Great Dane Trailer Crash Test at IIHS; Receives Toughguard Award For Improved Rear Underride Guard

Truck Safety, , , ,

I have seen quite a few underride guard crash tests in the last two years. It’s not something I ever planned to do and it is never easy.  Some of them ended in severe underride and it always shakes me up at how quickly life can change forever. In a matter of seconds.

The crash test I viewed at IIHS on January 19, 2017, was particularly hard to watch. It was a test of Great Dane’s newly designed rear underride guard. A Great Dane trailer was what our Crown Vic collided with on May 4, 2013 — with tragic results.

Demonstration of Improvement in Rear Underride Guard; Great Dane Trailers Crash Test at IIHS, January 19, 2017:

They have proven that creative minds can come up with better underride protection. The cars are damaged from the crash, but underride and Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI) are prevented. Lives are preserved.

Here is a Youtube video, posted by Cars-Trucks TV, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the improved rear underride guards designed by five of the major trailer manufacturers — Great Dane, Manac, Stoughton, Vanguard, and Wabash — from 2013 to 2017. They received a Toughguard award from IIHS — as announced on March 1, 2017.

Last year, about this time, I posted this: March Historically a Momentous Month for Truck Underride Safety Advocacy; Beware the Ides of March!

Here is an excerpt:  It is my fervent hope that, when March 2017 rolls around, we will be celebrating a vastly improved federal standard–enthusiastically and immediately adopted by the trucking industry–for all-around-the-truck underride protection at higher speeds, including now-exempt single unit trucks as well as retrofitted to existing trucks and trailers.

If this seems like a costly venture, try comparing it to the price paid by thousands upon thousands of individuals and families during the past decades of ineffective underride protection–added to the countless precious people who will be saved in the years to come from tragic, preventable death by underride.

We aren’t finished yet, but we have come a long ways!

Crash Test Videos of Semi Trailers Earning New IIHS Toughguard Award

Truck Safety, , , , ,
Here is a Youtube video, posted by Cars-Trucks TV, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the improved rear underride guards designed by five of the major trailer manufacturers — Great Dane, Manac, Stoughton, Vanguard, and Wabash — from 2013 to 2017. They received a Toughguard award from IIHS.
 

They have proven that creative minds can come up with better underride protection. The cars are damaged from the crash, but underride is prevented and lives are preserved.

 

Stoughton Offers Retrofit Kit For New Rear Impact Guard

Truck Safety, , , ,

I just received an email from Stoughton Trailers’ Product Brand Manager.  She has begun advertising their new rear impact guard Retrofit Kit (at about $500-$600) and is already getting inquiries.

http://www.stoughtontrailers.com/parts-sales/news/id/64/retrofit-rear-underride-guard

Think of the lives which could be saved by this! It has brought tears to my eyes.

IIHS Presents Toughguard Award to 5 Trailer Manufacturers For Voluntary Upgrade of Rear Underride Guard

Truck Safety, , ,

On March 1, 2017, IIHS announced a new award, Toughguard, given to trailer manufacturers which have passed the IIHS rear underride guard crash testing:

Five North American semitrailer manufacturers earn the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s new TOUGHGUARD award recognizing rear underride guards that are designed to prevent a range of deadly underride crashes. Semitrailers from Great Dane LLC, Manac Inc., Stoughton Trailers LLC, Vanguard National Trailer Corp. and Wabash National Corp. earn the accolade. IIHS recognizes semitrailers with good underride guards

Other articles covering this story:

  1. Trucks.com article: Insurance Institute Launches New Safety Ranking of Truck Trailers
  2. Today’s Trucking article on the Stoughton Press Conference: Activist applauds Stoughton for tougher guards
  3. Trucknews.com: Stoughton improves rear impact guard
  4. Fleetowner.com: New refrigerated model on the way from Stoughton Trailers
  5. Truckinginfo.com: Stoughton Underride Guard Earns Kudos from Crash Survivor, Insurance Institute

Thank you, IIHS for your commitment to this crash testing project, which has highlighted the continuing underride problem and guided the way to a solution. Thank you, as well, to the trailer manufacturers who have voluntarily improved the rear underride protection on the trailers which they produce and sell (and/or lease).

