Write your comment to let NHTSA know why you want them to proceed with a rule on side guards.
If you have specific information to answer NHTSA’s nine questions, you can include it in your comments and/or add attachments.
Please note the WARNING: Do not submit personally identifiable information through this form. Any personally identifiable information (e.g., name, address, phone number) included in the comment form or in an attachment may be publicly disclosed in a docket or on the Internet.
Use the drop down box to Select a Comment Category (Rule/Proposed Rule/Final Rule).
Provide your email address (won’t be published online) and indicate that you’re an Individual and NOT a Robot.
The majority of comments (over 1,000) posted from June 16 through June 23 were from individuals and organizations which support the requests in the Public Comment from the League of American Bicyclists – calling for pedestrians and bicyclists to be included in the data for side guard regulatory analysis.
Inaction by federal traffic safety agencies, who are fiercely and disproportionately influenced by industry pressure, has left all road users at risk. As a follow-up to the PBS/Frontline truck underride documentary, on June 22, ProPublica published an article which has exposed the depth of this regulatory capture and the powerlessness of safety activists to bring about change.
If I hadn’t already been aware of most of the details of this report, I might have had a hard time believing it was for real. I’m curious what you think of it. It’s a long read, but worth it!
“The Department of Transportation allowed trucking lobbyists to review an unpublished report recommending a safety device that could save lives by preventing pedestrians and cyclists from getting crushed under large trucks. . .
But that recommendation generated intense resistance, both internally, from department officials who challenged their findings, and externally, from trucking industry lobbyists. . .
If that disturbs you (and it’s just the tip of the iceberg), please sign the petition for a National Roadway Safety Ombudsman so that this kind of regulatory capture doesn’t continue to happen:
It’s time to turn the tide and demand that vulnerable victims of vehicle violence be given a vigilant voice at the table. It’s time for a National Roadway Safety Ombudsman to serve the public’s best interests at the Department of Transportation.
We’ve been anticipating the final result of a year-long investigation by @propublica and @frontlinepbs on the truck underride issue. Their team pulled together an immense amount of information on a century-old problem. Of course, an hour could never cover it all. But I think that they created a compelling argument. The question is, what did you think?
If you haven’t had a chance to see the documentary or read the accompanying stories, here are some useful links:
My next question is, what are you going to do in response to what you heard and/or read? And what kind of reaction and action should we hope to see from:
Congress?
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg (who declined to be interviewed)?
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration?
USDOT Inspector General?
Trucking Industry?
Anyone can act on their personal convictions and sign our petition: Secretary Pete, It’s Past Time To End Death By Underride! We will be submitting a spreadsheet of all signatures & comments made on the petition to Secretary Buttigieg and to the NHTSA Public Comment docket for the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Side Guards. Here are some other things you can do: How You Can Help!
What do I think? Among other things. . . I think that we need a Congressional Oversight Underride Field Hearing and an investigation by the DOT Inspector General. I’d also like the opportunity to have a meeting with Secretary Buttigieg to discuss underride. Beyond that, I think that we need a long-term solution for this and other roadway safety issues. I think that we need a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman, in place at the USDOT Office of the Secretary, whose role will be to ensure that the voice of victims is appropriately heard and heeded — so that industry no longer has a disproportionate, unfair voice.
Recent months have brought progress in the right direction to solve the truck underride problem. A PBS/Frontline documentary focused on underride will be aired on Tuesday, June 13, 10/9 Central. See the trailer here, America’s Dangerous Trucks. Spread the word! Breakout stories and articles:
We are launching a new online petition to take advantage of the national attention this broadcast will bring to the hidden problem of underride. Please sign & share:Secretary Pete, It’s Past Time To End Death By Underride! These signatures & comments will be submitted to NHTSA.
In April, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced members of the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection. The first ACUP meeting was on May 25. This diverse group, with both industry and safety advocates represented, will be making recommendations to Secretary Pete/NHTSA about how to end Death By Underride.
At the same time, NHTSA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for a potential side guard regulation. Add your voice to our message. Submit a Public Comment (by July 20) here in support of requiring side guards on all new trucks. Help us to bring this long-overdue rule across the finish line.
I made a Public Comment at the meeting of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) on June 6, 2023, related to railway crossing safety. I was motivated to do so by two things.
First of all, I have listened to members of the trucking industry point to the potential of side guards causing an increase in tractor-trailer hang ups on high centered railroad crossings — using it as a basis for opposing a side guard regulation. Yet, in ten years, I have never heard them discuss how they could address this safety problem, which occurs even without side guards.
