Category Archives: Truck Safety

Where does underride prevention fit into ESV? I think it’s catch-up time for underride victims.

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV) is the designation for experimental concept cars which are used to test car safety ideas.

In 1973 the U.S. DOT announced its ESV project, the aim of which was to obtain safer vehicles by 1981.[1] A car produced by this effort was known as the Minicar RSV.

In 1991, the ESV abbreviation was backronymed to Enhanced Safety of Vehicles.[2]

Experimental Safety Vehicle From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What about truck underride prevention? This issue seems to fall between the cracks. Has anyone developed an Experimental Safety Truck (EST) for testing of underride prevention best practices? I’m no expert on how that could work, but surely there is potential there. Without a doubt (in my mind), this Goliath could be taken on as a collaborative effort.

How much money, by the way, has been put into this kind of safety research? Especially compared to trucking industry profit.

Every time I bring up a possible solution to underride crashes, the problem of cost comes up as an obstacle to moving forward — either for the research or the implementation. “Don’t ask for that because then the industry will oppose it.” It is like running into a brick wall.

Oh, well, it is safer to run into a brick wall than the back of a truck, they say.

And then there is the faulty (in my opinion) process of making regulatory decisions based on a cost/benefit analysis that compares industry costs with the worth of lost or shattered human lives. So far, we have gotten ZERO response to our 20,000+ Vision Zero Petitions delivered to Washington, DC, in March 2016.

We asked for President Obama and Secretary Foxx to take some very specific steps to rectify that situation. No response.

I have also asked for help in determining what percentage of trucking industry profit has been devoted to underride research. I have an idea that the results of  such fact-finding might prove an embarrassment to them and might even give safety advocates a leg to stand on.

When I find out, I’d like to take a cue from former Senator Robert Kennedy and ask the trucking industry to stop whining about what they “can’t” do to fix the underride problem — because of how much it would cost them — and to stop wielding their unfair lobbying advantage to delay or block needed underride prevention technology.

After all, if you do the cost/benefit analysis math for truck side guards — which DOT intended to mandate for large trucks as far back as 1969 — the cost/”life saved” is not likely to be something for them to complain about.

Truck Underride Fatalities, 1994-2014

I think it’s catch-up time for underride victims.

CBA Victim Cost Benefit Analysis Victim

Two documents to compare:

Vision Zero Petition Book 3rd Edition

Underride Network want list for topics at IIHS Underride Roundtable

Underride Roundtable led to Consensus Underride Recommendations for Submission to NHTSA

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Following the successful Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016, a group of thirteen people pulled together a Consensus Comment for submission to NHTSA for their consideration.

Today, I emailed this document to the nearly 100 people who attended the roundtable — inviting them to read and sign this set of recommendations for the current rear underride rulemaking on semi-trailers.

Thank you again for participating in the Underride Roundtable hosted by the IIHS on May 5, 2016.

As a follow-up to that successful event, a subsequent meeting, to which you all were invited, took place on June 24 at the IIHS offices in Arlington, Virginia. A smaller group participated in that meeting and were able to put together a Consensus Document which we will be submitted to NHTSA as a Public Comment.

Here is a post with a report on that meeting: Knights of the Underride Roundtable: Finding Some Common Ground to Protect Travelers!

NHTSA has indicated to me that they, “look forward to your recommendations and encourage your continued submissions to the public dockets on NHTSA’s rulemakings on truck underride safety, specifically Docket No. NHTSA-2015-0070 for NHTSA’s rear underride protection for single-unit trucks. . . and Docket No. NHTSA-2015-0118 for NHTSA’s rear underride protection for semi-trailers. . . As with all of our public proceedings, we will give all comments full consideration to help inform our next actions.”

The Consensus Document specifically addresses the NPRM for semi-trailers. Please review the attached document and, if you agree with the Consensus Recommendations and would like to add your name to this document, please let me know by August 6, 2016. I will be submitting this as a Public Comment at the end of that day.

I look forward to continued positive communication among us all.
Marianne

p.s. Please read the attached Consensus Comment document, as well as the press release which is referred to in the document: Press Release: J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. Orders 4,000 Trailers with New Rear Impact Guard Design

NOTE to non-engineers: This would make the NHTSA’s proposed rule stronger — yielding underride guards which should be able to withstand crashes at the outer edges of the trucks. Translation = Save More Lives

Here is the Consensus Document: Consensus Comment NPRM_ Docket No

I will welcome all signatures — whether you were able to participate in the Underride Roundtable or not.

Car Safety WarsMichigan 60 party and cemetery 039IMG_4465If only

Mary would have turned 17 on August 6.

Adopting needed safety technology should not have to be such a battle. Why is it then?

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

The Best Possible Protection

Studies have been done which show that trucks, even if they are equipped with rear underride guards, do not pass all of the crash tests. In fact, out of 8 truck companies tested, only one, Manac, passed all of the tests: http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr031413.html .

So, it may be a true statement, according to The American Trucking Association, “that many manufacturers are producing trucks with better than required safety underride guards.”http://myfox8.com/2013/08/13/families-push-for-tractor-trailer-regulations/ Nonetheless, the bottomline is that there are many trucks which are NOT equipped with the best possible protection, which means that someone somewhere sometime might crash with one of those trucks and not live to know it.

Why would there be resistance to providing the best possible protection? Is it money? Quite possibly… Yet, according to Manac President Charles Dutil, the Manac underride guard “doesn’t weigh 200 pounds more than anybody else’s; it doesn’t cost $200 more,” estimating the difference to be at most 20 pounds and $20.

“If trailer manufacturers can make guards that do a better job of protecting passenger vehicle occupants while also promising lower repair costs for their customers, that’s a win-win,” says David Zuby, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s chief research officer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhQdYSSEJO8

What I want most of all, in this situation, is to help reduce the number of families who open their mail to find a death certificate for a family member because of a preventable death.

death certificate envelopes

NOTE: I wrote the above as a facebook post just a few months (August 14, 2013) after the crash which took AnnaLeah and Mary from us. Since then, almost three years later, three more trailer manufacturers have voluntarily improved their rear underride protection.

But there are four major manufacturers who have not and federal underride standards have not yet been improved. And then there are side guards and exempt single unit (straight, box) trucks which still need to be addressed. Not to mention the 12 million existing trucks on the road which probably won’t be required to be retrofitted with improvements.

Meanwhile people continue to die. Needlessly.

The Best Possible Protection

Adopting needed safety technology should not have to be such a battle. Why is it then?

Too Often, Too Little, Too Late; A Conspiracy of Silence

 

Preventing deadly crashes doesn’t require Either crash avoidance Or underride guards but Both/And.

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

If we can take away anything immediately (while waiting for an in-depth investigative report) from Joshua Brown’s fatal crash with his Tesla, I hope it is the understanding that preventing Death by Underride cannot depend solely on crash avoidance technology. What we should be going for is not either/or but both/and.

The Tesla did not prevent the crash because the side of the truck was too high up to engage/connect with any of the safety technology. Had a side guard — which is not a federal requirement — been on the truck, there might have been no crash or at least no underride. Joshua Brown might still be alive.

This is a clear case where even the most-advanced crash avoidance technology was not able to prevent a tragic underride death. If side guards had been mandated and installed, perhaps the outcome would have been quite different.

There are too many factors and conditions which can result in a collision between a large truck and a smaller passenger vehicle. And without adequate underride protection, the smaller vehicle is going to end up under the larger, too-high truck so that the crashworthy features of the car do not function as intended. The truck then comes into the occupant space [Passenger Compartment Intrusion = PCI] — causing horrific death or serious injuries.

My goodness, it makes me mad just to re-read the posts which I have written over the last three years since our deadly (for those who experienced underride) crash and recall the ongoing attitude of non-responsibility of some parts of the trucking industry to do their part in helping to solve this solvable problem!

I have included the links to those posts along with the beginning paragraphs:

  1. Clarifying the ATA Position on Underride Guards After last week’s announcement by NHTSA of their initiation of the rulemaking process for underride guards, I have had four interviews. So far, I have seen two of the articles and both of them included a statement, obtained from the American Trucking Associations (ATA), which disturbed me when I read them. I posted about it and you can read my thoughts here. . .
  2. The Passion of This Safety Advocate It gets really tiresome to hear the trucking industry come up with the same statements time after time after time. Nearly every time I read an article written about our crash, there are the obligatory responses from the trucking industry. Invariably, they try to shift the responsibility off of themselves to make the changes sought after and, instead, bring up some alternative solution to the “problem.” . . .
  3. Truck Underride Roundtable is one week away! May it be sehr gut! On June 25, 2014, after a tour of the research & design center of a truck trailer manufacturer in Georgia, I wrote down these perplexing thoughts about the too-long unresolved underride problem: Now, it is understandable, amid the multitude of demands and the tyranny of the urgent, that—without a ready solution, in fact, one which would require time and money to develop—this problem has not been given much attention. But, if those who bear responsibility for making sure that this problem gets solved (one way or another) had lost two of their beloved children—or any other loved one—I can guarantee you that they would have moved heaven and earth to find a way to prevent underride. . .
  4. UMTRI Reviews Opposition to Proposed & Proven Truck Underride Prevention Measures Back in 1989, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute examined features proposed for improving truck safety. In other words, they reviewed NHTSA underride rulemaking from years past. What they discovered was that a proposed underride rule in 1977 was opposed by practically “the entire trucking industry – both manufacturers and haulers.” The authors of this study noted “that failure to implement a rule on underride guards took place despite extensive research indicating their expected effectiveness.” .  .
  5. Tesla crash fatality could have been stopped by side guards. Tell NHTSA to require them on trucks. The U.S. has been talking about the tragedies of side underride and the possibility of using side guards on trucks since 1969. The recent Tesla S underride crash fatality could quite likely have been prevented if there had been a side guard on the tractor-trailer it collided with.So why is NHTSA still not requiring side guards on trucks? Why is the trailer manufacturing industry still opposing them? Why have so many years gone by with needless, preventable deaths continuing to occur? . . .

