Category Archives: Truck Safety

@SenJohnThune I hope that you never lose a loved one to truck underride, esp. when it could be prevented!

Truck Safety, ,

My days and nights are filled with thoughts and feelings which all began on May 4, 2013. I often pray that those who could do something to help prevent truck underride crashes would not be able to sleep until they, too, embrace the vision for ending these preventable tragedies — effective, comprehensive underride protection on every truck on the road.

People like Senator John Thune, who is Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, and has the authority to move this bill forward to a vote. . .

I’d like to be able to add Senator Thune to my Underride Hero Hall of Fame.

Eighth Major Trailer Manufacturer To Have Improved Rear Underride Guard Crash Tested at IIHS on July 10

Truck Safety, , , , ,

For several years before our underride crash, the IIHS had been doing crash testing into rear underride guards on trailers from eight major trailer manufacturers. Their research showed that even though these guards were designed to meet the current federal standard, they were too weak and failed to stop cars from going under upon collision.

We are grateful that seven of those manufacturers have designed improved rear guards as confirmed by crash testing at the IIHS Vehicle Research Center at 35 mph — receiving a TOUGHGUARD Award for their efforts. Here is an example of one of those seven:

While we are thankful, we know that the work isn’t over yet. Still needed:

  • The eighth manufacturer, Strick Trailers, will have their newly-designed rear underride guard tested on July 10.
  • Research is needed to demonstrate whether these improved guards are also successful at speeds higher than 35 mph. (We know that a guard developed by an aluminum extrusions company has been tested successfully at 40 mph and perhaps higher.)
  • Some manufacturers are selling these improved rear guards as Standard on all new trailers, while others are actually selling them as an Option (thus weak guards are still being sold and going on the road). Can you believe it?!
  • As the bill indicates, there are still millions of trucks on the road which will be hazardous to drive around until they are retrofitted with effective underride protection. For example, I bet that the trailer with which we collided is still on the road and likely still has a weak rear underride guard and so could kill someone else.

Stoughton Underride Guard Earns Kudos from Crash Survivor, Insurance Institute

Stoughton’s improved rear guard was successfully crash tested at 35 mph at the first Underride Roundtable at the IIHS on May 5, 2016 (3 years after our crash). They were the fourth manufacturer to do so (preceded by Manac, Vanguard, and Wabash — and later followed by Great Dane, Utility, and Hyundai):

Stoughton® Trailers New Rear Underride Guard Lauded Important for Safety

National Transportation Safety Board Recommends Front Underride Protection on Trucks

Truck Safety, , , ,

A 2010 report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended that front underride protection be installed on large trucks. This recommendation was based on their investigation of a 2009 crash in Miami, Oklahoma, in which a Volvo truck rode over three vehicles in succession. Ten people died.

NTSB Truck Underride Safety Recommendations to NHTSA

Here it is, ten years later, and NHTSA has not yet issued rulemaking for Front Underride Protection.

The European division of Volvo Trucks actually has manufactured Front Underride Protection (FUP) for years because there is a European FUP standard. Europe has recognized that front underride (or override) is an engineering problem and engineers love to solve problems:

After becoming enlightened about these FUP facts, we posed a question to a representative of the U.S. division of Volvo Trucks, who was on a Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Panel at a Road to Zero Coalition meeting on March 20, 2017, in D.C. We asked him whether Volvo would put FUP on U.S. trucks voluntarily or whether it would take a mandate. He said that it would take a mandate.

People die from underride collisions with the front of trucks, but a blind eye is being turned to the problem. What’s wrong with this picture?

Actually, the NTSB has made other underride recommendations as well to NHTSA, including:

  • stronger rear underride guards on tractor-trailers
  • side guards
  • underride protection on single unit trucks (straight trucks) which are currently exempt for rear underride standards.

In other words, NTSB investigations have confirmed the importance of the comprehensive nature of the STOP Underrides! Bill because people are continuing to die from underride collisions with almost every part of trucks (and this includes pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists).

Previous posts on FUP

Update, Just found this out: Fred Andersky, director, customer solutions, controls with Bendix, said at the North American Commercial Vehicle show that every 15 minutes in the U.S., a large truck rear-ends a passenger car.   https://www.trucknews.com/equipment/bendix-developing-next-gen-safety-systems/1003081127/

That’s 96 times/day, 672 times/week, 2,912 times/month, and 34,944 times/year!

So, tell me why we would not want to have Front Underride Protection (FUP) on trucks in this country!!!

A compelling look at Death By Underride from Cool Breeze Studio

AnnaLeah and Mary, Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Lois Durso & I were privileged to meet with Michael Hawkins (Cool Breeze Studio) last week at his studio in South Carolina to begin work on some underride video productions. Mike just finished this short look at Death By Underride.

In memory of Roya, AnnaLeah & Mary and the countless other victims of underride

With the hope that countless other people will be spared a similar fate

Sign the STOP Underrides! Petition here: Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underride!

STOP Underrides Brochure 2018 3

Road to Zero Coalition Released a Truck Underride Priority Statement

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

We were excited to receive news on June 26 that the Road to Zero Coalition (RTZ) has published a Truck Underride Priority Statement on their website.

The Road to Zero Coalition is working to end preventable deaths on U.S. roadways by 2050. With that goal in mind, the Coalition is developing Safety Priority Statements that most – if not all – Coalition members can support.

The National Safety Council leads the Road to Zero initiative in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation – specifically the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

A Sign-On form is now available here, so that RTZ Coalition member organizations can add their name. Coalition members (over 675 as of this date) are listed here:   RTZ Coalition Members

As of June 26, 2018, the following organizations have already signed on in support of the Truck Underride Priority Statement:

We are thankful to the RTZ Steering Group for taking the time to discuss and approve this important means of providing a stronger voice for the vulnerable victims of truck underride.

Those who wish to add their voice, but are not RTZ Coalition members, can either join RTZ here: Road to Zero Coalition Membership Form

Or, write their own Letter of Support and Sign the STOP Underrides! Petition here: Congress, Act Now To End Deadly Truck Underride!

Ramblings About the State of Underride

Truck Safety, , ,
  1. Award-winning WUSA9 Underride Series
  2. What do Heidi King’s responses tell us about the need for the STOP Underrides! Bill to insist that NHTSA move forward with underride rulemaking? Do we expect that they will do it without the encouragement of a law telling them (and authorizing them) to do so? NHTSA’s Heidi King Responds to Senator Nelson’s Questions For The Record on Truck Underride
  3. Perhaps 700-1002 people may have died from underride since the bill was introduced on December 12, 2017, until this day: Every Month Passing of the STOP Underrides! Bill Is Delayed Means More Unnecessary, Preventable Deaths
  4. Underride report language is in the Appropriations Bill:  FY18 omnibus report language,  Truck underride safety research—The Committee notes that NHTSA’s proposed rulemaking in December 2015 to update truck rear impact guard requirements cited 362 annual fatalities associated with light vehicle crashes into the rear of trucks. The Committee encourages NHTSA to move forward with this rulemaking and continue working with relevant experts and stakeholders, including researchers, engineers, and safety advocates, and the trucking industry, to facilitate the deployment and adoption of rear and side underride protection devices.
  5. Front Underride Protection (FUP) is not talked about as much, yet many people die from lack of protection there as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=56&v=iNRpiRmlBEc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=SXZnHq1PUPU
  6. Retrofitting is included in the Bill because there are millions of existing trailers on the road which will still be death traps otherwise. See IIHS video if you don’t believe me. After watching it, ask yourself if you would want to collide with one of the trucks on the road which was not retrofitted with effective and comprehensive (all around the truck) underride protection: https://www.facebook.com/iihs.org/videos/412706855872750/
  7. To continue that theme of To Retrofit OR Not. . . in February 2018, a man died when his car lodged under the rear of a 2005 Great Dane trailer (one of the older weak rear guards). Our car lodged under the back of a 2007 Great Dane trailer (one of the older weak rear guards). How long do you suppose that we will continue to have those older (more dangerous) trucks on the road? Jessup man dead after slamming car into tractor-trailer on Beltway
  8. President Carter made a point of saying that safety should not be a part of Trucking Deregulation:  Trucking Industry Deregulation Message to the Congress Transmitting Proposed Legislation. 
    June 21, 1979, To the Congress of the United States:I am today transmitting to the Congress legislation to reduce substantially Federal economic regulation over the trucking industry.The trucking industry today is subject to perhaps more complex, detailed, and burdensome Federal regulation than any other industry in our Nation. . . 