Secondly, when I was around 26, I worked as a Hospice Pilot Program Analyst for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Michigan. After some time on the job, one of my coworkers had a baby, who was the delight of her life. After my family moved away from the Detroit area, we kept in contact mostly through exchanging Christmas cards. One year I received a note from our former boss, who told me that my friend’s now 16 year-old had died when the car in which she was a passenger was hit by a train on her way to her high school. I wrote about her story in a post, Too Often, Too Little, Too Late; A Conspiracy of Silence , in 2015:
“Fast forward to 2013, when I, too, experienced the awful devastation of losing a child [make that two] to an unexpected, horrific, potentially-preventable, premature death due to a car crash [this time hit by a truck]. Now I understood what my friend had faced.
Just recently, I tried to reach out to her again–to no avail–after I ran across the news article and the picture of baby “Joy” when going through boxes at our home. I re-read the details of the crash and discovered that there had been no flashers or guard at the fateful railroad crossing–less than a mile from her high school.
As a bereaved-mom-become-safety-advocate, I wanted to know if something had been done to improve safety at the site of that crash 34 years ago. I was encouraged to find out, from the township responsible for that section of roads, that they had bypassed the option of flashers and guards and immediately closed off that particular dirt road where it crossed the tracks.
A good move. Chances are it saved someone. But it was Too Late for Joy.
Why does it Too Often take a death to wake us up to the dangers that were there all along?”
I did not hear from my friend for 40 years because her grief was so intense and it was hard for her to see me with my family of nine living children. In 2020, out of the blue, I received an email from her. Among other things, she shared with me what she and her husband and younger daughter had done following their tragic loss:
[We] took on the State of Michigan after the train crash that killed [Joy and her friend Hope]. After a public hearing, we convinced the state to close the railroad crossing near [the] High School where the crash occurred. The crossing was at the bottom of a gravel hill and no warning lights or gates were at the site. State inspectors would park at the top of the hill and walk down to “inspect” it, too concerned to drive down. The site could not be fixed to make it safe for others and the road leading to it is now closed. No one else will die there. During our investigation, we found that many other dangerous railroad sites like this exist. I was too devastated to do anything about those sites in the way you have, and I admire your courage for that.
June 6, 2023
Administrator Hutcheson,
I hope that FMCSA will seriously consider our attached petition and do what is within your power to make railway crossings safer.
Soon after our crash on May 4, 2013, we learned about underride and began having conversations with engineers around the globe. This included emails, phone calls, and in-person meetings at our Underride Roundtables and DC Underride Crash Test Event (see DC panel discussion in above photo). On Friday, May 5, 2023, I appreciated the opportunity to continue our global underride conversation during one of our TEAM Underride Zoom discussions, which included presentations from PeterSchimmelpfennig and his dad Karl-Heinz Schimmelpfennig (Germany) and Iain Knight (UK).
This video describes the Schimmelpfennigs’ company, CrashTest-Service (CTS) in Germany:
Engineers love to solve problems. Together, we can solve the global underride problem with collaborative, innovative international collaboration. TEAM Underride – Together Engaged in A Mission to make truck crashes more survivable.
Over the years, safety reform has lagged, but companies such as J.B. Hunt and Stoughton Trailers pushed ahead of regulations, victim-turned-advocate says. . .
“It was a nice tribute to AnnaLeah & Mary and the cause. Hopefully, it will bring more awareness to the issue and help get stricter regulations on trailer safety.”chainsaw woodcarver, who carved the girls’ memorial bench
On another note: NHTSA recently announced the membership of an Advisory Committee on Underride Protection and the beginning steps toward development of a side guard regulation. We welcome this progress but know that there are still many hurdles to overcome before significant action will be taken to reduce these preventable tragedies.
We’re hoping that you will take some time, before June 20, to submit a Public Comment to NHTSA about a proposed side guard regulation. You can see, from the Public Comments already submitted to NHTSA, that the trucking community continues to express opposition. A comment from you, in favor of advancing side underride protection, would be much appreciated. You can do so here: Side Underride Guards – ANPRM.
Your comment should be based on your awareness and knowledge of this truck crash hazard. From your perspective, share why you think that side guards would be important to reduce the severity of these crashes. To the extent possible, your comments could reflect your knowledge of answers tonine questions to which NHTSA is specifically seeking answers.
