Members of the trucking industry have expressed concern about potential operational issues which might occur with long-term use of the AngelWing side guards. Last week, we received an email with feedback from Glen Berry, COO of Thomas Transport Delivery, Inc., a transport company which installed the AngelWing side guards, in August 2017, on one of their trailers which goes back and forth between Ohio and Texas every week.
Marianne/Andy,
As requested…We now have 305,000 miles of Angel Wing use. There has not been a single issue with the structural integrity of the trailer since its installation. My initial concerns, of the Angel Wing System making the trailer frame rails excessively rigid, have dissipated. Because of the bracing structures design characteristics being very stout, to serve their purpose of course, I was worried they may cause frame rail stress, resulting in cracks or other compromises. This has not been the case. Again, I have had zero issues. I am very happy to inform everyone involved…The Angel Wing Test has been an outstanding safety project to be a part of.
Thank you.
Glen Berry
Update on January 28, 2021: Here is an August 12, 2020 Public Comment to NHTSA related to operational & cost issues of underride protection.
Here’s another happy owner of an AngelWing side guard system:
Here’s a crash test of a car into the side of a flatbed trailer at 47.2 mph:
Regarding cost of production of AngelWing: Not all 11 million trailers would require side or rear guards based on their height relative to the ground, and many trailers are wheels-back trailers (see page below). And using a $2,900 price for a single aftermarket guard is clearly not where the price would end up. If a 13,000 lb trailer sells for no more than $30k or $2.3/lb then a side guard is gonna end up an absolute max of $1,300, but likely way less due to its simplicity relative the rest of the trailer. I have designs and costs estimates from trailer makers showing it would be far less. (Perry Ponder, email, 9/18/2019)
AngelWing installed on a flatbed trailer:
Strick Trailers was motivated briefly to design side guards for their trailers after the Maravilla verdict back in ’00. Anyway this 700ish pound side guard was estimated to cost them $328 materials and labor to make at that time. A straight inflation conversion takes that to $450 in 2019 dollars… (Perry Ponder, email, 9/18/2019)
Remember the UVW study about length of trailer, wheelbase length and the height of trailer’s lower edge. It showed that a trailer would have to be much lower than the AW makes it to hang up on in-spec RR crossings and driveway transitions (see diagram below from that study). But the RR crossing argument is another red herring. Google “semi trailer hits overpass” and you’ll see more instances of the height of a trailer causing problems than low trailers at RR crossings…is anyone in the industry arguing for lowered trailer roofs? (Perry Ponder, email, 10/16/18)
Backing a trailer with the SafetySkirt side guard across a raised median:
Update on January 28, 2021: August 12, 2020 Public Comment to NHTSA related to operational & cost issues of underride protection.
Are you aware that AngelWing was successfully tested when a mid-size car was crashed into the side of a tractor trailer at both 35 and 40 MPH at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety with no Passenger Compartment Intrusion?
Are you aware that DOT administrators were invited to view crash testing of side guards less than a mile from the D.C. DOT Offices on March 26, 2019? (at least one FMCSA official attended)
Are you aware that AngelWing has been in commercial use for over 8 years?
Are you aware that AngelWing has over 800,000 miles in commercial use on the U.S. highways?
Are you aware that AngelWing has been durability tested?
Are you aware that AngelWing has shown no operational issues (such as loading docks and railroad crossings)?
Are you aware that AngelWing has shown no stress or damage on the trailer frame?
Are you aware that AngelWing is being commercially used and one route is from Cleveland, Ohio to San Antonio, Texas round trip every week over 3,000 miles per week without any issues — since August 2017?
Are you aware that AngelWing and a side skirt increase MPG for a tractor trailer?
What is DOT going to do about deadly truck underride? That is the question.
On February 27, 2020, at an Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing on DOT’s 2021 Budget Request, Congressman David Price (D-NC) asked Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao about DOT’s plans to address the GAO truck underride recommendations. Here’s her reply:
“We actually just talked about this just yesterday. So this is a priority. We understand it. We do have a timeline & we want to get that to you.” @SecElaineChao
I’m looking forward to seeing DOT’s timeline for addressing GAO Truck Underride Recommendations. I’m hoping that it will reflect a decision to make underride a priority. After all, rear underride regulations have not been updated since 1996, we’ve been waiting for DOT to act on side underride regulations for fifty-one years, and there’s been radio silence on front underride/override.
