Highlights from his message include this statement:
“NTSB has long recognized the need for underride protection. Since the ’70s in fact. In 2013 and 2014, we issued key recommendations urging the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require commercial trucks to have strong rear and side underride protection systems that prevent injuries to passenger vehicle occupants during a crash. “Unfortunately, our work is not done. NTSB will continue to push for our recommendations to be implemented by NHTSA. Strong rear & side underride protection must be required on all trucks & trailers,” said @NTSB Board Member Thomas Chapman in a message to participants of the STOP Underrides National Town Hall on April 15. (View highlights in this Video)
Here’s a one-pager on the NTSB’s position on underride guards. Communications between the NTSB and the NHTSA regarding NTSB Underride Safety Recommendations can be found here.
What are we to think when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (federally-funded) for all intents and purposes ignores the safety recommendations of the National Transportation Research Board (federally-funded)?
Add your voice to the STOP Underrides National Town Hall. On April 15, Town Hall participants heard from STOP Underrides Bill sponsors and a few families who have lost loved ones due to the preventable underride problem. Then we learned how to take simple action steps during the event to encourage our U.S. legislators to support the Stop Underrides Act.
Now we want to continue that Wave of Action. Follow these simple STOP Underrides Action Steps to send a strong message to your Members of Congress. You’ll be shown step by step how to write a simple script. Then use that script to send an email, record a video selfie, make a phone call, and post on social media.
Inspire others to do the same by using one of the sample social media posts included in the instructions. Use this virtual “sticker” on social media:
It has a QR code with a link to the email action alert — giving your viewers a simple way to add their voice and keep the Waves of Action going.
The violent nature of underride injuries are documented here in two side underride crashes — a 2016 fatal truck crash and a 2020 near-fatal truck crash. The severity of the injuries which are a direct consequence of preventable intrusion into the occupant survival space is rarely discussed. The regulatory analysis primarily addresses the problem as a transportation issue.
This is disturbing because the reality of the horrific and violent nature of these injuries is muted and minimized by simply calling it a “safety” issue while ignoring the actual known unreasonable risk of endangerment to human life.
Safety refers to the state of being free from harm, danger, or risk. It encompasses various conditions and practices designed to protect individuals from injury or accidents. (US Legal Definition)
NHTSA washes its hands of these preventable injuries by putting out PSAs about driving safely but neglecting to issue motor vehicle safety standards for a dangerous vehicle design which they refuse to call a safety defect. But what are these injuries which have been documented for decades?
In the Iowa Supreme Court brief, the estimated impact speed of the passenger vehicle was 32.7 mph from McQuillen’s expert and a minimum of 40 mph from West Side’s expert. Importantly, both speeds that surfaced in the appellate briefing are in the range where side underride guards are generally understood to provide protection.
Compare the above 2020 near-fatal side underride case to the NTSB investigation, #HWY16F018 (found here), of a 2016 Florida fatal side underride, NTSB investigated a 2016 side underride (which NHTSA inaccurately coded in FARS as No Underride Noted, but has now been corrected) . The victim iin this crash was Joshua Brown. See the similarities in the injuries incurred.
NTSB published an Injury Factual Report for that crash investigation (as documented by a NTSB biomechanical engineer and found here):
Although 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 830 pertains to the reporting of aircraft accidents and incidents to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), section 830.2 defines fatal injury as any injury that results in death within 30 days of the accident and serious injury as any injury that (1) requires hospitalization for more than 48 hours, commencing within 7 days from the date of injury; (2) results in a fracture of any bone (except simple fractures of fingers, toes, or nose); (3) causes severe hemorrhages, nerve, or tendon damage; (4) involves any internal organ; or (5) involves second- or third-degree burns, or any burn affecting more than 5 percent of the body surface.
It should be noted that another biomechanical engineer, Mohammad Atarod, identified similar injuries after analyzing the injury data from crash test dummies used in Rear Impact Guard crash testing by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. He shared this information, Biomechanics of Passenger Vehicle Underride, in a presentation to the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection in 2024.
Additionally, a SAE 2020 side underride guard research paper by Garrett Mattos, et al, documents injury data with and without side guards in simulated crash testing, Protecting Passenger Vehicles from Side Underride with Heavy Trucks (found online here) with results similar to the crash testing of the AngelWing side underride guard at 40 mph by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety at the Second Underride Roundtable on August 29, 2017.
In stark contrast, in its 2023 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Side Impact Guards, NHTSA used the word injury 7 times and injuries 34 times:
I see no description, in NHTSA’s lengthy regulatory analysis, of actual specific categories of injuries incurred in underride crashes, with lethal passenger compartment intrusion, beyond the generic use of the word “injury” or “serious injuries.” Nor is there any talk of “injury prevention.”
Why are we ignoring the severity of injuries which could be prevented by available engineering solutions? I survived a horrific truck crash with minor injuries because I did not experience intrusion of my survival space. I know that preventing underride is a matter of life or death. Enough of this spilled blood. Let’s make truck crashes more SURVIVABLE — because we can.