There’s no easy way to get through that time of year when we remember how AnnaLeah & Mary were suddenly snatched from this earthly life. How can it have been ten years ago? May 4, 2013 seems like just yesterday.
Read this post all the way through to find out what advances have come about, or skip to the end to find out how you can help. Despite our loud voices continuously raising awareness and pushing for change, progress has been painfully slow. But these are some actions which the USDOT has taken:
Rear underride guards are now on the annual commercial motor vehicle inspection checklist (rule issued by FMCSA in December 2021). This is important because poorly-maintained rear guards increase the chance of crash severity.
After beginning work on an improved rear guard rule in December 2015, in response to our 2013/2014 petitions, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) finally issued an improved rule in July 2022. Incredibly, it fell short of requiring that the guards had the full strength already proven possible by the IIHS testing of nine major trailer manufacturers! We have petitioned NHTSA to reconsider this ill-advised decision.
NHTSA began taking applications for membership on an Advisory Committee on Underride Protection (ACUP) in July 2022. They finally announced the selected committee members in April 2023. The first ACUP meeting will take place virtually on May 25. I’m thankful that I will, at last, be able to sit “around the table” with a diverse group of stakeholders to hammer out reasonable solutions to this century-old problem.
Simultaneously with the ACUP announcement, and in advance of receiving any recommendations from the Advisory Committee, NHTSA published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for a potential side guard regulation. Their cost benefit analysis is based on questionable data and concludes that a side guard regulation would not be cost effective. We are working hard to provide more accurate information in order to correct the CBA in favor of saving lives.
“How can I help?” I thought you’d never ask!
Pray for the ACUP members and for this process to produce meaningful outcomes.
Only17 states have an UNDERRIDE FIELD on their state crash report form. This contributes to underreporting of these deaths. By 5:00 p.m. EST on MAY 3, submit a simple, brief Public Comment here. Tell NHTSA you want them to require (not merely suggest) that states have an Underride Field (and which indicates whether it was front, side, or rear) on their crash report form.
By June 20, submit a Public Comment on the side guard ANPRM here. Tell them why you think that there should be a side guard regulation (simple reason: To Save Lives).
Tens of thousands of underride victims have been a nameless group whose senseless deaths have been swept under the rug for decades despite the ingenuity of engineers to prevent horrific underride. No more. We would like to remember these Precious Ones Gone Too Soon in a special way. We hope to receive permission from the USDOT to install a Commemorative Bell of Hope at their office building in Washington, D.C. We will be organizing a day In Memory of Underride Victims — to ring the bell and call out the names of individuals who lost their lives to underride. We do not know every name, but we will include as many as possible. If you would like to contribute to the purchase of this bell or participate in this event, please let me know by writing to me at marianne@annaleahmary.com.
Side Guard Crash Test in Raleigh, September 2022
To remember how AnnaLeah & Mary lived — full of love & laughter — not merely how they died.
Now, I’m only a Cubs fan by marriage. Early on in that marriage, I learned what a die-hard fan is and joined the club. But I’m not as familiar with historical details as my husband. Like, what’s with the 1969 Cubs?
However, I have become acquainted with truck underride history and know that, in 1969, our U.S. Department of Transportation was working on rear underride guard rulemaking — though it never became law until 1996 — and said that they intended to add side underride protection on trucks. Never happened.
After losing AnnaLeah and Mary in 2013 due to rear underride, I was, of course, very interested in the updated rear underride guard rule in July 2022. In fact, I was quite disturbed to learn that NHTSA blew an opportunity to require a level of underride protection proven possible by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and nine trailer manufacturers, who were given the TOUGHGUARD award — further evidenced as technically feasible by the survivor of a 2017 rear end truck crash.
Imagine my further consternation when I learned that at least part of the basis for that July 2022 Rear Impact Guard Rule was a NHTSA “engineering judgement concern” for “potential rotation outboard.” What that means is that if the rear guard were stronger at the outer edges of the tractor trailer, that is strong enough to prevent underride, then the car upon collision might rotate or spin out into traffic and collide with another vehicle causing a secondary collision — what the industry dubs “unintended consequences.”
Ha! The reality is that a secondary crash such as that would be so much more likely to allow the crashworthiness features (crumple zone, airbags, seat belt tensioners) of the involved vehicles to protect the occupants as intended. Was that really their rationale? Allow people to die under a trailer so that some other fender bender, i.e., non life threatening crash, wouldn’t occur?
