help

Support improving Underride Protection on trailers: Contact your legislators with this User-Friendly TAKE ACTION online tool.

Please sign this petition: Secretary Pete, It’s Past Time To End Death By Underride!

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have been writing memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes. I am not a crash reconstructionist, and I do not have all the facts on these crashes; but underride should be investigated as a potential factor in truck crash injuries and deaths.

We are asking that people send us crash reports for collisions with trucks which they suspect involved underride. Send them to marianne@annaleahmary.com. We will submit these as complaints to USDOT. Read more here: Launching a Campaign To Flood NHTSA With Underride Complaint Reports.

In Memory of Allen Booker (June 7, 2023)

Underride Crash Map, , , ,

. . . after swerving into oncoming traffic and colliding with a tractor-trailer, according to Maryland State Police.

A driver in a Honda Accord was traveling eastbound on Route 140 in Finksburg when he crossed the center lanes into the westbound lanes and collided with the truck, police said in a news release. The crash occurred around 10:52 p.m. near the intersection of Route 140 and Dede Road, and the driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police identified the driver as Allen Booker, 33, of Reisterstown. Reisterstown man dies in head-on collision with tractor-trailer in Carroll County

Because the bottom of a truck is higher than the bumper of passenger vehicles, when there is a collision the smaller vehicle easily slides under the truck and the first point of impact is the windshield. Seatbelts, airbags, and car crumple zones do not function as intended in underride crashes —front, side, and rear — leaving passenger vehicle occupants vulnerable to life-threatening injuries.

Allen Booker, Precious One Gone Too Soon

See Underride Crash Memorials posted here and at #STOPunderrides Tweets. To add photos or more information on this story or to add other underride crashes to be remembered, send an email to underridemap@gmail.com. Please use this Interactive Underride Crash Map Crash Location Input Form to provide us with accurate information . (Note: the map is currently not online; but we would keep the information for future updating and to aid in underride advocacy efforts.)

How You Can Help

Support improving Underride Protection on trailers: Contact your legislators with this User-Friendly TAKE ACTION online tool.

Please sign this petition: Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underrides.

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have been writing memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes. I am not a crash reconstructionist, and I do not have all the facts on these crashes; but underride should be investigated as a potential factor in truck crash injuries and deaths.

We are asking that people send us crash reports for collisions with trucks which they suspect involved underride. Send them to marianne@annaleahmary.com. We will submit these as complaints to USDOT. Read more here: Launching a Campaign To Flood NHTSA With Underride Complaint Reports.

PBS/Frontline Underride Documentary & Petition to Secretary Pete

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , , ,

Recent months have brought progress in the right direction to solve the truck underride problem. A PBS/Frontline documentary focused on underride will be aired on Tuesday, June 13, 10/9 Central. See the trailer here, America’s Dangerous Trucks. Spread the word! Breakout stories and articles:

  1. We are launching a new online petition to take advantage of the national attention this broadcast will bring to the hidden problem of underride. Please sign & share: Secretary Pete, It’s Past Time To End Death By Underride! These signatures & comments will be submitted to NHTSA.
  2. In April, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced members of the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection. The first ACUP meeting was on May 25. This diverse group, with both industry and safety advocates represented, will be making recommendations to Secretary Pete/NHTSA about how to end Death By Underride.
  3. At the same time, NHTSA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for a potential side guard regulation. Add your voice to our message. Submit a Public Comment (by July 20) here in support of requiring side guards on all new trucks. Help us to bring this long-overdue rule across the finish line.

Thank you for being a part of TEAM Underride!

Taking On a Safety Issue: Hazardous Railroad Crossings

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , , , , , ,

I made a Public Comment at the meeting of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) on June 6, 2023, related to railway crossing safety. I was motivated to do so by two things.

First of all, I have listened to members of the trucking industry point to the potential of side guards causing an increase in tractor-trailer hang ups on high centered railroad crossings — using it as a basis for opposing a side guard regulation. Yet, in ten years, I have never heard them discuss how they could address this safety problem, which occurs even without side guards.

Secondly, when I was around 26, I worked as a Hospice Pilot Program Analyst for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Michigan. After some time on the job, one of my coworkers had a baby, who was the delight of her life.  After my family moved away from the Detroit area, we kept in contact mostly through exchanging Christmas cards. One year I received a note from our former boss, who told me that my friend’s now 16 year-old had died when the car in which she was a passenger was hit by a train on her way to her high school. I wrote about her story in a post, Too Often, Too Little, Too Late; A Conspiracy of Silence , in 2015:

“Fast forward to 2013, when I, too, experienced the awful devastation of losing a child [make that two] to an unexpected, horrific, potentially-preventable, premature death due to a car crash [this time hit by a truck]. Now I understood what my friend had faced.

