NHTSA closed the Public Comment Period on the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for side underride guards on July 20, 2023. NHTSA asked commenters to respond to these nine questions. Here’s where the comments are posted: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Side Underride Guards. To make it easier to read through the thousands of comments, I’m providing pdfs and/or links to many of them — although it’s not an exhaustive compilation.
Links to Many of the Public Comments on the Side Guard ANPRM
According to the federal rulemaking process, the next step is for NHTSA (and that will include the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection)to begin reviewing and evaluating the comments which have been submitted from the public. Now is the time for the development of a recommendation to the Secretary of Transportation as to whether a side guard regulation would be cost effective.
In other words, now is the time to finally determine that safety is an acceptable cost of doing business and Death By Underride is an unacceptable, unreasonable, and preventable risk for all road users. At least, that’s what I think.
