Tag Archives: NHTSA

In Memory of Colene Ruhl (September 16, 2025)

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, Underride Crash Map, , , , , , , ,

A woman in a motorized wheelchair was hit and killed Tuesday afternoon in Winter Springs, a spokesperson for the city told WESH 2. . .

Officials said they found the woman lying in the roadway, “deceased from what appeared to be injuries suffered from being struck by a semi-tractor-trailer.”

The woman was on the sidewalk when a semi heading east on SR-434 was attempting to make a right turn on Belle Avenue.

As the semi began to turn right onto Belle, the woman started to cross Belle and was hit by the trailer of the turning semi, thrown from the wheelchair and killed, officials said. Woman thrown from wheelchair, killed after being hit by semi making turn in Winter Springs

Colene Ruhl, Precious One Gone Too Soon

Because the bottom of a truck is higher than the bumper of passenger vehicles, when there is a collision the smaller vehicle easily slides under the truck and the first point of impact is the windshield. Seatbelts, airbags, and car crumple zones do not function as intended in underride crashes —front, side, and rear — leaving passenger vehicle occupants vulnerable to life-threatening injuries. This is also true for Vulnerable Road Users, such as pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and wheelchair users, who can suffer catastrophic injuries when they collide with the unguarded side of a large truck.

Note: In order to raise awareness and preserve the memories of underride victims — precious ones gone too soon — I have been writing memorial posts on what could potentially be underride crashes. I am not a crash reconstructionist, and I do not have all the facts on these crashes; but underride should be investigated as a potential factor in truck crash injuries and deaths. See Underride Crash Memorials posted here and at #STOPunderrides Tweets. To add photos or more information on this story or to add other underride crashes to be remembered, send an email to underridemap@gmail.com.

Find out more about Vulnerable Road Users and preventable underride tragedies:

Critique of NHTSA-Contracted Elemance Rear Impact Guard Research

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , , , , ,

Secretary Duffy,

The Department of Transportation (DOT) engaged Elemance LLC in 2022 to evaluate three current designs of rear impact guards. Unfortunately, Elemance conducted Finite Element analysis of two obsolete rear underride guards that were not current designs at the time of the contract. In fact, both of those designs had been proven a decade earlier to be crash-deficient. The two manufacturers — Great Dane and Wabash — have developed designs with safer, stronger rear-guard designs. Elemance compounded that error by employing an erroneous definition of Passenger Compartment Intrusion. Elemance’s research findings, Heavy-Truck Rear-Impact-Guard Finite Element Simulation and Analysis, are flawed and backwards-looking rather than helpful to the Department and Congress in evaluating current and future rear underride guard performance and regulatory standards.

Please find attached a detailed critique by engineers who are well-acquainted with the underride problem and solutions. This is what the engineers concluded about the NHTSA-contracted research:

In view of the defects in the Elemance report, a follow up study should be commissioned to evaluate examples of current state of the art rear impact guards that have been in service since 2016 and 2017 respectively. The study should utilize the correct definition of PCI and more accurately assess injury risk.

The Department should act promptly to address the flaws in this federal research in order to fulfill its mission to reduce roadway injuries and deaths.

Jerry and Marianne Karth

Note: This critique was submitted as a Public Comment on September 3, 2025, to the U.S. Department of Transportation in response to their Request for Comments on priorities for the 2026 Surface Transportation Reauthorization.

This video created by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety twelve years ago explains their Rear Impact Guard crash testing research and how the federal standard is failing to protect road users:

This video is a compilation of IIHS Rear Impact Guard crash tests with old and new guard designs for many of the major trailer manufacturers:

This video demonstrates the night & day difference between old and new designs by one manufacturer:

First-time Ever: NHTSA Nominee Questioned On Underride By Senator

Truck Safety, , , , , ,

For the first time in DOT’s history, a nominee for NHTSA Administrator was questioned in a hearing about the agency’s lack of progress in preventing underride deaths. Senator Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) questioned Jonathan Morrison about NHTSA’s failure to consider the benefit of preventing hundreds of pedestrian, bicyclist, and motorcyclist deaths in a pending rulemaking for side underride guards. 

According to a 2014 study by the National Transportation Safety Board, about 120 pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists are killed every year under the sides of tractor trailers. A side underride guard that blocks those vulnerable road users from falling under the tandem wheels of trailers would prevent their deaths.

But a pending NHTSA rulemaking on side underride guards neglected to count a single vulnerable road user’s death in the all-important cost-benefit analysis.

