Good quote from the IIHS:
We know how to reduce truck crashes. The question is do we have the will to implement the countermeasures? https://t.co/yseMReA7UC pic.twitter.com/qOCrBdbD6A
— IIHS (@IIHS_autosafety) April 15, 2017
SAVE THE DATE for the Second Underride Roundtable: Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at IIHS
Why COMPREHENSIVE Underride Protection Legislation?
Tired Trucker Roundtable: If we plan it, they will come. Can we pull it off?
Today I saw another example of why I think that this planet needs comprehensive underride protection on trucks — including on Single Unit Trucks (SUTs), otherwise known as straight trucks, box trucks, work trucks.
Currently, those kinds of trucks are not required to have underride protection. Some of them have voluntarily added some kind of wimpy thing that tries to pass as a rear underride guard. But looking at this one, I wonder whether they even understand the purpose of an underride guard.
If people die from riding under Single Unit Trucks, why aren’t they required to have underride protection?
Why, you might ask, would we write a piece of legislation calling for a comprehensive underride protection rule? Why not have separate bills for side underride and rear underride and front underride and Single Unit Trucks (SUTs), et cetera?
I am convinced of the importance of this strategy and want to share some of my thoughts here.
RAM CUP: A DIFFERENT STRATEGY
TO ACHIEVE UNDERRIDE PROTECTION
For Such A Time As This
What can we discover from past attitudes or strategies to address underride deaths?
1. Fragmented approach has led to weak and ineffective protection on some parts of a truck and other parts unprotected (or no protection on Single Unit Trucks)
2. Various aspects of underride protection were treated as separate, unrelated issues
3. Various stakeholders worked in isolation rather than collaboratively
4. Waited for industry to take initiative (or express approval)
5. Not addressed with a sense of urgency
6. Statistical and cost/benefit analysis was flawed and inaccurate and inappropriately undervalued human life and health by putting expenses of providing improved safety on a par with lost lives.
7. Conspiracy of silence regarding deaths due to preventable vehicle violence with the result that too often too little was done too late to save lives.
8. Solutions did not always take into account all aspects of the system, including the crashworthiness of the passenger vehicle or the potential of energy absorption on the large truck.
9. A blaming the victim attitude too often overshadowed the responsibility of the industry to take action and find ways to make trucks safer to be on the road in order to protect vulnerable road users.
10. Confusion about how to solve the problem, along with other factors, may have contributed to inertia to do anything about it.
11. Multiple layers of responsibility has too easily led to No One taking responsibility. (GM Nod)
12. For whatever reason, there have been few R & D resources devoted to this issue.
13. Data has been limited or hidden, partially due to misunderstanding of the problem and lack of training for enforcement officials to identify the role of underride in truck crashes.
14. Isolated incidents of underride may have hidden the immensity of this obscure tragedy.
15. Skepticism about the possibility of technologically and practically feasible solutions has been an obstacle to wholehearted commitment to necessary R & D.
16. Concerns about potential liability may have caused resistance to acknowledge the issue.
17. The competitive nature of the industry may have contributed to a lack of cooperative effort to deal with a deadly design.
I wrote that while sitting outside the Duke Integrative Medicine Center. When I finished, I went inside and picked up a book called, Hippocrates’ Shadow, which talks about what happens in the medical field when the problems of ineffective treatments are not openly discussed. This phrase jumped out at me: “With full knowledge and ample evidence that it doesn’t work, we do it anyway.” (by David H. Newman, MD, p. 25) And the author referred to one of the reasons that the problems don’t get addressed being, “a culture of conformity, inertia, and malpractice paranoia.” Well said. . .
In fact, the development of a COMPREHENSIVE approach to taking care of the truck underride problem was probably first planted in my mind at the Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016, with the suggestion of a member of the trucking industry.
Read about that here, including the subsequent actions that resulted in a Comprehensive Underride Consensus Petition which a group of us submitted to Secretary Foxx at DOT on September 23, 2016, and upon which the Roya, AnnaLeah & Mary Comprehensive Underride Protection Act of 2017 is based.
