All posts by Marianne

In Memory of Michael David Schuster (December 31, 2025)

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

UPDATE March 13, 2026: Hundreds of people die every year when pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants of passenger vehicles go under trucks. Please consider joining a STOP Underrides National Town Hall via Zoom April 15 | 8 – 9 pm ET |RSVP HERE. 

Your voice at this unique advocacy gathering will let your U.S. Senators and Representative know that you want them to pass the STOP Underrides Act of 2026.

Michael David Schuster, 57, was pronounced dead of his injuries after collision on Wednesday, Dec. 31 between pickup and a tractor trailer, said Deputy Kingman Police Chief Joel Freed, confirming Schuster is the brother of Mohave County Sheriff Doug Schuster.

The semi was exiting the Travel Center of America truck stop when it collided with an eastbound 2006 pickup that ended up under the semi trailer. Golden Valley man, brother of Mohave County Sheriff killed in crash with semi-trailer

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.

Michael David Schuster, 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.)

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have periodically written memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes; but be aware that this is not a comprehensive, exhaustive record of all such 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.

Ralph Nader Radio Hour Highlights Underride. . . Here’s The Rest of the Story

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

This week, I had a conversation with Ralph Nader about the truck underride problem. Now, he has been an important activist in the automobile safety space for decades and his advocacy has saved many lives. Unfortunately, underride is a problem that existed when he began his consumer advocacy efforts yet people — still to this day — continue to die from that preventable problem. Why is that? Well, it’s the trucks (not the cars).

Here’s the Ralph Nader Radio Hour podcast of that conversation published on December 20, 2025, at 24:45 on this link: Trouble in Toyland 2025 / Stop Underride.

What we talked about, but which apparently got edited out of the final version, was the full extent of the problem. Ralph asked me a couple of times how many people died every year from underride. I started out by describing how vastly undercounted underrides are — both due to the fact that an underride checkbox doesn’t exist on the state crash report forms for most states and also because NHTSA excludes many categories of victims from their regulatory cost benefit analysis. Since he wanted a number, I said that there were at least 600 underride deaths a year. But the actual number is higher, especially when you count the deaths of Vulnerable Road Users — pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists — all of whom face lethal underride dangers, too.

A presentation which I made a few weeks ago to NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison provides a few more details about the extent of the underride problem and the flawed analysis by NHTSA: Preventing Underride Deaths At 40 mph FINAL – Make Truck Crashes SURVIVABLE and here are my presenter notes: NHTSA Administrator Morrison Meeting – Presenter Notes. This slide captures numbers for annual underride fatalities:

Out of 40,000 annual traffic deaths, 4.5% are caused by underride. Underrides are lethal for car passengers because the bottom edge of trailers stands above all of the passive safety features incorporated into passenger vehicles, e.g., crush zones, bumpers, airbag sensors, seat belt tensioners.

When cars and large commercial motor vehicles interact, the bottom of the trailer can intrude into the occupant survival space and cause life-threatening injuries such as decapitation and crush injuries. The same risks face bicyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians when they get swept under large commercial trucks and get crushed by the rear wheels.

Underride deaths cannot be eliminated by changing driver behavior or even crash avoidance technology. (It’s not the crash that kills; it’s the underride.) They can only be eliminated by the installation of physical guards, known as “impact” or “underride” guards, to the sides and rear of trailers. This is LOW HANGING FRUIT – a problem not as hard to solve as impaired or distracted driving.

Preventing underride deaths at 40 mph is possible. But it will not happen through voluntary action by trailer manufacturers. This is a failure of the marketplace. Government regulation is intended to correct for market failures, and NHTSA has the power to do that.

AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety and Aaron Kiefer have been invited to demonstrate underride crash testing next year at the 2026 Southeast Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Summit co-hosted by the FMCSA in Raleigh on August 11.  I invited NHTSA Administrator Morrison and FMCSA Administrator Barrs to take advantage of this opportunity to witness firsthand the life & death difference of underride protection.