When we met with DOT in March 2016 to deliver our 20,000+ Vision Zero Petition signatures, Blair Anderson (NHTSA Deputy Administrator at the time,  now US DOT Undersecretary for Policy) smiled when I made the point about not either/or but both/and. He indicated that the Director had just been talking with staff about that very thing.

Let’s hope that this logical line of reasoning is widely understood and serves the purpose of moving both rulemaking and voluntary industry safety advancement full steam ahead.

Both And

Casualties of the car safety wars

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

My grandson just turned 10 years-old. Lately I’ve been noticing little things that show me how much he is maturing and taking responsibility. And I keep thinking how proud AnnaLeah and Mary would be of him. They both spent so much time with him from the time he was born.

gertie 264Minolta DSC

One thing Marcus asked me about the other day was when he saw my copy of the book Car Safety Wars by Michael Lemov. Car safety wars, he asked?  So I had to try and explain it. I asked him what a war is and what happens in a war. And we talked about how it’s a war because while we’re “fighting for” some things to make cars and roads safer, other people are fighting against them.

Imagine.

AnnaLeah would have been 21 now and Mary would be turning 17 in a few weeks. But they’re not. And at least part of the blame for their deaths by preventable vehicle violence can be attributed to “car safety wars”. They, and countless others, paid the price. Casualties of the traffic safety war.

Car Safety Wars

“Our grandma wants to make the roads safer.” Remembering 2 girls in the aftermath of a truck crash

When it comes to safety, is compromise our only option?

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Deadly underride can happen to anyone at any time. Even to the best driver in the safest car.

According to the American Trucking Associations, there are currently 12 million trucks on the road. Most of those trucks have weak and ineffective underride guards. Hopefully, government regulators and the trucking industry will take steps to make future trucks safer to be around.

But they aren’t likely to do anything about the 12 million trucks already on the road–even though there is safety technology to do so. You’ll just have to take your chance that you won’t be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

So, why is it that we are powerless to do anything except agree to whatever the trucking industry is willing to do? Whose lives are we willing to give up to pay the price by settling for less than the best?

Is compromise our only option?

If only

instead of like this: IMG_4464

Request for Law Review Articles on the Cost/Benefit Analysis in Traffic Safety Rulemaking

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

After losing our two youngest daughters, AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13), due to a truck underride crash on May 4, 2013, our family has taken on the goal of improving the regulatory and voluntary standards for currently weak and ineffective truck underride guards. On May 5, 2016, we were co-sponsors, with IIHS and the Truck Safety Coalition, of an Underride Roundtable.

Current truck underride regulations too often do not prevent underride crashes—which led to 228 recorded crash fatalities in 2014. https://annaleahmary.com/2016/04/truck-underride-fatalities-chart-from-the-fars-1994-2014/truck-underride-fatalities-1994-2014/

As we have participated in safety advocacy, we have become aware of the challenges often faced by those who seek to bring about greater safety through legislative or rulemaking means. Because we have observed that the industry’s lobby exerts a great deal of influence and has been successful in delaying proven safety measures, we have petitioned the federal government to adopt a Vision Zero Rulemaking Policy.

In order to understand the details of our vision to bring about a process that would truly be concerned about saving lives more than saving profit, please see our Vision Zero Petition Delivery Book:

https://annaleahmary.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Vision-Zero-Petition-Book-3rd-Edition.pdf

Also available from Lulu Publishing: http://www.lulu.com/shop/marianne-karth/the-vision-zero-petition/paperback/product-22648853.html

Also, read these Vision Zero Rulemaking posts: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero-rulemaking/

We have not received any feedback from the White House or from the Department of Transportation in response to our petition. Therefore, we are proceeding to call upon experts in law to research this timely topic and write law review articles to shed light on the appropriateness of our requests to re-shape the process through which this country’s citizens are meant to be protected.

It is our hope that students of the law, as well as law professors, judges, and legal practitioners, will take it upon themselves to clarify the process by which safety measures – which are proven to save lives and/or prevent serious injuries – are determined to be cost effective or not, and what exactly that means. We will compile the results (or links to published articles) and make them publicly available.

