Watch the video footage of this historic IIHS side underride crash testing at 35 mph on March 30 and 31, 2017 — with and without a side guard. It speaks for itself.
Now decide what we should do about this deadly but preventable public health problem.
On March 30, Jerry and I witnessed a crash test at 35 mph of a car into the side of a trailer — with an AngelWing side guard installed — at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville, Virginia. The guard was successful in stopping the car from riding under the trailer, i.e., passenger occupants would have survived.
The next day, another car was crashed at 35 mph into the side of a trailer — with a side skirt but no side guard. The car went under the trailer. Occupants would not have survived.
See it for yourself because Seeing Is Believing:
This one may be tough to watch:
The IIHS released the news today:
Note this quote from David Zuby, IIHS Chief Research Officer:
“Our tests and research show that side underride guards have the potential to save lives,” says David Zuby, the Institute’s executive vice president and chief research officer.“We think a mandate for side underride guards on large trucks has merit, especially as crash deaths continue to rise on our roads.”
The wheels on a tractor and trailer offer some underride protection if a passenger vehicle were to strike them. With no side underride guard, only 28 percent of a 53-foot trailer’s length would be protected from underride. With the AngelWing side underride guard in place, 62 percent of the trailer’s length would be protected. Side underride guards can be retrofitted to existing semitrailers.
The IIHS also released data from their recent in-depth analysis of NHTSA FARS truck crash fatality information:
Passenger vehicle occupant deaths in 2-vehicle crashes with tractor-trailers, 2005-15
IIHS analysis of NHTSA FARS Data
Year
Passenger vehicle
strikes side
of tractor-trailer
Passenger vehicle
strikes rear
of tractor-trailer
All crashes
with tractor-trailers
2015
301
292
1,542
2014
308
220
1,409
2013
274
213
1,377
2012
306
216
1,376
2011
246
189
1,362
2010
319
181
1,417
2009
269
174
1,237
2008
290
180
1,526
2007
417
218
1,771
2006
394
260
1,853
2005
441
258
1,932
Per Matt Brumbelow and Eric Teoh, IIHS, May 10, 2017
March 30, 2017, AngelWing Crash Test: Lois Durso, John Lannen, Andy Young, Marianne Karth, Jerry Karth, Martin Fleury, Perry Ponder, Mariella Amoros, Robert Martineau
If this many people were dying from an automotive defect and we knew it and we knew how to fix it, would we stand by and let those deaths continue?! Maybe that is the wrong question to ask because those kinds of deadly defects have been neglected as well. But the point is,
What will we choose to do at this crossroads?
Continue to allow underride deaths?
OR
Act responsibly to prevent these tragedies?
This is not the first time we have witnessed successful prevention of deadly side underride:
I just read with great interest Trucks.com report on the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo at the Long Beach, Calif., convention center this week , where “major industry players pledged to stay the course on advancements in fuel economy and alternative technologies despite regulatory uncertainty.”
Here’s hoping that they will do the same regarding advances in truck safety issues — in particular, underride protection. In fact, several of the comments which I read in that article indicate that our Comprehensive Underride Protection bill is right in line with industry thinking:
. . . if there’s a technological path to improve fuel economy, manufacturers are going to pursue it, because those with better fuel economy are going to have a better advantage in the economy,” said Steve Gilligan, vice president of product and vocational marketing of the North American business unit at Navistar International Corp.
. . . speakers returned repeatedly to the tangle of regulations governing emissions, innovations and infrastructure. . . “Ten years ago, things were pretty static, but now it’s almost like the automobile industry was back in 1900, when people didn’t know if the vehicles were going to run on steam, whale oil or something else,” said Brian Lindgren, research and development director at Kenworth Truck Co. “If you were a young engineer, this would be an exciting time to be in the truck industry.”
Panelists said that coordinating their vehicle development strategy across the various regulations is a priority.
Most panelists said they were pushing ahead anyway with fuel-efficient truck designs to satisfy customer demand.
But some said they would welcome some streamlining of more complicated, conflicting regulations – if the administration communicated its plans.
“We’re trying to separate the noise from the facts – clarity is probably the biggest need we have so we can plan accordingly,” Gilligan said.
And as tests of platooning and driverless technologies progress and other breakthroughs loom, panelists urged the government to develop cohesive rules that apply nationwide, not just in a patchwork of states.
“We can demonstrate that technology on the road, but we need a regulatory framework, testing validation and eventually deployment too,” Schaefer said.
We are giving them what they asked for — a comprehensive regulatory and technological framework for achieving SAFER trucks — a way to ensure that travelers will no longer be vulnerable victims of Death by Underride.
As I allow myself to remember the joy and laughter and love and creativity and grumpiness and irritability and silliness of my daughters, AnnaLeah and Mary, I also remember why I am working tirelessly to bring an end to Death by Underride — which snatched AnnaLeah from this earthly life on May 4, 2013, and Mary on May 8, 2013.
I was in that horrific truck crash four years ago today. I survived but they did not because of Death by Underride.
That is why I am pounding the pavement in our nation’s capital to tell our story and bring attention to this deadly problem and its solution:
At this time of year (who am I kidding, all year long), I think about how if there had been comprehensive and effective underride protection on trucks, then AnnaLeah and Mary might have still been here today. They could have gone with me to the zoo on Friday when I went there with my grandson.
How many deaths and catastrophic injuries could be prevented by comprehensive underride protection on all trucks? Might these two deaths in Michigan yesterday have been prevented?
Two people died and a third was critically hurt today in a multiple-vehicle crash involving a semi that shut down southbound U.S. 23 in Livingston County for hours.
One of the people killed, a 51-year-old man from Milford, was in a Ford Focus that went underneath the semi, according to a release from the Green Oak Charter Township Police Department. Also in that car was a 26-year-old woman that taken to University of Michigan Hospitals with life-threatening injuries. The other man killed was a 52-year-old from Davison who was in a Chevrolet Sonic rear-ended by the semi.
A semi dragging a car with which it collided on a California highway this week has caught media attention. But while many are shaking their heads with disbelief that the truck driver apparently didn’t notice the car, they are overlooking the disturbing fact that trucks have been defectively designed with a “geometric mismatch” that allows cars to ride under them.
And, despite the fact that this is well-known, little or nothing has been done to change this deadly problem.
Unfortunately, this recent underride crash is not uncommon. This kind of collision happens hundreds of times each year. And the crash in California likely would have ended in a death if someone had been in the front passenger seat — like there was 12 years ago when my friend Lois Durso’s daughter, Roya Sadigh, was killed in a similar crash.
I know what I am talking about because I lost my two youngest daughters, AnnaLeah and Mary, in a truck underride crash on May 4, 2013. And it can happen to anyone at anytime — changing life forever without any warning.
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.
In contrast to a fragmented approach, this is my suggestion for approaching the problem of truck underride:
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,
secondly, through a follow-up meeting at IIHS on June 24, 2016, to hammer out details of the Rear Underride Guard specifications then submitted to NHTSA on August 8, 2016, and IIHS Underride Test Protocol submitted to NHTSA on December 23, 2016;
and third, through a continued discussion among engineering experts which led to the Comprehensive Underride Consensus Petition presented to Secretary Foxx on September 23, 2016 (and the expanded Clarification of that petition) — upon which this Bill is based.
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:
Rear (Already introduced by the IIHS with their recent presentation of a ToughGuard award to five trailer manufacturers)
Front
Side
Maintenance of underride devices (annual inspection and training in how to do pre-trip inspections of the devices)
Training for drivers in what to do and not do in terms of parking and U-turns
Other (whatever I am forgetting right now — like the protection of all vulnerable road users)
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.