It is not necessarily the initial collision in a truck/passenger vehicle crash which kills but the Second Collision which occurs. In fact, it is quite possible that, of the over 4,000 truck crash deaths which occur every year, many of them could be prevented if adequate comprehensive underride protection were on every single truck.
Underride protection does not prevent a collision but it can prevent the violent injuries and deaths which occur from the Second Collision of the truck into the Passenger Compartment.
COUP/COUP
Upon reflection, it is my belief that the system for arriving at regulations has been working harder to protect the industry from liability and responsibility than to protect road users from harm. Furthermore, this has led to a non-transparent process for arriving at appropriate and effective safety measures.
In stark contrast, the crafting of this bill, the Roya, AnnaLeah & Mary Comprehensive Underride Protection Act of 2017, was based upon extensive research and the gathering of experts and interested parties over the last four years,
These discussions involved trucking industry representatives, including Ted Scott, VP of Engineering for the American Trucking Associations (ATA), and Gary Fenton, who is VP of Engineering for Stoughton Trailers and Chairman of the Engineering Committee for the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA). Participants also have included engineering experts from universities, international experts in truck underride, and two engineers who have designed side guards which have recently been successfully tested.
In my humble opinion, the interests of this country would best be served if this group would be formally recognized and commissioned to work with NHTSA and to develop the specifications for the final comprehensive underride protection rule. Why re-invent the wheel? Why delay the process any longer than necessary? Wasted time translates into more unnecessary death and life-long grief.
AND
The COUP truck safety certification program (modeled after the Transport for London FORS) could also be integrated into the comprehensive underride protection vision/scenario/strategy/bill:
COUP (Certification Of Underride Protection). In order to get fully certified, a trucking company would have to get an award in each aspect of underride protection, including:
This would be required for ALL trucks, including Single Unit Trucks (Straight, Box).
I would like to add this aspect to the drafted bill, along with a mandate for establishment of a Committee of Experts to Oversee This.
Last month, I met Jerry Moyes, founder of Swift Transportation, at a Senate hearing on truck safety in DC. He proudly talked about how Swift makes safety a priority. In fact, he appeared very interested in the side guard design by Aaron Kiefer which I showed to him.
This morning, I read that Swift has just merged with Knight Transportation. The combined resources of the two companies will now mean that the new entity will have 77,000 trailers on the road.
Will the new company make safety a priority and ensure that those 77,000 trailers have the best possible underride protection? I sure hope so.
We were privileged to attend the first crash test into the side of a semi-trailer at IIHS on March 30. The AngelWing side guard successfully prevented underride and Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI).
In other words, the people in the car would have been saved from catastrophic injuries!
The IIHS also crashed a car at 35 mph into the side of a trailer without a side guard. Stay tuned for the devastating results of that crash compared to the amazing difference with a side guard.
Underride Roundtable Planning Group members who attended the March 30, 2017, IIHS side guard crash test: Lois Durso, John Lannen, Andy Young, Marianne Karth, Jerry Karth, Perry Ponder, Robert Martineau
Previous 2012 side guard video from Perry Ponder, with his AngelWing invention:
Facebook conversation on the topic of proposed UK Road Collision Investigation Branch: https://www.facebook.com/AnnaLeahandMaryforTruckSafety/posts/1671163723186887
Me: Aaron Kiefer, what do you think of this idea?
https://annaleahmary.com/2017/04/why-we-believe-the-creation-of-a-road-collision-investigation-branch-is-urgently-needed/
Aaron Kiefer : I like it, but it’s all a matter of resources and priorities. Volvo has a crash recon team that analyzes all accidents involving Volvos within a radius of Gothenburg…
AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety: So, what would be the most effective use of resources to reduce deadly crashes? So, Volvo has their own team? What would it look like if every Vehicle Manufacturer put some of their profit into safety in the form of a Crash Reconstruction Team of crashes involving their vehicles? That is the sort of thing which I called for in our Vision Zero Petition Book.
AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety: Here is a quote from that book: “The current means of regulating the manufacture of underride guards requires the trailer manufacturer to design its underride guards to meet certain specifications. Once the manufacturer has met those requirements, then, currently, it cannot normally be held liable for any failure of the guard to withstand a crash–along with any resultant property damages, injuries, or death.