    SAFETY

    Reforms in safety enforcement are necessary because present levels of safety are unsatisfactory, and because authority to monitor safety practices and to sanction safety violations should be strengthened. These provisions are distinct from the economic reforms and are not made necessary by them.

    The bill I propose places new emphasis on the existing fitness test which guarantees that all new entrants into the industry are safe. It also consolidates the safety authority in the Department of Transportation, and gives the Secretary of Transportation broader and more effective authority to deal with safety violations. . .

    So I don’t want to hear anybody whine, “Oh, no, not another regulation!” This is a matter of protecting public health and safety — not restricting the freedoms of the trucking industry! If market forces were going to solve the problem, they would have done so decades ago. We apparently need a law to protect us.

With Hope, We Carry On: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7acA3CI34

Video & PowerPoint Slides Posted by IIHS for the Second Underride Roundtable

Truck Safety, , ,
IIHS has posted video and PowerPoint Presentations from the Second Underride Roundtable on August 29, 2017.
 
 
Afternoon Session, Part 1/Side Guard Panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31VhLbAYlyw
 

Afternoon Session, Part 1/Industry Panel & Crash Avoidance Panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFyf—dZV4

Every Month Passing of the STOP Underrides! Bill Is Delayed Means More Unnecessary, Preventable Deaths

Truck Safety,

It’s a mathematical reality. The STOP Underrides! Bill was introduced in the Senate and the House on December 12, 2017. If it had been voted on and passed [even as quickly as in one month like the TREAD Act was in October 2000 in response to deaths from Firestone tires on the Ford Explorer], then the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would already be moving ahead with the process of issuing a comprehensive underride protection rule.

But it has not been brought to a vote. Reportedly, Republican Congressional Offices, and the Committees to which the Bill was referred, are waiting to hear the results of the Governmental Accountability Underride Report (GAO) — predicted to be completed by the end of January 2019.

I’m not sure exactly what people expect to learn from that report which we have not already discovered and of which we have made them fully aware — including the IIHS research, the undercounting of underrides (through studies and through errors in how our own crashes are listed in FARS reports), industry and government awareness of the problem for decades (e.g., stated intention on March 19, 1969, of adding side underride protection), ATA prediction of underride regulations 16 years ago, and NTSB underride recommendations, for starters.

No doubt about it, blood continues to be spilled on the roadways while we twiddle our thumbs. How many people do you suppose will die from Death By Underride because of this totally unwarranted delay? Possibly 700 – 2,338. Are these lives not worth saving?

Underride Deaths Not Prevented During Delay

In Passing the STOP Underrides! Bill

(These numbers do not include injuries caused by underride.)

Months of Delay in Passing the Bill To Date

Deaths/month (if using the FARS data minimum of reported underride deaths)

600/yr. & 50/mo.

Deaths/mo. (27%)

1500/yr. & 125/mo.

Deaths/mo. (50% of total truck/car crash fatalities) 2,000/yr & 167/mo.

January 2018

50

125

167

February 2018

50

125

167

March 2018

50

125

167

April 2018

50

125

167

May 2018

50

125

167

June 2018

50

125

167

Total Already Dead Since the Introduction of the Bill on 12/12/2017

300

750

1002

July 2018

50

125

167

August 2018

50

125

167

September 2018

50

125

167

October 2018

50

125

167

November 2018

50

125

167

December 2018

50

125

167

January 2019

50

125

167

February 2019

50

125

167

March 2019

50

125

167

Additional Underride Deaths While Waiting for the GAO Report to be finished before making a decision about voting on the bill

400

1000

1336

TOTAL since bill was introduced through March 2019

700

1750

2338

Underride Deaths Not Prevented During Delay

Whom do you suppose we should hold responsible for those deaths? Or to put it in another way, who will be Bold Guardians — rather than Hesitant Bystanders  — and insist that this bill is long-overdue and needs to be given high priority to vote upon and pass into law?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.  John Donne

What’s the intent of Early Warning Reporting & what’s it done to end underride?