I asked an engineer at a university to weigh in on this concern during a February 24, 2023, Friday brown bag lunch TEAM Underride Zoom discussion. Here are the rather garbled notes I jotted down: . . . fear that it would go out into the traffic; misplaced fear; projecting less inertia as it is deflected out from hitting truck — missing the fact that there is no catching equipment on a trailer — energy absorption — the trailer does not catch the car. If it collides at the rear corner, With or without guard it will rotate. The reason rotation takes place. . . because it is the 30% offset. Unintended Consequences.
I asked him to write up his thoughts for me to share and Jared Bryson, Smart Road Operations and Mechanical Systems Innovation Director at Virginia Tech, graciously and creatively obliged.
I’d say that well-thought out explanation should be taken into consideration during a careful review of the July 15, 2022 rear underride guard rule and the questionable (my words) NHTSA decision to decline from requiring life-preserving underride protection at the outer edges of the guard. It’s guaranteed to mean the difference between life & death for more than one person in the days ahead.
In August 2022, we submitted a petition to the National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) requesting that they investigate the potential safety defect of tractor trailers which do not have Rear Impact Guards (RIG) with the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety’s TOUGHGuard level of underride protection. In response, on January 20, 2023, we received a “Defect Petition Acknowledgement Letter” and Opening Resume related to investigation DP22-004.
The Opening Resume includes a chart indicating that the ODI had received zero Safety Complaints related to Rear Impact Guards. More specifically, they listed zero for the following categories:
Complaints
Crashes/Fires
Injury Incidents
Number of Injuries
Fatality Incidents
Number of Fatalities.
Having lost two daughters due to a rear underride crash on May 4, 2013, I knew that this was most certainly not an accurate representation of the extent of preventable rear underride tragedies, but rather the failure of the process to identify an unreasonable safety risk without the submission of formal complaints. I took it upon myself to immediately rectify that unfortunate situation.
Based on a daily Google Alert email notification of truck crashes, memorial website posts on annaleahmary.com record crashes which appear to involve underride. Those memorial posts include not only rear underride crashes but side underride and front override, as well. So I made a list of all the posts which appeared to involve underride crashes and deaths at the rear of large trucks.
Then I made a pdf of each memorial post, as well as a pdf of a related media article, which either contained a photo or narrative indicating that it was quite probably a rear underride. I numbered each of the crashes and ended up with 176 which appeared to me to be rear underride crashes. I recently discovered that one of those was a side underride, so I have taken that one out of the set.
I proceeded to print each of the memorial posts and media articles — adding, when I could, obituaries and photos of the underride victim. I put these documents in a binder and mailed it to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation at the Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C. Additionally, upon their request, I provided the ODI with digital copies of each document.
My next step was to begin a search for these crashes in the NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data query tool. The FARS data comes from fatal crash reports written by investigating officers and submitted to State FARS Analysts. We have learned that FARS Analysts are trained to strictly adhere to what they see in the crash report. If the investigating officer marks an underride field checkbox or indicates in the report narrative that underride occurred, then the FARS Analyst can code the crash as Underride.
Unfortunately, at present, only 17 states have an Underride Field on their state crash report forms. In addition, it appears that there is not adequate training for the investigating officers to know how to properly report an underride crash. The result is that these preventable deaths are vastly undercounted. Consequently, underride regulatory analysis by NHTSA, the federal highway safety agency, determines that effective underride regulations are “not cost effective” and available underride protective devices gather dust on the shelf.
The majority of the 175 rear underride memorial posts were for crashes which occurred in 2021 and 2022 and had, therefore, not yet been recorded in FARS. Thus, I was left with 38 crashes which could be searched for with the NHTSA FARS data query tool by a team of families of underride victims. The following table summarizes the results of that search.
mwk 4/1/2023
Clearly, underride is vastly underreported, as has been previously documented in many reports and studies (Braver, et al, 1997, 1998; Brumbelow; GAO Truck Underride Report; Karth). However, it is not enough to lament about the lack of accurate data. What should we do? For starters. . .
Improve training of law enforcement on investigating and reporting underride crashes.
Improve training of FARS Analysts on reporting underride crashes.
Require states to include an Underride Field on their state (and local) crash report forms.
Reassess and amend the Rear Impact Guard Rule, published on July 15, 2022, which falls far short in its protection of vulnerable motorists and other road users with proven and available technology.