We would like to propose a change in the approach to regulating truck underride guards. We are requesting/recommending that the manufacturer be required to design and crash test a guard which would withstand a crash at any speed up to 50 mph and at any point along the back of the trailer.
Furthermore, we are requesting that, when a real-life underride crash does occur with one of their trucks, the manufacturer be held financially responsible for the cost of a thorough crash reconstruction, which would identify—at minimum—the speed which was traveled and whether the guard gave way with the impact of the crash.
With this new approach to regulating underride guards, the manufacturer would thereby be accountable for any failure of the guard to withstand a crash and thus be held responsible for ensuring a very important public outcome: prevention of horrific injuries and deaths due to underride crashes.
This is in sharp contrast to the current situation where no penalty is normally paid for a failed underride guard–except by the victims and their loved ones.” Comment from Marianne Karth The is a Comment on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Proposed Rule: Rear Impact Guards, Rear Impact Protection,
Truck Underride A Practical Application of a Vision Zero Goal Marianne Karth Public Comment
Taken from: Vision Zero Petition Book 3rd Edition
Robert Martineau, President and CEO of Airflow Deflector, Inc., discusses the problem of side underride:
It’s one of the most devastating traffic accidents: A car slams into the side of a tractor-trailer and crashes underneath and where most of its many safety features like airbags and other sensors are rendered worthless. As a result, the top of the vehicle may be sheared off; in many cases, the occupants are fatally injured.
Read more here: Announcement: “Deadly side underride crashes can now be addressed”
Seems like a smart way to monitor large trucks to catch safety violations:
The cameras and scales along I-85 scan and weigh commercial vehicles, allowing troopers to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
“Rather than a trooper just ride around burning fuel looking for violations he can come here use this technology that will track violations when one is headed his direction,” said Sgt. Jarrett.
It’s the newest technology available, the first in a high speed area.
“It takes a picture of their DOT number and the license plate and that’s where the light comes from and it researches the data base and puts that information in a database,” said Randy Braden, Assistant State Maintenance Engineer, ALDOT.
If there’s an infraction, the database will alert a nearby trooper, focusing on commercial vehicle safety and enforcement in real-time, in a time when doing more with less is the norm.
“We’re very, very shorthanded the most I’ve ever seen in my 19 year career so efficiency is key,” said Sgt. Jarrett.
ALDOT says they are in the process of getting the cameras certified and when that happens a sign will be put up explaining their purpose. Alabama transportation officials say they have funding set aside for another camera unit.
Officials say these devices are popping up all over the country due to their low operation cost in comparison to weigh stations. A new weigh station would cost $10-15 million dollars to build while the virtual weigh station cost $300,000 to install. Cameras along I-85 monitoring commercial vehicle safety
So. . . I get off Amtrak at Union Station in D. C. ready to walk to the Hart Senate building to join Lois Durso in a meeting with Senate committee staff. I had a general idea of which way to head. But when I couldn’t figure out which crosswalk to cross at, I decided to ask a couple of men who were heading in the same direction.
They were very gracious when I asked them which street was Massachusetts and which was the Hart Building. Then I realized one of them was Senator Cory Booker and he confirmed it was so. He and his chief of staff each began pulling one of my bags.
I mentioned that I had met him at the truck safety Subcommittee hearing recently and had lost two daughters. He remembered. As we kept walking, he was periodically swamped by grateful constituents and I carried on a great conversation with his chief of staff about the underride protection bill which Lois and I had drafted in an attempt to solve this deadly problem once and for all.
An amazing start in this crusade to garner support for a very important piece of lifesaving legislation! I could hardly wait to tell Lois how Someone was continuing to go before us and guide our steps.
Lois and I talking with Senator Booker at the Senate hearing on March 14 — one day before we jumped on the idea of writing an underride protection bill and the Roya, AnnaLeah & Mary Comprehensive Underride Protection Act of 2017 was born.
RAM CUP
2 moms going back to DC. Ready to shed light on the problem of truck underride & the need for change.
Informational brochure to pass out on The Hill:
2 moms full of energy & determination:
