When there is no strong physical barrier under a truck bed, Death By Underride becomes a known unreasonable risk. Fortunately, engineers have developed effective physical barriers or underride protection – although it is not required by law. With that in mind, a group of engineers carried out R&D crash testing on August 3 at the Raleigh Underride Crash Test Event.
Four side crash tests were conducted into semitrailers:
- Ford Fiesta into an AngelWing side guard from a 45 degree angle (39 mph)
- Chevy Malibu into an unguarded trailer from a 45 degree angle (38 mph)
- Chevy Impala into a SafetySkirt side guard in the rear area behind forward positioned trailer axles from a 90 degree angle (36 mph)
- Chevy Malibu into a SafetySkirt side guard from a 90 degree angle (43 mph)
Crashed trailers were each ballasted with approximately 28,000 pounds in water tanks. Video footage in this LinkedIn post by Forensic Rock, highlights two of the crash tests:
We love working with passionate people in the AR field. And Aaron Kiefer is one of those super-passionate people we absolutely love working with.
We were lucky enough to help him and his great #StopUnderrides group collect data for an awesome test series they were running in North Carolina. His goal was to demonstrate the collision mitigation of different trailer guards on side underride collisions with lower-profile sedans.
This compilation video compares an unguarded 53′ van trailer to Aaron’s SafetySkirt design. Two Chevrolet Malibu’s were used in this test series.
The speed at impact in the unguarded test was 37.5 mph; the speed at impact for Aaron’s SafetySkirt test was 43.4 mph.
We won’t spoil it for you, but Aaron certainly knows what he is doing.
Underride Crash Tests – Unguarded Trailer vs Guarded Trailer
The guards prevented Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI) in each guarded test.
Note: More details will be shared in the days ahead as photos, video, and electronic data are compiled.