And it may well be more as underride deaths are vastly undercounted.
Underride can happen to anyone at any time anywhere.
Raleigh News&Observer reporter Richard Stradling attended our workshop on underride, Turning Tragedy Into Advocacy: Two moms on a mission to make truck crashes more survivable, at the North Carolina Vision Zero Traffic Safety Conference on August 6, 2019. It inspired him to investigate the underride issue and this week he published the result of his in-depth research:
I appreciate the time he took to present the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders and then go a step further. He provided a platform for counterargument, allowing us to question or challenge potentially misleading information so that the reader could be more fully informed and not left with the wrong impression.
In 2016, Aaron’s team conducted a full overlap rear crash test at approximately 35 mph closure. This test, which was conducted on a reinforced trailer that had already suffered significant rear collision damage. The lightly reinforced rear guard wasn’t able to prevent underride. (TrailerGuards.com)
Aaron’s team has continued to develop trailer underride guards. Recently, they crashed a reinforced trailer with a 2012 Chevy Impala at 38 mph and approximately 25% overlap. This test illustrated that bolt on reinforcements can prevent deadly underride and passenger compartment intrusion (PCI).
Video of Crash Test into a 2005 Vanguard Trailer with a reinforced rear underride guard at 38 mph on January 25, 2020:
Compare that to a crash test by IIHS of a Vanguard 2013 trailer with a weak rear underride guard at 35 mph — at 8:28 on this video:
Crash car after the 38 mph collision into the rear of a tractor trailer: No Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI) Hallelujah!!!
Compare that to the initial design of the Rear Reinforcement Attachments on March 12, 2016:
Now that we have proof that these lightweight aluminum plates can prevent deadly underride, should we simply encourage voluntary adoption of this life-saving safety solution? Or should we require every truck in the U.S. to install safety equipment which can meet that level of performance?
In other words, are we going to make it the law to install equipment which can prevent underride when passenger vehicles collide with the rear of large trucks?
1896 This patent for a side underride protective device for street cars was issued on July 14 1896 and cited by numerous more recent underride patents: http://www.google.com.pg/patents/US564027.
1913 A patent was issued in 1913 for a “Safety Device for Motor Vehicles” to provide underride protection for the sides of large trucks. https://www.google.com/patents/US1127241
Since that time, numerous patents have been published which refer to this 1913 patent (with the patent information organized in these columns: Citing Patent, Filing date, Publication date, Applicant, Title):
These can now be found in a post dedicated to listing UNDERRIDE GUARD PATENTS. To see this list, go here. (1/20/20)
1997 Study illustrates the discrepancies in The Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) underride fatality count when compared to the NHTSA database, highlighting that more people are dying from underride than are being recorded. INCIDE~1
2009 Patent filed for a “Side impact guard device for industrial vehicles, particularly trailers or semi-trailers”
Side impact guard device for industrial vehicles, particularly trailers or semi-trailers
2010 An evaluation of U.S. rear underride guards meeting federal requirements shows that these protections still allow for severe passenger vehicle underride, often resulting in serious or fatal injury. file:///C:/Users/LD46500/Downloads/22esv-000074.pdf
2012 Sapa Extrusions (inventor/engineer Malcolm Deighton) filed for a patent in 2012 for a “Semi trailer under-run protection device” which they later developed into a rear underride guard which was successfully crash tested on a trailer in April 2017. https://www.google.com/patents/USD703106
2015 NTSB recommends that regulators develop performance standards for side and front underride protection systems to improve highway vehicle crash compatibility with passenger vehicles. https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/mwl9_2015.aspx
2015 NHTSA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on: ANPRM Single Unit Trucks (withdrawn for not being cost effective) and NPRM improved rear underride guards (still in limbo as of 1/10/2020).
2015 Aaron Kiefer, crash reconstructionist and forensic engineer, was issued a patent for an innovative combination side & rear trailer underride protection system: https://www.google.com/patents/US9463759 Please see the numerous underride patents referred to in this patent.