2 Moms Collaborate With Innovative & Insightful Truck Industry Leaders

Truck Safety, , , , ,

After two full days of attending the ATA’s Technology & Maintenance Council conference in Nashville, I am having a hard time figuring out what to talk about first.

It has been very good to spend that time with Lois Durso, a mom who also lost a daughter to truck (side) underride. We first began talking on the phone a couple of weeks ago and planned to meet at the conference. Having a bond of similar grief, we have talked almost non-stop — both about our daughters as well as strategies for truck safety.

In fact, we were both guests of Stoughton Trailers at the conference and they asked me to share our family’s crash story and the safety advocacy which followed, as well as our appreciation of how Stoughton stepped up and voluntarily improved their rear impact guard and are able to offer it as standard on all new dry van trailers — at no added cost or weight penalty to their customers.

Gary Fenton, VP Engineering, Stoughton Trailers, Marianne Karth, Bob Wahlin, CEO Stoughton Trailers

I received a wonderful surprise this morning when I unexpectedly found out that Stoughton now has a rear impact guard (RIG) retrofit kit available for purchase to install as a replacement on all existing (compatible) Stoughton trailers, as far back as 2007. I talked with the Products manager and she roughly estimated the cost to trailer owners to be around $500-600.

I am not indicating that Stoughton’s new RIG is necessarily better than any of the other manufacturers who have also stepped up to the plate and designed rear guards to receive the Toughguard award. But I am commending them for making the safety of the driving public a priority.  In fact, I do not have specific crash test information to rate one new design compared to the others.  At the end of the day, Jerry and I are thankful to the many persons and companies which have helped to bring about this progress in underride protection.

We will continue to advocate for the strongest possible underride protection on all trucks. That, of course, includes side underride protection, which Lois and I discussed with many industry leaders this week. It also means that Single Unit Trucks still need to be addressed, along with front override, retrofitting, maintenance, and identifying the outer limits of underride protection.

We are not done yet. They haven’t seen the last of us. We’ve got more lives to save.

Lois Durso, Dick Giromini, CEO of Wabash Trailers, Marianne Karth

Stay tuned for news from IIHS on trailer manufacturer underride protection awards.

Update: IIHS announcement at 10 a.m. on March 1; Trucks.com article: Insurance Institute Launches New Safety Ranking of Truck Trailers

Other articles covering this story:

  1. Trucks.com article: Insurance Institute Launches New Safety Ranking of Truck Trailers
  2. Today’s Trucking article on the Stoughton Press Conference: Activist applauds Stoughton for tougher guards
  3. Trucknews.com: Stoughton improves rear impact guard
  4. Fleetowner.com: New refrigerated model on the way from Stoughton Trailers
  5. Truckinginfo.com: Stoughton Underride Guard Earns Kudos from Crash Survivor, Insurance Institute

Thank you, IIHS for your commitment to this crash testing project, which has highlighted the continuing underride problem and guided the way to a solution. Thank you, as well, to the trailer manufacturers who have voluntarily improved the rear underride protection on the trailers which they produce and sell (and/or lease).

Here is a Youtube video, of IIHS crash testing research, which shows improvement in the rear underride guards of major trailer manufacturers.

They have proven that creative minds can come up with better underride protection. The cars are damaged from the crash, but underride is prevented and lives are preserved.

Good Week for Working on Traffic Safety Solutions: ATA/TMC in Nashville & Road to Zero Coalition in DC

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety

I will be on the road this week pushing for safer roads — first at the American Trucking Associations annual Technology & Maintenance Council Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, starting tomorrow. Then on Wednesday I will be in DC for a Road to Zero Coalition meeting, as well as other opportunities to discuss traffic safety issues.

Still working on trying to get an additional meeting set up. . .

I’m armed with photos of my girls and plenty of information on how we can make the roads safer — not sure that they are ready for me!

Side Guard Petition Comment Uncovers Yet One More Family Devastated by Preventable Side Underride

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,

I just noticed a comment on the Side Guard Petition from signer #1537:

My dad, Richard Yancoskie, died January 28th 2015, in an underride accident, although the driver was ultimately at fault side guards would have saved my dad’s life. . .34 mph at the point of impact and also no airbags ever deployed because we have been told the sensors were above the point of impact, I have contacted several government agencies about the importance of implementing side guard rails but have yet to be successful. . . please feel free to contact me. I want to help any way I can.

