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 means there are either fatal front override crashes or “near misses” 96 times/day, 672 times/week, 2,912 times/month, and 34,944 times/year!
In May 2017, Jerry and I were invited to the National Safety Council’s annual Green Cross Safety Banquet in San Diego. During the banquet, I sat next to a safety manager from United Airlines. She said that it is United’s policy to count and study “near misses” and consider what is learned from them when developing safety strategies.
In fact, these truck/car rear-end collisions should be considered “Underride Near Misses” and included in the cost/benefit analysis formula for underride regulatory analysis. How might that change the outcome of the rulemaking and therefore the outcome of these kinds of collisions in the future?
Tell me why we would not want to have both Collision Avoidance Technologies and Front Underride Protection (FUP) on trucks in this country to decrease the risk of preventable underride injuries and deaths!!! Yet there is resistance and opposition to a FUP mandate in the U.S. — despite the fact that the NTSB has strongly recommended that NHTSA issue such a mandate and Europe has had a FUP regulatory standard since 1994.
By the way, I would still like to see the detailed formula which NHTSA has used to do underride rulemaking cost/benefit analysis. I’d like to make sure that it is relevant and accurate.
