Congress needs to wake up and understand that NHTSA has not responded to underride safety recommendations or petitions from NTSB or IIHS for decades. More recommendations from the GAO is not likely to do the trick. We have three branches of government for a reason, and part of the role of Congress is to say: do this or do that.
In this case, NHTSA has acted like a willful child who is going to do whatever they want.
- Congress needs to take the bull by the horn and give NHTSA a clear-cut assignment: Proceed with comprehensive underride rulemaking in order to end preventable truck underride.
- And this assignment needs to have specific deadlines so that NHTSA will not hem & haw and dawdle (slow as molasses) at the expense of countless underride victims.
- Congress needs to make sure that NHTSA will be held accountable and collaborate with others to make the best use of the resources available.
Guess what. All of that will be accomplished when Congress passes the STOP Underrides! Act. A clear assignment with deadlines and a Committee On Underride Protection to facilitate timely and effective rulemaking.
It’s going to take “an act of Congress” to end underride once and for all.
GAO Concludes Underride is Underreported, Duh, Safety Research & Strategies, Inc.
Karth Cliff Notes on the GAO Truck Underride Report
See the photo of a horrific rear underride crash in North Carolina on April 17, 2019
Underride Death Count May Be Too Low, IIHS Status Report, July 11, 1992: SR death count too low
