The federal government does not require side guards on large trucks. Trailer manufacturers do not install them on the trailers they produce. Here are 5 ways you can help to change that:
Sign our Side Guard Petition here to let our government & trucking industry leaders know that you want them to act NOW to SAVE LIVES by putting side guards on large trucks.
Write to the 8 major trailer manufacturers. Tell them that you want them to put side guards on the trailers which they make and sell to trucking companies. You can find their contact information here.
Support side guard research projects, which will help get affordable and effective side guards on the market. Donate here.
February 13, 2017 Update: I just received a notification of a new posting to the Federal Register of a Public Comment from someone asking DOT/NHTSA to mandate side guards! I am assuming that someone responded to my request for people to do so to help bring about change. 🙂 See it here:https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=NHTSA-2015-0118-0049 Actually, a second person also submitted a comment.
The federal government does not require side guards on large trucks. Trailer manufacturers do not install them on the trailers they produce. Here are 3 ways you can help to change that:
Write to the 8 major trailer manufacturers. Tell them that you want them to put side guards on the trailers which they make and sell to trucking companies. You can find their contact information here.
Sign our Side Guard Petition here to let our government & trucking industry leaders know that you want them to act NOW to SAVE LIVES by putting side guards on large trucks.
Support side guard research projects, which will help get affordable and effective side guards on the market. Donate here.
Truck Underride will be featured on The Today Show, February 7, at 7:40 a.m.
AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety is Raising Money to Support These Road Safety Projects:
Crash Reconstructionist Aaron Kiefer is developing an innovative combination side/rear underride guard. Help him get it ready to put into the hands of manufacturers. See Aaron’s side guard research here.
Collegiate Engineering Senior Design Competition 2017/18: Support a student competition to creatively solve the side underride problem. Student teams will present their research at the IIHS Vehicle Research Center in the Spring of 2018, and one team’s side guard design will be selected for a crash test. (Last year’s Virginia Tech Senior Design Project presented at the Underride Roundtable.)
We also promote other underride research & solutions which will be discussed at the Second Underride Roundtable on August 29, 2017 at the IIHS, including the AngelWing side underride protection device.
AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and is eligible to receive contributions that may be tax deductible for the donor. Your donation will help fund projects that will save lives!
NBC News NY has extensively interviewed multiple individuals and organizations on the issue of deadly truck side underride — including a trip to North Carolina last month to film Aaron Kiefer’s side guard crash test. They are now ready to air the story on Tuesday, February 7, at 7:40 a.m. on The Today Show.
I ran across a study on underride fatality crashes this morning. I’d read it before but took a lot at it again. +
Then, this afternoon, while in city traffic, I saw an almost-side underride-crash between a car and Single Unit Truck (SUT). And when I arrived at a parking lot later, I saw a wimpy rear underride guard on a SUT.
So, why do we put rear underride guards on trailers but don’t require them on SUTs? (Not even mentioning that the current rear guard requirement is ineffective as written.) And why don’t we require side underride guards on any large trucks?
Truck underride is deadly no matter the truck size or portion of the truck the smaller vehicle rides under.
In other words, the wimpy guards aren’t effective anyway, so even if a SUT has one, the guard usually doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do — which is to prevent deadly underride.
A recent truck crash in North Carolina has raised some important questions.
In the mountains, truck drivers can quickly find themselves in dangerous positions.
On Jan. 23, 2017, crews spent 15 hours cleaning up the wreckage of a tractor trailer ripped apart and on its side after the driver traveled left of center on the narrow, twisting Chunn’s Cove Road. . .
The trucking industry and drivers, including Terry Creech, are pushing the Trump administration and Republicans to roll back safety requirements.
“I’m hoping he’ll deregulate the industry,” Creech said.
As part of the investigation, News 13 also reached out to Trans Tech, a truck driving training school in Arden. It disagrees with the ATA and claim safety regulations do work. While it sees a need for mandatory rest breaks, it believes requirements should be standard state to state. Special Report: Trucking past inspections you?, how safe are
If a safety measure can help to create safer trucking and driving conditions for all users of the road (i.e, keep us all alive), then, in my mind, it is commonsense to have it be standard state to state.
In what universe would it make sense to put in place a proven safety measure in one region but not in another? Are we one country of united states or a continent of separate countries? Is that a logical federal function or not?
I did think that one of the functions of the federal government was to protect its citizens. Or am I wrong about that?
Do we have a right to expect that our government will act to protect us from vehicle violence?
Late last year, Neal Pollack interviewed me. He asked about our crash story and our family’s advocacy efforts. Then he proceeded to interview other traffic safety advocates as well. This is what he recently wrote:
There is not one part of traffic tragedies that does not overwhelm our world with grief and regret. It goes on and on.
The report by the National Transportation Safety Board released in November 2015 found that the probable cause of the crash was a failure by Staley to control his vehicle “due to incapacitation likely stemming from his use of synthetic cannabinoids.”
The report determined that passengers on the bus were not wearing seat belts and that the bus lacked appropriate crash-worthiness standards, both of which contributed to the severity of the injuries.
Could a crash test between a Tesla car and a trailer with a side guard turn out differently than Joshua Brown’s tragic crash with his Tesla into and under the side of a trailer without a side guard?
Would Elon Musk be willing to partner with us to discover the answer?
Could a crash test* between a Tesla & a side guard silence the skeptics?
* Multiple crash test scenarios could be utilized to compare with and without side guard, with Tesla and with a Malibu (or similar model), with Airflow Deflector/Perry Ponder’s AngelWing and with Aaron Kiefer’s TrailerGuard System.