Senator Lujan: Another issue that I care about deeply is ensuring that trucks have side underride guards to prevent cars, pedestrians, and cyclists from being crushed underneath. . . . According to NHTSA, the cost of installing side underride guards exceeds the benefits. Unfortunately, to reach this estimate, NHTSA makes assumptions in their cost benefit analysis that excludes whole categories of preventable deaths of vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists.

Senator Lujan: I don’t understand that. If it’s going to be studied, it should be studied. And then an answer should result based on whatever the research is.

Senator Lujan: Yes, or no? Will you commit to counting pedestrians and bicyclists as preventable deaths for road users in the cost benefit analysis for any future rulemaking on side underride guards?

Jonathan Morrison: I will work with the economists within NHTSA to make sure that everything appropriate is being considered. I’m not familiar with that particular study.

Well, that would be refreshing. . . to have everything appropriate considered by the federal regulator whose mission it is to reduce roadway injuries and deaths. And that includes underride.

If pedestrian, bicyclist, and motorcyclist deaths had been included in the cost-benefit analysis as they should have been, the annual number of deaths side underride guards could prevent would have been estimated to be at least 137. Under those circumstances, the benefits of regulation would have outweighed or been equal to the costs, and the agency would have mandated side underride guards.

Here’s the clip from the hearing (1:02:02 in the video of the Senate Commerce hearing on July 16, 2025):

Senator Lujan questions NHTSA Administrator nominee Jonathan Morrison on underride

Risky Rigs: Thousands of people have died after their car slid under a tractor-trailer

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

How many underride investigative reports will it take to finally bring about government regulations and industry cooperation to end preventable death by underride? Tampa Bay 10 recently aired the results of their year-long underride investigation.

PART 1 – Risky Rigs: Thousands of people have died after their car slid under a tractor-trailer

PART 2 – Risky Rigs: Thousands of people have died after their car slid under a tractor-trailer

NHTSA’s Neglect of Underride Protection Deserves Congressional Oversight

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

CALL TO ACTION – November 2024

Tell Congress that you want them to exercise their oversight of the federal roadway safety agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Call the U.S. Congress Switchboard, (202) 224-3121, and ask for each of the following members of the Senate Commerce Committee. Tell them that you want them to hold an Underride Oversight Hearing in the 2024 lame duck session:

  • Senator Maria Cantwell
  • Senator Gary Peters
  • Senator Ted Cruz
  • Senator Todd Young

This video explains why an oversight hearing is vital: NHTSA’s Neglect of Underride Protection Deserves Congressional Oversight.

Please make these phone calls now. Thank you.

$462M Jury Verdict Over Rear Impact Guard Design

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , ,

For over 50 years, NHTSA has failed to require truck trailers to be equipped with underride guards that protect road users from death and injury. The industry has lobbied to keep it that way and tens of thousands of innocent people have lost their lives as a result. This week, a St. Louis jury made a trailer manufacturer pay a just price.

Why would the jury do so? Could it have been because Wabash continued to sell an inadequate rear impact guard as standard equipment — even though they have a safer option available — and because of the industry’s opposition and the government’s abandonment of public safety?

Justice has been served.

MEDIA COVERAGE

What Don’t They Want to See? DOT Declines to Send Observer to Underride Crash Test… AGAIN!

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , ,

“TEAM Underride,” a loosely-organized coalition of engineers, researchers, safety advocates, and families of underride victims have planned multiple underride crash tests, underride crash test events, and a vigil for underride victims. Two of those events were in D.C. — an D.C. Underride Crash Test Event on March 26, 2019 in the Audi Field parking lot one mile from DOT and an Underride Victim Vigil in September 2023 on the sidewalk in front of the DOT building on New Jersey Avenue in D.C.

Despite multiple communications inviting the Department of Transportation, and especially NHTSA who is responsible for underride rulemaking, to these events, less than a handful of department representatives have shown up. What’s with that? What don’t they want to see? What they should want to see is honest to goodness research being undertaken to solve the decades-old problem of Death By Underride — proof-positive that the ball is in their court to issue regulations which could end countless preventable tragedies.

I emailed multiple people at DOT on January 11, 2019 — inviting them to our March crash test. Then, on February 6, 2019, after Lois Durso and I had checked out the Audi Field parking lot and walked over to DOT from there, we hand delivered a stack of event flyers and asked that they be distributed. I was told, “We will make sure that the event flyers are distributed.” Only one person — from FMCSA, which is not primarily responsible for underride rulemaking — bothered to come. Two months isn’t enough notice to put it in their schedule (no travel approval necessary)?

