We are grateful that Wabash has taken the initiative to improve rear underride protection on the trailers which they manufacture, as seen on their website: RIG-16 REAR UNDERRIDE GUARD SYSTEM
RIG-16 REAR UNDERRIDE GUARD SYSTEM
For the past three years, Wabash National has spent considerable time, capital and facility resources in R&D specifically focused on enhancing rear impact guard performance. As part of these efforts, we conducted numerous crash tests, and consulted and worked with some of the premiere testing facilities in the country. The new RIG-16 system is designed to:
Prevent vehicle underride in multiple offset impact scenarios
Better absorb and deflect vehicle impact at any point along the bumper
Exceed U.S. (FMVSS) and Canadian (CMVSS) requirements
Key Design Features
To achieve our performance objectives, our engineering and product development teams incorporated a number of design enhancements that are engineered to work together, as a system, to better absorb energy and deflect impact.
Engineered a bolt-on, integrated rear impact guard system that better absorbs and deflects impact energy
Added two vertical bumper legs to the design for a total of four
Placed the outer vertical bumper legs closer to the sides of the trailer
Constructed the bumper legs and tube of a higher-strength steel
Hot-dip galvanized the assembly
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0258951 and other patents pending
The following is a post on The Underride Network by Stephen Hadley who lost his wife in a side underride crash twenty years ago. He expressed his concern about side underride protection and about how Bill Clinton’s Executive Order 12866 has made it difficult to pass effective government agency rules.
Two life-long best friends each had little sisters that were also life-long friends. I and my best friend were riding in the back seat of a drivers education car when we crashed into someone’s front yard. My best friend’s big brother married the little sister driving that car, a few years later, she died underneath the side of a truck trailer. My wife Tamara Hadley, the other little sister died underneath the rear of an illegally parked truck trailer with a Clinton rear underride guard. President Bill Clinton updated Ronald Reagan’s Executive orders establishing cost-benefit analysis with Executive Order 12866. These orders limiting corporate costs of safety regulations have made it almost impossible to pass effective government agency rules for over twenty years. . .
. . . NHTSA wants to just legalize the guards already on the road as did the Clinton Administration twenty years ago. Studies could not find statistical improvement in lives saved by these guards. We estimate at least 6,000 extra Americans died because the administration blocked better guards that had been tested at higher speeds. We call these rear guards of the last twenty years the Clinton guillotine guards. If the new regulation by the Obama Administration is approved as presented to just legalize existing guards, they will now be known as Obama guillotine guards. . . . . . We have fought for Vision Zero regulatory safeguards to replace Clinton cost-benefit rules for twenty years to save thousands of lives. Destroying the meaning of Vision Zero and the meaning of side guards will cripple our efforts for national rules and regulations. Cost-benefit analysis has killed tens of thousands of Americans and given us corporate control of our government and portions of our economy. . . Total truck related fatalities in 2013 were 3,964, 338 were pedestrians and 78 were bicyclists or about 10.5% were vulnerable road users. 585 or 15% of total fatal crashes were to the side of the truck in cars in 2013. Most fatal victims die in crashes to the front of the truck. If we design side skirts that only save vulnerable road users we will only save a small percentage of victims leaving most victims including many children to die in car crashes. Many of my friends lost their children in these crashes. . . Vision Zero means stop killing the children! Even those unworthy souls in cars too! Work with us to save lives, not against us. Over a million Americans have been killed and injured in crashes with trucks. A bad law in America can kill tens or hundreds of thousands overseas as our regulations are copied or not exceeded around the globe. Easily, the Clinton guards in the last twenty years killed a hundred thousand extra souls around the world which would have been saved with available stronger rear guards.
In our efforts to not only improve regulatory federal standards on underride guards but, also, to catalyze voluntary industry improvement, we heard back from several companies to whom we had written, including:
UPS in Atlanta (Dan)
CR England (Chad England)
Extra Mile Transportation (Brent)
J.B. Hunt (GreerWoodruff, Lowell, AK
UPS (buys from Great Dane)
FedEx
Chad England committed his company to looking into the matter seriously. (CR England) And Dean Engelage (Great Dane) invited Jerry and I to visit their Research & Design Center in Savannah in June 2014:
Jerry,
We’re looking forward to hosting you and your wife next week. I thought we would start the day off with an 8:30 am breakfast at a local favorite, J. Christopher’s which is near the hotel 122 E Liberty Street. Brandie Fuller, our VP of Marketing, will join us. Parking for the restaurant is street-side at a meter.
We’ll then head to the Great Dane office which is also close by. A series of meetings and a tour of our R&D lab followed by lunch. If all goes as planned we should be finished right after lunch.
I look forward to meeting you both and safe travels to Savannah. If you have any questions, please email me or call me.
I am in receipt of your letter and packet dated 17 Feb 14.
First, let me offer you my most sincere condolences on the loss of your beautiful daughters. I have a daughter who is two months shy of her 18th birthday, so I do not even want to imagine the heartache associated with this tragedy. I can only offer you my most sincere respect in working to turn such a tragedy into something good.
Extra Mile Transportation is a non-asset based, third party freight broker. That means that we don’t own any equipment, we contract out for everything we move. However, we are in a position to exert some influence on this matter. By copy of this email, I am requesting our Director of Logistical Solutions incorporate this awareness campaign into some of his efforts. I will be meeting with him to go over this issue and we’ll see what impact we may have.
I wish you only the best for the times you share with your other children and hope that your memories of Mary and AnnaLeah continue to have a positive impact on our safety.
All in all, we are hopeful that the combination of calling for both more appropriate regulations through Vision Zero rulemaking and, at the same time, voluntary action will yield the desired result–SAVED LIVES. Together, we can do this!
The Public Comment Period closed on February 16, but not all of the submitted comments have been posted yet. The proposed rear underride rule can be seen here along with all of the posted comments: NPRM Upgrade Underide
On the question of whether used trailers should be retrofitted in order to make them safer (better able to protect against deadly underride crashes), here is an opinion from one person who recently submitted a public comment. . .
Decision not to require used trailers to be retrofitted (end of Section 7, page 32):
“You state that your analysis indicates such a retrofitting requirement would be very costly without sufficient safety benefits. If more lives would be saved and more injuries would be prevented by requiring new trailers to meet the new standards, then logic dictates that more lives would be saved and more injuries would be prevented by requiring used trailers to be retrofitted.
“Indeed, the crash tests cited for new trailers of different manufacturers tested on a Chevy Malibu suggest substantial disparities. It can be expected that the disparities would be magnified if tests were conducted on some of the used equipment in the nation’s fleet. If it is not worth the cost to retrofit an old trailer (in which case it should be scrapped), that should be the decision of its owner rather than the decision of NHTSA.” See more of his comments here: Comment from D. J. Young, III
Jerry was pleasantly surprised tonight by a phone call from Greer Woodruff, Vice President of Safety & Security at J.B. Hunt. J. B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. is a trucking and transportation company that was founded by Johnnie Bryan Hunt, and based in the Northwest Arkansas city of Lowell.
Greer was calling to let Jerry know that Wabash National, a trailer manufacturer, had redesigned their rear underride guard to provide better protection at the outer edges of the guard. And he also wanted us to know that J.B. Hunt was the first to purchase the new trailers–having ordered 4,000 of them in January.
But then Greer went on to say that he had wanted to be sure and tell us about it and thank us for the letters, which Jerry wrote to J.B. Hunt–along with the major trailer manufacturers and many other trailer buyers, back in 2014 before we launched our first petition. Those letters, he said, had raised their awareness about the underride problem and spurred them on to talk to the trailer manufacturers about producing safer trailers.
That brought a smile to Jerry’s face.
We look forward to finding out more details about its design features and what level of protection it provides. Also, we hope to see additional attention given to side and front underride protection and retrofitting existing trailers as well.
Meanwhile, we are encouraged to see that progress is being made in moving toward the best possible protection with both voluntary and regulatory action. The Vision Zero Petition Book has arrived!
First set of letters which Jerry sent to trailer buyers in February 2014 (a variation of this went to trailer manufacturers):
One of the letters which went out to trailer manufacturers in February 2014:
A second set of letters went out in March 2014 to clarify our role/position:
Another letter went out asking for support to our petition request for stronger underride guards:
And then Jerry sent a follow-up letter in the fall of 2014, including with it copies of the IIHS Status Reports which had articles on underride guards:
IIHS Status Reports with articles on underride guards, which we included with the letters to the trucking companies:
Finally, after setting up our non-profit, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, in the summer of 2015, we wrote to all of the truck companies again–asking for their help to voluntarily find safer underride guard designs:
Also, sometime after our letter writing, we were discussing our efforts with JohnLannen at the Truck Safety Coalition. He asked for our list and said, “Thanks – I’ll follow up with Greer since I know him well. What reaction did you get?”
In our efforts to not only improve regulatory federal standards on underride guards but, also, to catalyze voluntary industry improvement, we heard back from several other companies to whom we had written, including:
Photo Album of Jerry and his girls: With Dad. . . Family Man Jerry prays for his children every morning (lifting them before their heavenly Father/Abba). He is proud of them, teases them, enjoys spending time with them, and treasures each of his special children.
Jerry shares our story at the Fall 2015 Sorrow to Strength conference in DC hosted by the Truck Safety Coalition:
On May 5, 2014, we delivered 11,000 AnnaLeah & Mary Stand Up for Truck Safety petition envelopes to DOT in Washington, DC.
This time around, thanks to Jerry’s brainstorm, we are delivering the petitions in a bound copy ofThe Vision Zero Petition Book. All of the first 16, 516 signatures (and any comments which they made) will be in the book, along with the letters to President Obama and Secretary Foxx and a whole lot of other information which I compiled to spell out how we are asking them to implement our Vision Zero petition requests–creatively arranged by Isaac.
Two weeks from today, on March 4, we will be delivering the book to DOT and to various legislators as well as dropping off a copy at The White House. In addition, Care2 will be printing a binder with all of the signatures–up to printing time–and get it to us on February 29; we will take that along to deliver to DOT.
Five boxes of the book arrived today! Excited to see what will come about!
Should we be concerned that NHTSA is leaning toward accepting voluntary standards to be written by the automotive industry regarding automatic braking systems for cars rather than developing federal standards?
Safety advocates are raising concerns about this:
The technology automatically applies brakes to prevent or mitigate collisions, rather than waiting for the driver to act. It’s the most important safety technology available today that’s not already required in cars.
Such systems should be standard in all new cars, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But instead of mandating it, the government is trying to work out a voluntary agreement with automakers in hopes of getting it in cars more quickly.
But safety advocates say voluntary agreements aren’t enforceable and are likely to contain weaker standards and longer timelines than if the government had issued rules. Safety groups want braking mandate
Voluntary industry standards, in any industry, have the reputation of often being weak standards. They are enforceable only through publicity and public awareness, not by government action. The level of such voluntary standards, set by industry committees with limited public participation, can be that demanded by the weakest company, the one with the tightest profit margins. Voluntary standards are ‘consensus’ standards, based on agreement of all industry participants. In dealing with the lives and safety of so many people, safety standards, are, and were then, matters not of consensus but of public importance. (Lemov, p. 94) Congress, Please give NHTSA the authority & resources to do their job and keep us safe on the road!
I’m all for getting safety solutions implemented as quickly as possible. But what is the most realistic and comprehensive means of getting this accomplished in a way that will have far-reaching and enforceable results? That’s what I want to know.
Ted Scott, from the American Trucking Association, just emailed me with the news about the new rear underride guard design announced yesterday by Wabash (a trailer manufacturer).
The new rear impact guard is constructed of advanced high-strength steel. Its patent-pending design features two additional vertical posts and a longer, reinforced bumper tube, all of which are engineered to work together to absorb energy better and deflect rear impact at any point along the bumper. In addition, the new guard is fully galvanized to resist corrosion.Wabash Debuts Rear Impact Guard Design for its Dry Van Trailers
Thank you, Wabash, for your commitment to safer trucks.
“Our work on the rear impact guard, and trailer performance in general, isn’t finished,” added Giromini. “Innovation is ongoing at Wabash National. We’re continually looking at ways to optimize total performance through engineering and the use of advanced materials in ways that make sense for our customers.”
I hope that means that they will also be looking at side guard and retrofitting solutions as well.
And thank you, J.B. Hunt, for already ordering 4,000 new trailers with the improved underride protection to put on our roads.
The question was brought to my attention as to whether truck side guards, if they were strong enough to prevent passenger vehicle underride (i.e., probable death or severe injury), would be more harmful to pedestrians and cyclists (Vulnerable Road Users–VRU).
I didn’t know. So I asked the experts with whom I am acquainted, and this is what I found out:
Hi MarianneWell-designed rear, side, front underride protection on trucks, will not make it more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists, but potentially make it safer for peds and cyclists.
Adjunct Assoc. Professor George Rechnitzer, Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Web: http://www.tars.unsw.edu.au/
The other feedback, which I received from a crash reconstructionist friend who sees the aftermath of lots of crashes firsthand, was more short and to the point: “I think that stronger side skirts will save lives no matter what vehicle is in play. Would you, as a cyclist, rather bump your head on a resilient skirt (or a flexible one like mine for that matter) or slide underneath a trailer and end up looking like a pancake?”
Goodness, I sure hope that we can help shed light on issues such as these at the Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016. Delays resulting from endless debate and/or stalling on problem-solving has already led to too many needless and preventable deaths.