Just recently, I tried to reach out to her again–to no avail–after I ran across the news article and the picture of baby “Joy” when going through boxes at our home. I re-read the details of the crash and discovered that there had been no flashers or guard at the fateful railroad crossing–less than a mile from her high school.

As a bereaved-mom-become-safety-advocate, I wanted to know if something had been done to improve safety at the site of that crash 34 years ago. I was encouraged to find out, from the township responsible for that section of roads, that they had bypassed the option of flashers and guards and immediately closed off that particular dirt road where it crossed the tracks.

A good move. Chances are it saved someone. But it was Too Late for Joy.

Why does it Too Often take a death to wake us up to the dangers that were there all along?”

I did not hear from my friend for 40 years because her grief was so intense and it was hard for her to see me with my family of nine living children. In 2020, out of the blue, I received an email from her. Among other things, she shared with me what she and her husband and younger daughter had done following their tragic loss:

[We] took on the State of Michigan after the train crash that killed [Joy and her friend Hope].  After a public hearing, we convinced the state to close the railroad crossing near [the] High School where the crash occurred.  The crossing was at the bottom of a gravel hill and no warning lights or gates were at the site.  State inspectors would park at the top of the hill and walk down to “inspect” it, too concerned to drive down. The site could not be fixed to make it safe for others and the road leading to it is now closed.  No one else will die there.  During our investigation, we found that many other dangerous railroad sites like this exist.  I was too devastated to do anything about those sites in the way you have, and I admire your courage for that.

June 6, 2023

Administrator Hutcheson,

I hope that FMCSA will seriously consider our attached petition and do what is within your power to make railway crossings safer.

Respectfully,

Jerry & Marianne Karth

Here’s our petition to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: Petition to the FMCSA for Railway Crossing Safety Measures

Here’s our petition a few days earlier to the Federal Railroad Administration: Petition to the FRA for Railway Crossing Safety Measures

Relevant Resources On This Topic:

What can we learn about industry concerns regarding a potential side guard regulation?

In Memory of Angela Kay Hollon (June 4, 2023)

Underride Crash Map, , , ,

A Mereta woman died Sunday morning when the SUV she was driving collided with a tractor trailer.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a preliminary crash report that Angela Kay Hollon, 46, of Mereta, was traveling northbound in the southbound lane of FM 1692. The report said it was unknown why Hollon was in the southbound lane. Wrong way driver dies in crash with tractor trailer near Mereta

Because the bottom of a truck is higher than the bumper of passenger vehicles, when there is a collision the smaller vehicle easily slides under the truck and the first point of impact is the windshield. Seatbelts, airbags, and car crumple zones do not function as intended in underride crashes —front, side, and rear — leaving passenger vehicle occupants vulnerable to life-threatening injuries.

Angela Kay Hollon, Precious One Gone Too Soon

See Underride Crash Memorials posted here and at #STOPunderrides Tweets. To add photos or more information on this story or to add other underride crashes to be remembered, send an email to underridemap@gmail.com. Please use this Interactive Underride Crash Map Crash Location Input Form to provide us with accurate information . (Note: the map is currently not online; but we would keep the information for future updating and to aid in underride advocacy efforts.)

How You Can Help

Support improving Underride Protection on trailers: Contact your legislators with this User-Friendly TAKE ACTION online tool.

Please sign this petition: Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underrides.

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have been writing memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes. I am not a crash reconstructionist, and I do not have all the facts on these crashes; but underride should be investigated as a potential factor in truck crash injuries and deaths.

We are asking that people send us crash reports for collisions with trucks which they suspect involved underride. Send them to marianne@annaleahmary.com. We will submit these as complaints to USDOT. Read more here: Launching a Campaign To Flood NHTSA With Underride Complaint Reports.

Upcoming PBS/Frontline Documentary: “America’s Dangerous Trucks”

Truck Safety, , ,

“FRONTLINE and ProPublica investigate deadly truck accidents and the fight over measures that could save thousands of lives. As deaths rise, the documentary examines decades of legal maneuvering, political influence, lax regulation and industry opposition.”

Coming June 13, 10:00 p.m./9 CT.

Watch the trailer here: America’s Dangerous Trucks

In Memory of Jasmine Gutierrez (June 1, 2023)

Underride Crash Map, , , ,

A 25-year-old motorist was killed when her car slammed into the back of a tractor-trailer at a Moreno Valley intersection, authorities said Friday.

