The Senate Commerce Committee considered the nomination of Heidi King to be NHTSA Administrator on May 16, 2018. Here is the video from that hearing:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ID=6D165DA3-EA0F-4F1C-B1D1-A039BE79107D
If Heidi King is confirmed to be NHTSA Administrator, will she take the reins and move decisively to solve the underride problem? Will Congress tell her to do so?
Perry Ponder, inventor of the AngelWing side guard, has made another great contribution in the pursuit of improved underride protection. Earlier this week, I saw that I had received a notification of a new public comment on the rear guard NPRM.
His letter begins with this comment:
As NHTSA moves at a glacial pace toward revising FMVSS 223 and 224, I’d like to point out an underride guard mode of failure I have observed while investigating a number of trailer and truck underride accidents.
The Senate Commerce Committee held a nomination hearing on May 16, which included Heidi King, nominee for the position of NHTSA Administrator. Senator Nelson (D-FL), Ranking Member, gave some opening remarks, including:
During today’s hearing, I hope Ms. King will provide a detailed plan on how she will demand accountability from those involved in the Takata fiasco and finally implement a real strategy to help drivers get safe airbags in their vehicles as soon as possible.
NHTSA also needs to do more to increase highway safety, including truck safety.
One way to do this is to have more use of underride guards on trucks so that cars don’t slide underneath during collisions.
The addition of this safety shield could have helped saved the lives of many, including Lois Durso’s daughter Roya. Lois is here today, along with other tireless advocates.
And I hope Ms. King has some answers for the Durso family on that issue. They certainly deserve it.
Heidi King was grilled extensively about NHTSA’s inaction on several auto safety issues. I only wish that she had been asked to address the ongoing underride problem.
NHTSA has finally released the report from the side underride study which they commissioned Texas A&M to do in 2016-2017. Here is the press release: https://www.nhtsa.gov
The study: Computer Modeling and Evaluation Of Side Underride Protective Device Designs
More later on our analysis of the research.
Knee-jerk reaction: I am glad that they finally proceeded with technical studies on side underride. But countless lives have been lost since 1969 when DOT announced that they intended to extend underride protection on the sides of large trucks after technical studies were completed.
It is high time for someone to act responsibly. Either Senator Thune can respond and move the STOP Underrides Bill forward, or NHTSA can act on its own and do supplemental comprehensive underride rulemaking. Either way, many lives will be saved.
If they refuse to act appropriately, who should bear the blame for continued preventable underride tragedies?
Completed nomination questionnaires are available at www.commerce.senate.gov/nominations
Witnesses:
*Witness list subject to change.
Hearing Details:
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
10:00 a.m.
Full Committee
This hearing will take place in Russell Senate Office Building, Room 253. Witness testimony, opening statements, and a live video of the hearing will be available on www.commerce.senate.gov.
. . . these substandard designs can be retrofitted and adapted with the proper side guards and rear guards that will provide passenger vehicle protection. These pivotal changes are in the hands of Congress to enact solutions that are mandatory for compliant commercial vehicles. The STOP Underrides Act of 2017, in both the House and the Senate, is an important piece of legislation that works to correct this “geometric mismatch” to better protect roadway drivers and traffic safety.
The National Sheriffs’ Association Traffic Safety Committee believes that this bill is vital to the efforts to prevent these crashes from occurring, first and foremost and also to lower roadway deaths, injuries, and property damage. We applaud the efforts of Senators Gillibrand and Rubio, as well as Congressman Cohen and DeSaulnier as they work to combat and improve safety on our nation’s roadways.
This request is deeply personal to all of us and will protect our constituents on our roadways, protect our law enforcement officers and first responders, and lower deaths and injuries.
Thank you for your consideration of our request.
Sincerely,
Sheriff Harold Eavenson, Rockwall County, TX, President, National Sheriffs’ Association
Sheriff John Whetsel (Ret.), Oklahoma County, OK, Chair, Traffic Safety Committe
Lois Durso and I will be back in DC next week to attend the May 16 nomination hearing for NHTSA Administrator nominee Heidi King (currently serving as the NHTSA Deputy Administrator). We welcome opportunities to sit down and share our stories and knowledge of this preventable problem. And we are hopeful that there will be significant action to move this life-preserving legislation forward posthaste.
“It doesn’t take much force at all to turn an otherwise minor accident into a deadly one.” Insightful coverage of the truck underride problem by a reporter in Dallas/Fort Worth who contacted and interviewed Rebekah Karth Chojnacki today. Well done, Rebekah.
“AnnaLeah died instantly. Mary had a stroke and died several days later at a Children’s Hospital in Georgia,” said their sister, Rebekah Chojnacki.
The family soon learned that tractor trailers in the United States are required to have a rear guard to prevent so called ‘underride’ crashes where passenger vehicles slip underneath larger trucks. In many cases, though, like in the Karths’ collision, they fail.
“We don’t want to just say this a tragedy and there’s nothing we can do about it. There are solutions, and we want to help be the solution,” said Chojnacki. . .
Frustrated by the lack of progress, the Karth family helped write legislation that would require these improved standards for rear guards and, for the first time, mandate side impact guards. . .
Karth knows, though, the fight is not over yet. “Until we get enough support to get this bill passed, people will continue to die,” she said.
Family Trying To Change Law, Save Lives 5 Years After Deadly Big Rig Crash
Thank you, Andrea Lucia & CBS DFW.
Rebekah & Susanna Karth were also interviewed by a DFW station shortly after the crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbKhY0gXQqY We are thankful that this issue is getting needed attention and have high hopes that this will come to a vote soon to mandate an end to these needless, preventable tragedies.
With the help of He who watches over us. . . may this be done swiftly for the preserving of many lives.
I have been on a trip overseas with my son Levi and his fiancee in Paraguay where they will soon be missionaries. I, of course, couldn’t stop myself from taking photos of trucks on the road as we drove from city to city.
I didn’t have much connectivity while I was gone for the past week and so am just catching up on the recent news articles and broadcasts on underride:
. . . several entrepreneurs—not to mention truck manufacturers—have been working to develop new side and rear guards. One of these entrepreneurs is Aaron Kiefer, founder of Collision Safety Consulting, a North Carolina-based outfit whose TrailerGuard system reinforces the rear of a truck and also features a “SafetySkirt” that extends along the side of a tractor-trailer, one which can potentially prevent vulnerable road users and cars from going underneath a truck.
In the following Failure Magazine Interview, Kiefer discusses the safety issues surrounding underride accidents and how the TrailerGuard system has the potential to protect side and rear underride crash victims from death and catastrophic injuries.
TrailerGuard: Making Underride Accidents Less Deadly, First in a series of articles about the truck underride issue — by Jason Zasky, failuremag.com
