A 2010 report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended that front underride protection be installed on large trucks. This recommendation was based on their investigation of a 2009 crash in Miami, Oklahoma, in which a Volvo truck rode over three vehicles in succession. Ten people died.
NTSB Truck Underride Safety Recommendations to NHTSA
Here it is, ten years later, and NHTSA has not yet issued rulemaking for Front Underride Protection.
The European division of Volvo Trucks actually has manufactured Front Underride Protection (FUP) for years because there is a European FUP standard. Europe has recognized that front underride (or override) is an engineering problem and engineers love to solve problems:
After becoming enlightened about these FUP facts, we posed a question to a representative of the U.S. division of Volvo Trucks, who was on a Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Panel at a Road to Zero Coalition meeting on March 20, 2017, in D.C. We asked him whether Volvo would put FUP on U.S. trucks voluntarily or whether it would take a mandate. He said that it would take a mandate.
People die from underride collisions with the front of trucks, but a blind eye is being turned to the problem. What’s wrong with this picture?
Actually, the NTSB has made other underride recommendations as well to NHTSA, including:
- stronger rear underride guards on tractor-trailers
- side guards
- underride protection on single unit trucks (straight trucks) which are currently exempt for rear underride standards.
In other words, NTSB investigations have confirmed the importance of the comprehensive nature of the STOP Underrides! Bill because people are continuing to die from underride collisions with almost every part of trucks (and this includes pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists).
Update, Just found this out: Fred Andersky, director, customer solutions, controls with Bendix, said at the North American Commercial Vehicle show that every 15 minutes in the U.S., a large truck rear-ends a passenger car. https://www.trucknews.com/equipment/bendix-developing-next-gen-safety-systems/1003081127/
That’s 96 times/day, 672 times/week, 2,912 times/month, and 34,944 times/year!
So, tell me why we would not want to have Front Underride Protection (FUP) on trucks in this country!!!