Preventing underride deaths is not a Republican issue. It’s not a Democratic issue. Neither Party has made a difference in the underride policy space. I asked Administrator Morrison to make that part of his public service legacy.

And that is why, knowing of Ralph’s promotion of civic advocacy, I mailed a proposal to him a month or so ago. You see, we share a common dream for the mobilization of a network of citizen advocacy groups — one in each of the 435 Congressional districts. This outside-the-box strategy has the potential to build bridges between polarized citizens, enabling them to find common ground thereby uniting and amplifying their voices — empowering We The People to bring about needed change in our country.

“Georgia looks to police to decide whether to start tracking deadly underride crashes”

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , ,

Proving that underride protection can save lives is not enough to convince federal regulators that underride mandates should be issued. The regulatory process requires that a rule be cost effective. There are many factors which should go into a cost benefit analysis equation. Unfortunately, we are aware of a multitude of flaws in this process and that includes excluding certain categories of underride victims:

  • Vulnerable Road Users (pedestrians, motorcyclists, and bicyclists) were not included in the 2023 Side Impact Guard ANPRM (See Senior Agency Officials Suppressed Side Guard Research — Impacting Regulatory Analysis);
  • victims of crashes where the posted speed limit is above 40 mph (not taking into account Delta-V forces in collisions);
  • victims of crashes which involve multiple vehicles (NHTSA only includes two-vehicle crashes in their regulatory analysis!);
  • as well as overestimating the weight of guards, not counting the fuel savings of side guards installed in conjunction with side skirts, or ignoring the cost to industry of lawsuits for preventable fatalities.

Another problem is the undercounting of underride fatalities, as we have previously documented, Joshua Brown/Tesla Side Underride Crash Coded as “No Underride” in FARS Data, and as described by Safety Research Strategies, GAO Concludes Underride is Underreported, Duh. In fact, very few states even have a checkbox for underride on their official state crash report form, as reported by the Institute for Safer Trucking in 2022:

A Georgia 11Alive investigative report continues to address that problem and is watching to see whether Georgia will add an underride checkbox to their state crash report form, Georgia looks to police to decide whether to start tracking deadly underride crashes:

This report, published on December 10, 2025, follows up on a previous report published in April 2025:

In Memory of Kevin Cantwell (October 21, 2025)

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, Underride Crash Map, , , , , ,

UPDATE March 13, 2026: Hundreds of people die every year when pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants of passenger vehicles go under trucks. Please consider joining a STOP Underrides National Town Hall via Zoom April 15 | 8 – 9 pm ET |RSVP HERE. 

Your voice at this unique advocacy gathering will let your U.S. Senators and Representative know that you want them to pass the STOP Underrides Act of 2026.

A Massachusetts man was killed on Tuesday afternoon when his Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van failed to observe traffic was slowing down to a standstill and struck the rear of a 2020 Freightliner tractor-trailer on Interstate 84 westbound near exit 28 in the Town of Montgomery.

State Police said Kevin Cantwell, 71, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts was pronounced dead at the scene. Crash between van and tractor-trailer claims one life

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.

Kevin Cantwell, Precious One Gone Too Soon

Retrofit Solutions for Rear Impact Guards to Prevent Deadly Underride

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.)

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.

In Memory of Clarence and Lisa Nelson (October 21, 2025)

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, Underride Crash Map, , , , ,

UPDATE March 13, 2026: Hundreds of people die every year when pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants of passenger vehicles go under trucks. Please consider joining a STOP Underrides National Town Hall via Zoom April 15 | 8 – 9 pm ET |RSVP HERE. 

Your voice at this unique advocacy gathering will let your U.S. Senators and Representative know that you want them to pass the STOP Underrides Act of 2026.

A former assistant basketball coach at Pomona High School Clarence Nelson and his wife Lisa were among the three victims killed in a deadly Ontario crash at 10 Freeway on Tuesday, October 21.  . . drove the truck into slow-moving traffic on the I-10 Freeway in San Bernardino County. Dashcam footage released by ABC7 shows Singh slamming into an SUV, without any attempt to apply brakes. Ontario Crash: Pomona High School Assistant Basketball Coach Clarence Nelson & His Wife Killed In Fatal Accident

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.

Clarence & Lisa Nelson, Precious Ones 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.)

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.

Did DOT Violate the Information Quality Act When it Published Side Underride Guard Research?

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

The Department of Transportation published a report in May 2020, A Literature Review of Lateral Protection Devices on Trucks Intended for Reducing Pedestrian and Cyclist Fatalities. The published report purported to fulfill a $200,000 contract (number SA9PA1) awarded by the Federal Motor Carrier Administration (FMCSA) to the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. In 2019, Volpe Center researchers turned in a draft of that report, entitled, “Truck Side Guards and Skirts to Reduce Vulnerable Road User Fatalities: Final Report on Net Benefits and Recommendations” (DOT-VNTSC-FMCSA-19-01). The published literature review left out many of the original objectives outlined in the contract between FMCSA and the Volpe Center to study the effectiveness of truck side guards to reduce Vulnerable Road User deaths.

Senior Agency Officials Suppressed Side Guard Research — Impacting Regulatory Analysis

ALMFTS investigated by requesting documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. Internal agency emails reveal that the Department — not the study’s authors — rewrote the Volpe Center Report, in violation of a federal guidance on conducting peer review. The emails document that a NHTSA official made revisions to the original report rather than making recommendations to the study’s authors — as would be done in a genuine peer review.

Here is a subset of those emails — a list of some of the more relevant and revealing ones, which document that revisionism rather than review of a research study took place:

USDOT Emails Via FOIA – Documentation of Violation of OMB Peer Review Guidance

This is a violation of an Office of Management & Budget guidance on peer review — at the peril of Vulnerable Road Users who are at risk of known, unreasonable, and preventable truck underride injuries and death, as well as occupants of passenger vehicles. 

Relevant documentation: Timeline of Events Concerning the Volpe Center Side Guard Research Report

When one errs, the right thing to do is to correct the error. The right thing to do here is to correct the information the Department erroneously published. What will the Secretary of Transportation do, at this juncture in history, to protect these souls entrusted to his care?


If only the federal traffic safety agency had fought as hard to get side underride protection on the roads as they did to keep them off the roads, those roads would be a whole lot safer. Although it is only one piece of a larger puzzle, the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center report on truck side guards — before Department officials suppressed its findings — illustrates the cost effectiveness of a technically-proven road safety countermeasure.

In Memory of Suleiman Hamideh (September 15, 2025)

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, Underride Crash Map, , , , , ,

 

UPDATE March 13, 2026: Hundreds of people die every year when pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants of passenger vehicles go under trucks. Please consider joining a STOP Underrides National Town Hall via Zoom April 15 | 8 – 9 pm ET |RSVP HERE. 

Your voice at this unique advocacy gathering will let your U.S. Senators and Representative know that you want them to pass the STOP Underrides Act of 2026.

A young boy was hit and killed by a semi-truck Monday night while riding his bike off Cottondale Drive. 

The Baton Rouge Police Department said that the 7-year-old was hit around 7:40 p.m. on Lindale Avenue near the intersection of Cottondale. The coroner’s office later identified the boy as Suleiman Hamideh. . .

. . . he struck Hamideh with the rear driver’s side tire on his trailer. . . 7-year-old boy fatally struck by 18-wheeler while riding bike in Baton Rouge

Suleiman Hamideh, Precious One Gone Too Soon

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. This is also true for Vulnerable Road Users, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and wheelchair users, who can suffer catastrophic injuries when they collide with the unguarded side of a large truck.

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. 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.