2017IIHS TOUGHGuard Award Announced for improved rear underride guard design by trailer manufacturers, March 1, 2017
2017 IIHS tests side underride guards at 35 mph, and illustrates the dramatic impact side guards have in preventing serious injury and death. IIHS Announces Side Guard Crash Testing Results :
2019 FMCSA Volpe Transportation Center Study Final Report Completed by February 2019 but not available publicly (as of 1/10/2020). Goals include — Despite three decades of international experience, the operational, cost-benefit, and regulatory aspects of requiring truck side guards in the United States has not been studied. This research project addresses this gap. Five key tasks are included in this project: (1) study interaction of a potential side guard with other truck parts and accessories (e.g., fuel tanks, fire extinguisher, exhaust system) and the implications for a new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation; (2) investigate applicable international side guard standards; (3) perform a preliminary cost-benefit analysis of truck side guard deployment; (4) propose recommendations; and (5) propose means for voluntary adoption.: Study of Truck Side Guards to Reduce Pedestrian Fatalities
2020 Consensus Side Guard Standard developed by an Engineering Subcommittee in follow-up to an April 17, 2021 Zoom Side Guard Task Force Meeting. Consensus Side Guard Standard
2021Engineers, Trucking Industry, & Victim Advocates Collaborate at Side Guard Task Force On a Friday afternoon — February 26, 2021 — over 50 people met via Zoom to discuss comprehensive underride protection. The purpose of the meeting was to report on progress which has been made by several subcommittees since an earlier meeting in 2020 — including Industry Engagement, Research, and Engineering Subcommittees.
Examples of some of the thousands of underride crashes can be found at these two places online (neither of them being the least bit exhaustive compilations):
Crash testing is always unnerving: Will it work — successfully preventing underride and Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI)? Or will it fail — providing some useful information but sending the enthusiastic engineer back to the drawing board?
Either way, the adrenaline of anticipation followed by the jarring crash invariably leave me unsettled.
After seeing the latest segment of the WUSA9 Underride Investigative Series by Eric Flack, Teresa Woodard at WFAA in Dallas interviewed Rebekah Karth Chojnacki on January 22, 2020. Here’s the result of that interview:
WUSA9 interviewed OOIDA (Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association) about the STOP Underrides Bill. Watch the latest segment of their truck underride investigative series in which OOIDA publicly committed themselves to supporting strengthening rear underride guard standards.
That’s great news. They’ve apparently seen the value of making truck crashes more survivable when cars rear-end trucks. However, it is puzzling to hear them, at the same time, oppose side guard technology which can also prevent people from dying under trucks — in this case, at the sides.
OOIDA said all the research – and crash tests like the one staged last year, just blocks from Capitol Hill, to draw attention to the fight for new underride safety requirements – doesn’t convince their organization side guards will be worth the investment.
“My last semi-trailer was $42,000 just with that trailer,” Pugh said. “So now we’re looking at upping the price another $2,000 to $3,000. That’s hard for a little guy to eat. That’s hard for a big guy to eat. There’s not that much profit in this business and if you want me to buy this technology and buy into this technology, you’re going to need to show me it works.” Lewie Pugh, executive vice president of the Owner-Operated Independent Truck Driver Association or OOIDA, which represents more than 160,000 members nationwide.
Pugh wants more government (read that taxpayer) funded side guard research:
Pugh says that means real-world testing. Prototypes, paid for by the government, studied by a federal agency like the Department of Transportation for effectiveness.
Perhaps he’s unaware of the side guard study conducted by Texas A&M on a contract from NHTSA (with taxpayer money) published in April 2018.
Is he aware of the untold number of hours put in by researchers and engineers to study and solve the underride problem over the past five decades? Here it is in a nutshell: History of Underride Research & Reports: 1896 to 2019
Maybe he doesn’t realize that the AngelWing side guard — successfully tested by the IIHS at 35 and 40 mph and by its inventor at 47.2 mph — has been installed on multiple trucks for several years and traveled thousands of miles without operational issues.
What exactly wouldconvince him that underride protection on the sides of large trucks — promised by DOT on March 19, 1969 — can truly mean the difference between life and death? Or that they are not “too costly”?
There are major developments in the fight to require lifesaving equipment on big rigs driving next to you on the road. Safety advocates say it could help prevent devastating crashes known as underride accidents.
One of the nation’s largest trucking groups now says it is open to some of the proposed requirements. But the question remains if the industry’s concessions will go far enough for the families of accident victims.
Wonderful news! WUSA9 interviewed OOIDA (Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association) about the STOP Underrides Bill. Watch the latest segment of the WUSA9 truck underride investigative series in which OOIDA publicly committed themselves to supporting a mandate to strengthen rear underride guard standards.