I am sorry to hear of her family’s loss and yet one more life cut too short. I hope to get in touch with her and am quite sure that she will be able to lend a hand in the effort to end preventable side underride deaths.

Join over 9,000 signers of the Side Guard Petition:  http://www.thepetitionsite.com/251/762/472/end-deadly-side-underride-crashes-mandate-side-guards-on-large-trucks/

Ongoing Controversy Over Speed Limits & Speed Limiters on Trucks

Truck Safety,

My previous post on this issue, August 28, 2016: Speed Limiters: The Controversy of Speed Differentials Between Trucks & Cars

More recent news on the issue since that post: 

NATIONAL SPEED FATALITY MAP HIGHLIGHTS TRAGIC LOSSES

When is it acceptable to give up the quest to end preventable crash deaths?

Truck Safety, , ,

I posted recently about the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association letter to NBC News about their investigative report on side guards in a recent Today Show.

NBC News Updates Article on Today Show Side Underride Report

Here is a comment on that post from a friend, Michelle Novak, who lost her nephew, Chuck Novak, due to a truck crash:

The Truck Trailer Manufacturing Association appears to have been upset over the report by NBC on the lack of under-ride guards on semi trailers in the US–though they are standardized in Europe.

They complain that the ones produced here up to now, are “technical and commercial failures.”

They also include quite the protest as to their political contributions–specifying that they’ve made none–regarding side- and rear-guards. That seems as though they protest too much.

The question Marianne Karth rightly raises: does the fact that there hasn’t been a successful one created yet– by an industry that maintains a lack of financial or political incentive to create one–mean the problem can’t ever be solved?

We all know the answer: and Marianne Karth and her family have been spending a heck of a lot of time and effort bringing together people and ideas to create prototypes which even this association can’t avoid forever.

This shouldn’t be the job of a surviving victim, who was injured in the crash that took two of her daughters.

But the letter from the Trailer Manufacturers should give you an idea of why it’s fallen to a victim who has dedicated her life to creating something very do-able for large corporations.

If they had incentive, that is. And killing people isn’t incentive enough.

If you’d like to help Marianne get this done, and help save pedestrians, babies in strollers, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and cars pushed under trailers by other cars, or those who run under for any number of reasons, click on her site. She’s got a lot of great information and updates on the progress on here.  https://www.facebook.com/michellem.novak.7/posts/343570059376617

Note: I recently viewed another crash test and the engineers who worked on the rear guard design mentioned that this successful design was #66 in a series of tries at “getting it right.”

What if they had given up after one, ten, forty, or sixty-five attempts?

NBC News Updates Article on Today Show Side Underride Report

Truck Safety, , , , , , , ,

NBC News received a letter from the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association about the Today Show investigative report on Side Underride. After further investigation, NBC News added this to their article on the report:

Update and correction: After the publication of our story, we received a letter from the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association (TTMA), which argues that our report overstated the simplicity of the side guard fix and that prototypes have been technical and commercial failures. TTMA made the same argument to NHTSA in a letter we referenced in our report, which you can read here. They also told us that TTMA has not made any political donations to lawmakers on the issue of side underrides, including to Senator Thune. In response to other points made by TTMA, we have updated our online report with TTMA’s response that guards in Europe are focused on protecting bicyclists and pedestrians, not automobiles and that NTSB said injuries and deaths “could” be reduced by side guards, instead of “would.” We also have updated campaign finance data, broken out donations from the trucking sector of the transportation industry, and corrected the period during which those donations were made.

I previously wrote about the TTMA’s May 13, 2016 letter to NHTSA about side guards. Read it here.

Despite the TTMA’s objections to the report, the fact remains that almost as many people die from side underride crashes each year as from rear underride crashes. And, furthermore, I have seen with my own eyes the difference that side guards can make in stopping deadly underride.

Will we let the technical and commercial failures of side guard prototypes in the past stop us from keeping at the task of solving this problem? I thank God for people like Aaron Kiefer and Perry Ponder who have kept at it until they successfully proved what human ingenuity could do to save lives.

Note:  In fact, Europe’s side guard standards are designed to protect pedestrians and cyclists — which the U.S. should do, too! But Europe does not require the prevention of cars from underriding trucks. I have been in communication with a global automotive regulation specialist, and I hope that what happens here in the U.S. will have a ripple effect globally.