Find out more about Vulnerable Road Users and preventable underride tragedies:

In Memory of Colene Ruhl (September 16, 2025)

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, Underride Crash Map, , , , , , , ,

UPDATE March 13, 2026: Hundreds of people die every year when pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants of passenger vehicles go under trucks. Please consider joining a STOP Underrides National Town Hall via Zoom April 15 | 8 – 9 pm ET |RSVP HERE. 

Your voice at this unique advocacy gathering will let your U.S. Senators and Representative know that you want them to pass the STOP Underrides Act of 2026.

A woman in a motorized wheelchair was hit and killed Tuesday afternoon in Winter Springs, a spokesperson for the city told WESH 2. . .

Officials said they found the woman lying in the roadway, “deceased from what appeared to be injuries suffered from being struck by a semi-tractor-trailer.”

The woman was on the sidewalk when a semi heading east on SR-434 was attempting to make a right turn on Belle Avenue.

As the semi began to turn right onto Belle, the woman started to cross Belle and was hit by the trailer of the turning semi, thrown from the wheelchair and killed, officials said. Woman thrown from wheelchair, killed after being hit by semi making turn in Winter Springs

Colene Ruhl, Precious One Gone Too Soon

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. This is also true for Vulnerable Road Users, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and wheelchair users, who can suffer catastrophic injuries when they collide with the unguarded side of a large truck.

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. 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.

Find out more about Vulnerable Road Users and preventable underride tragedies:

Critique of NHTSA-Contracted Elemance Rear Impact Guard Research

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

Secretary Duffy,

The Department of Transportation (DOT) engaged Elemance LLC in 2022 to evaluate three current designs of rear impact guards. Unfortunately, Elemance conducted Finite Element analysis of two obsolete rear underride guards that were not current designs at the time of the contract. In fact, both of those designs had been proven a decade earlier to be crash-deficient. The two manufacturers — Great Dane and Wabash — have developed designs with safer, stronger rear-guard designs. Elemance compounded that error by employing an erroneous definition of Passenger Compartment Intrusion. Elemance’s research findings, Heavy-Truck Rear-Impact-Guard Finite Element Simulation and Analysis, are flawed and backwards-looking rather than helpful to the Department and Congress in evaluating current and future rear underride guard performance and regulatory standards.

Please find attached a detailed critique by engineers who are well-acquainted with the underride problem and solutions. This is what the engineers concluded about the NHTSA-contracted research:

In view of the defects in the Elemance report, a follow up study should be commissioned to evaluate examples of current state of the art rear impact guards that have been in service since 2016 and 2017 respectively. The study should utilize the correct definition of PCI and more accurately assess injury risk.

The Department should act promptly to address the flaws in this federal research in order to fulfill its mission to reduce roadway injuries and deaths.

Jerry and Marianne Karth

Note: This critique was submitted as a Public Comment on September 3, 2025, to the U.S. Department of Transportation in response to their Request for Comments on priorities for the 2026 Surface Transportation Reauthorization.

This video created by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety twelve years ago explains their Rear Impact Guard crash testing research and how the federal standard is failing to protect road users:

This video is a compilation of IIHS Rear Impact Guard crash tests with old and new guard designs for many of the major trailer manufacturers:

This video demonstrates the night & day difference between old and new designs by one manufacturer:

The Missing Piece of the Roadway Safety Puzzle: National Roadway Safety Advocate

Safety Advocacy, , ,

It was puzzling to me how very challenging it is to advance safety measures to save lives. Then I realized that there is a MISSING PIECE of the PUZZLE: there is no National Roadway Safety Advocate at the US Department of Transportation.

Put together this online jigsaw puzzle: https://jigex.com/NfTV3

Then make a comment online to Secretary Sean Duffy (at USDOT). Let him know that you want him to put a person to work as soon as possible who will be a dedicated resource to victims and their families – a National Roadway Safety Advocate.

Submit your Public Comment here no later than August 20, 2025.

(step-by-step instructions)

Then, please share this request to amplify your voice.

Read more here.