This Call for Research & Review is available as a pdf: Request for Law Reviews on Cost Benefit Analysis in Rulemaking

Please send questions and submissions to:
Marianne Karth
marianne@annaleahmary.com.

2 crash deaths

CBA Victim Cost Benefit Analysis Victim

We will accept reviews at any time but encourage law students to incorporate this project into their university schedule. Please share this post with others whom you think would be interested in this opportunity to change the face of traffic safety rulemaking.

Current NHTSA #Underride Rulemaking (Cost/Benefit Analysis): Summary of Public Comments

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

I originally set out to highlight comments relative to the flaws in NHTSA cost/benefit analysis. While the document which I put together does that, it actually has much more as it has a link to each of the Public Comments on the currrent underride rulemaking — with some of the highlights copied and pasted from the Federal Register.

It is an incomplete document and could have been done better but it took forever as it is and I hope that it will prove useful to someone.

These are the links to the rulemaking documents themselves:

Here is the Summary Document of the Public Comments: Summary of Public Comments on Underride Rulemaking.

UPDATED, July 22, 2016. Here is the above document revised with links that are clickable! Cost Benefit Public Comments on Underride Rulemaking

If only

Instead of like this:

IMG_4465

UMTRI Reviews Opposition to Proposed & Proven Truck Underride Prevention Measures

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Back in 1989, the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute examined features proposed for improving truck safety. In other words, they reviewed NHTSA underride rulemaking from years past.

What they discovered was that a proposed underride rule in 1977 was opposed by practically “the entire trucking industry – both manufacturers and haulers.” The authors of this study noted “that failure to implement a rule on underride guards took place despite extensive research indicating their expected effectiveness.”

Like they still do today, the industry tried to turn “the discussion around by stating that underride avoidance should be looking at other measures”–ones that they would not be required to implement. “In particular it called for improving and modifying auto front ends to increase their energy absorbing capacity ‘. . . and protect them when they strike bridges, trees, other cars, and other objects, as well as trucks.'”

Today they are still raising the same sort of objections to improving underride protection:

“The trucking industry and manufacturers are not sure stricter federal regulations are needed – especially since many are voluntarily using tougher underride guards.

‘Underride guards are helpful in reducing the impact of cars crashing into trucks. We would however much prefer to see NHTSA focus on providing automobiles with the capability of preventing cars crashing into trucks,’ said Ted Scott, director of engineering for the American Trucking Associations, Inc. ‘Crash or collision avoidance technology can go a long [ways] in helping to eliminate rear end crashes. Educating automobile drivers on how to share the road with a truck is also very helpful in reducing rear end collisions.’ 

Today, I was discussing that article with my husband. Jerry commented that the Tesla underride crash clearly causes that argument to go out the window. A car with the most advanced collision avoidance technology still could not avoid a deadly side underride.

Note: I appreciate the progress made in underride prevention by at least 4 major trailer manufacturers. And I appreciate the involvement in our Underride Roundtable by many members of the trucking industry. Ted Scott was the first one to say that he would participate in one when it was still just an idea in my head and is also participating in the follow-up efforts to reach a unified consensus recommendation to NHTSA.

But that does not mean that I will stop seeking further action (even when it requires standing firm against controversy) when so much more can be done to save lives.

17hxmi

17hxhyTruck Underride Kills

SIGN  & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition:  End Preventable Crash Fatalities: Appoint a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman

Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2015 Show a 7.7% Increase to 35,200 Deaths

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

Does a 7.7% hike in crash deaths indicate a problem–requiring a solution? Or is it just me?

A statistical projection of traffic fatalities for 2015 shows that an estimated 35,200 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. This represents an increase of about 7.7 percent as compared to the 32,675 fatalities that were reported to have occurred in 2014, as shown in Table 1. From NHTSA: Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2015

This page shows the change in crashes by region of the country and crash/person type:  Crash Stats by REGION and CRASH TYPE_ Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities in 2015

Charts on that page show that truck crash fatalities have gone up by 4%, pedestrian fatalities by 10%, and fatal crashes involving young drivers by 10%.

What more will it take to convince us that traffic safety needs to be a priority and that potential crash victims (you and I) need a strong voice to advocate on their behalf?

17hou5

Why on earth am I asking for another government-funded worker — a National Traffic Safety Ombudsman? And whatever would that person do anyway? Read more here:

SIGN  & SHARE the TRAFFIC SAFETY OMBUDSMAN Petition:  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/384/321/600/end-preventable-crash-fatalities-appoint-a-national-traffic-safety-ombudsman/

2,200 more people died from traffic crashes than in 2014? 2,200 more families struggling with unimaginable grief?