Jasmine Gutierrez of Moreno Valley was fatally injured about 10:45 p.m. Thursday at Ellsworth Street and Goldencrest Drive, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. Woman killed in collision with big rig in Moreno Valley

Because the bottom of a truck is higher than the bumper of passenger vehicles, when there is a collision the smaller vehicle easily slides under the truck and the first point of impact is the windshield. Seatbelts, airbags, and car crumple zones do not function as intended in underride crashes —front, side, and rear — leaving passenger vehicle occupants vulnerable to life-threatening injuries.

Jasmine Gutierrez, Precious One Gone Too Soon

See Underride Crash Memorials posted here and at #STOPunderrides Tweets. To add photos or more information on this story or to add other underride crashes to be remembered, send an email to underridemap@gmail.com. Please use this Interactive Underride Crash Map Crash Location Input Form to provide us with accurate information . (Note: the map is currently not online; but we would keep the information for future updating and to aid in underride advocacy efforts.)

How You Can Help

Support improving Underride Protection on trailers: Contact your legislators with this User-Friendly TAKE ACTION online tool.

Please sign this petition: Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underrides.

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have been writing memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes. I am not a crash reconstructionist, and I do not have all the facts on these crashes; but underride should be investigated as a potential factor in truck crash injuries and deaths.

We are asking that people send us crash reports for collisions with trucks which they suspect involved underride. Send them to marianne@annaleahmary.com. We will submit these as complaints to USDOT. Read more here: Launching a Campaign To Flood NHTSA With Underride Complaint Reports.

In Memory of William Brown (June 2, 2023)

Underride Crash Map, , , ,

State police say a Chevy Trail Blazer was traveling south when the driver, William Brown, lost control around a turn.

They say Brown’s vehicle entered the opposite lane and crashed head on into a dump truck hauling 23 tons of stone. State police ID man killed after head-on crash involving dump truck in Huntingdon County

Because the bottom of a truck is higher than the bumper of passenger vehicles, when there is a collision the smaller vehicle easily slides under the truck and the first point of impact is the windshield. Seatbelts, airbags, and car crumple zones do not function as intended in underride crashes —front, side, and rear — leaving passenger vehicle occupants vulnerable to life-threatening injuries.

William Brown, Precious One Gone Too Soon

See Underride Crash Memorials posted here and at #STOPunderrides Tweets. To add photos or more information on this story or to add other underride crashes to be remembered, send an email to underridemap@gmail.com. Please use this Interactive Underride Crash Map Crash Location Input Form to provide us with accurate information . (Note: the map is currently not online; but we would keep the information for future updating and to aid in underride advocacy efforts.)

How You Can Help

Support improving Underride Protection on trailers: Contact your legislators with this User-Friendly TAKE ACTION online tool.

Please sign this petition: Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underrides.

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have been writing memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes. I am not a crash reconstructionist, and I do not have all the facts on these crashes; but underride should be investigated as a potential factor in truck crash injuries and deaths.

We are asking that people send us crash reports for collisions with trucks which they suspect involved underride. Send them to marianne@annaleahmary.com. We will submit these as complaints to USDOT. Read more here: Launching a Campaign To Flood NHTSA With Underride Complaint Reports.

In Memory of Daijah McKithen (June 1, 2023)

Underride Crash Map, , , ,

According to police, a dump truck and sedan collided and crashed into a gas pump at a nearby Shell station.

The driver of the dump truck walked away with moderate, non-life-threatening injuries.

Officials say the driver of the sedan, identified as Daijah McKithen from Lawrenceville, New Jersey, was pronounced dead at the scene. 18-year-old dies in two-car crash at gas station along highway in New Jersey

Because the bottom of a truck is higher than the bumper of passenger vehicles, when there is a collision the smaller vehicle easily slides under the truck and the first point of impact is the windshield. Seatbelts, airbags, and car crumple zones do not function as intended in underride crashes —front, side, and rear — leaving passenger vehicle occupants vulnerable to life-threatening injuries.

Daijah McKithen, Precious One Gone Too Soon

See Underride Crash Memorials posted here and at #STOPunderrides Tweets. To add photos or more information on this story or to add other underride crashes to be remembered, send an email to underridemap@gmail.com. Please use this Interactive Underride Crash Map Crash Location Input Form to provide us with accurate information . (Note: the map is currently not online; but we would keep the information for future updating and to aid in underride advocacy efforts.)

How You Can Help

Support improving Underride Protection on trailers: Contact your legislators with this User-Friendly TAKE ACTION online tool.

Please sign this petition: Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underrides.

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have been writing memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes. I am not a crash reconstructionist, and I do not have all the facts on these crashes; but underride should be investigated as a potential factor in truck crash injuries and deaths.

We are asking that people send us crash reports for collisions with trucks which they suspect involved underride. Send them to marianne@annaleahmary.com. We will submit these as complaints to USDOT. Read more here: Launching a Campaign To Flood NHTSA With Underride Complaint Reports.