Truck Safety, , , ,

I sent this email out to people at NHTSA and Congressional Offices on Monday morning, June 12:

Last week, I re-read an interesting book by Michael Lemov called Car Safety Wars. One thing that caught my interest was an account of the 2000 TREAD Act in which an Early Warning Report (EWR) system was mandated by Congress.

The thought of NHTSA requiring manufacturers of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment to report when fatalities occur involving their products is intriguing. It makes me wonder if Commercial Motor Vehicles are included in this mandate. Does anyone know the answer to this question?
If they aren’t, how can we make sure that they are? What would have to be done to accomplish this? A mandate by Congress? Some kind of an amendment to a rule by DOT? A petition requesting them to do so?

Wouldn’t it help to improve data collection on underride tragedies if manufacturers themselves were required to report to NHTSA when fatalities occurred in collisions involving their commercial motor vehicle products — especially if it specified what was the cause of death (and not simply what caused the crash)? Wouldn’t this give valuable information to manufacturers on the need to re-evaluate the safety and efficacy of their products?

Then I went back online to dig further into this situation. This is what I discovered:

I found that Commercial Motor Vehicles are included in the TREAD Act. Therefore, I would like to know:

  1. How this information is used currently
  2. How we could better use it
  3. What could be done to make it more useful

The Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act was enacted in the fall of 2000. Its intention is to increase consumer safety through mandates assigned to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Two major components of the TREAD Act are 1) the requirement of manufacturers to report to NHTSA when they conduct a safety recall or other safety-related campaign, and 2) the need to report information related to defects, especially in cases of injury or death related to the use of products (also referred to as “early warning reporting”(EWR)).

There are many definitions, exceptions and interpretations found in the final rule for this regulation. Requirements for manufacturers may differ depending on what type and how much of a product they produce in a calendar year. The following is a breakdown of what may be required of a trailer manufacturer.

All manufacturers must submit quarterly reports with regard to any incident involving a death. So again, no matter the number of products your company makes, if there is a death alleged due to a failure of or during use of the product, it must be reported. 

If you are a manufacturer of 5,000 or more trailers annually, you must also submit quarterly reports with regard to the following categories:
1. Production information
2. Death and injury claims
3. Property damage
4. Consumer complaints
5. Warranty claims
6. Field reports
I then asked NHTSA to generate a report for me and this is what I received:

I will have to check to find out if the report is actually what I was anticipating but, as far as I can tell, this report does not include data on the thousands of truck/car crash fatalities which occur each year (on average about 4,000). Where are rest of those people?

Bottomline: The information is not being collected and reported and responded to in the manner which was the intent of the law (The TREAD Act of 2000). That, in my mind, is a problem. Had the manufacturers and NHTSA done what was required, quite possibly our daughters and thousands of others, who were in truck/car crashes after that bill was passed, would not have suffered DEATH BY UNDERRIDE. This Early Warning Reporting (EWR) system should have been able to solve the underride problem and save them.

They shouldn’t be dead.

“Mistakes happen on the road. The goal is to make sure that those don’t result in serious injury or death.”

Truck Safety, , ,

The most recent underride which I have heard about involved a car driver, in Wisconsin, who ran a stop sign and consequently collided with the side of a tractor-trailer resulting in underride. There is speculation that alcohol might be a factor.

Man transported to hospital by MedFlight after crashing into semitruck, sheriff says

Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of crash circumstance which undoubtedly has contributed to attitudes which blame the victim and neglect the underlying dangerous geometric mismatch between passenger vehicles and larger commercial motor vehicles. The result is that we have lost the opportunity to save lives by making truck crashes more survivable.

I have described this attitude along with other possible reasons why the underride problem has not been adequately addressed: A DIFFERENT STRATEGY To Achieve Underride Protection

“Mistakes happen on the road. The goal is to make sure that those mistakes don’t result in serious injury or death.” That’s what Eric Flack said he was told by the IIHS in one of the segments of his truck underride series.