Monthly Archives: September 2024

$462M Jury Verdict Over Rear Impact Guard Design

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , ,

For over 50 years, NHTSA has failed to require truck trailers to be equipped with underride guards that protect road users from death and injury. The industry has lobbied to keep it that way and tens of thousands of innocent people have lost their lives as a result. This week, a St. Louis jury made a trailer manufacturer pay a just price.

Why would the jury do so? Could it have been because Wabash continued to sell an inadequate rear impact guard as standard equipment — even though they have a safer option available — and because of the industry’s opposition and the government’s abandonment of public safety?

Justice has been served.

MEDIA COVERAGE

In Memory of Darren Hayes (August 30, 2024)

Underride Crash Map, , , ,

A truck driver is dead after an accident on an I-275 exit ramp Friday morning.

Springdale Police said Darren Hayes, 57, got out of his disabled tractor-trailer on the ramp from the eastbound lanes to Springfield Pike at about 10:17 a.m.

Another tractor-trailer came down the ramp, collided with the first truck on the emergency shoulder and knocked Hayes down where he became trapped under the tires of his own truck. . . Driver dies after becoming trapped under tire of his own tractor-trailer on I-275 ramp

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

Darren Hayes, Precious One Gone Too Soon

AMERICA’S DANGEROUS TRUCKS (PBS/Frontline Underride Documentary)

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 Fabian Hernandez Rios (September 1, 2024)

Underride Crash Map, , , ,

. . . just after 11:30 a.m., a 2005 Ford Focus driven by 34-year-old Fabian Hernandez Rios of Colby, was traveling eastbound on I-70.

The car crossed the median and struck a 2018 Peterbilt semi driven by a 43-year-old Texas man on the driver’s side. 

The driver and only occupant of the Ford Focus, Hernandez, was pronounced dead at the scene. Kansas man dies in head-on collision on I-70

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.

Fabian Hernandez Rios, Precious One Gone Too Soon

Major truck manufacturers have Front Underride Protection designs which can work on American trucks.

AMERICA’S DANGEROUS TRUCKS (PBS/Frontline Underride Documentary)

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.