On July 11, 2023, I sent an online scheduling request to the Office of the Secretary — hoping that Secretary Buttigieg could attend the August 3, 2023, Raleigh Underride Crash Test Event. I followed up with an email to the Office of the Secretary. On July 19, I received this reply:

Unfortunately, DOT will not be able to send a representative to the event in Raleigh. Our team is sorry this didn’t work out, but we’re grateful for your continued advocacy and safety work and look forward to continued collaboration.

This is what they would have seen — had they bothered to come: Underride Crash Tests – Unguarded Trailer vs Guarded Trailer

Raleigh Underride Crash Test Event, August 3, 2023

I received a reply on August 23, 2024, to my August 5 request for the Secretary — or someone from the Department — to come to the Raleigh Underride Crash Test Event on September 13, 2024. I understand that Secretary Buttigieg could not fit it into his schedule, but the response was rather disturbing — though not surprising:

Thank you very much for the follow-up. Unfortunately, DOT won’t be able to send a representative for this event. We’re very sorry it won’t work out this time, and we are sending our best for an impactful event next month.

It won’t work out this time?!

Here’s the event flyer for the crash testing event coming soon in Raleigh at the North Carolina State Highway Patrol training facility: Raleigh Underride Crash Test Event – SAVE THE DATE: September 13, 2024

Be there, or be square!

Industry Response to ACUP Report; Enough of the Bellyaching Already!

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , , , ,

There’s no shortage of industry complaints about the definition of consensus adopted by the NHTSA Advisory Committee on Underride Protection (ACUP) — a simple majority. There’s no mention, however, of the fact that NHTSA itself directed the committee to define it for themselves. Instead, ACUP minority members bellyache about how the safety advocates supposedly took over the reins of the committee and pushed their own agenda.

It should be no surprise that industry stakeholders supported ACUP research recommendations but opposed outright recommendations to proceed with underride protection rulemaking — a stance which they have clung to for 55+ years. So, when the majority passed motions to recommend underride guard mandates, the minority repeatedly attempted to overturn the consensus decision. In so doing, they invented a fake procedural issue, seemingly to divert attention from the real issue: dangerous trucks are killing hundreds of people every year and the industry is not voluntarily doing anything substantial to prevent the senseless spilling of blood.

The trucking voice also wants you to overlook the fact that there has already been decades of research done by engineers and researchers — sometimes suppressed and often ignored by industry and government. Some members of the trucking industry are also hoping that you won’t realize that they have already spent the last 55 years doing little to solve the underride problem themselves, while at the same time, doing everything that they can to discourage Congress and the federal safety agency from proactively issuing strong underride regulations.

These vocal opponents of commonsense safety measures would like you to think that underride guards aren’t really effective at preventing horrific injuries and unimaginable ways to die, that operational issues are insurmountable hurdles, and that there are not enough people dying from underride compared to the supposedly industry-ruining, economy shutting-down costs to justify moving forward with life-preserving action. In actuality, if they could get over their short-sighted, wrong-headed thinking, they might begin to understand that the industry could realize a Win/Win outcome if only they’d stop being so bull-headed.

Some industry members are calling the ACUP efforts divided and their Report a mess and doomed. I, of course, see it differently and detail my perspective at length in my Concurrence With Exceptions Comments for the ACUP Report.

The minority contingent apparently hopes that NHTSA will not act upon the majority recommendations. That, of course, would be no surprise. But what would be a welcome surprise is for ACUP members and trailer manufacturers to attend an upcoming Underride Crash Test Event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on September 13, 2024.

And beyond that, I’d be suitably gratified to welcome industry stakeholders to a roundtable discussion after observing the demonstration of underride protection at work to protect occupants of passenger vehicles, as well as pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. In order to increase involvement, we are considering the possibility of organizing this collaborative opportunity as a Zoom meeting.

Save the Date and plan to participate! Double dog dare you!

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NHTSA Defends Itself to Congress – Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , ,

Last week, I was surprised to learn that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration {NHTSA) had published a self-analysis of their progress — dated June 2024. NHTSA responded with an 8-page explanation to Congress after a federal advisory committee condemned the safety agency for 55 years of inaction on underride crash protection in a scathing 410-page report published last month.

The committee, called the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection (ACUP), was created by Congress in 2021, and established by a NHTSA charter in 2022, to assess NHTSA’s progress at advancing public safety and make recommendations to the Secretary of Transportation. The ACUP’s report documented a long history of agency reluctance to regulate the trucking industry’s safety practices, exposed allegations of misconduct by senior officials, and called for the reversal of recent rulemaking that the committee believed made “no substantial progress” to improving public safety. The report concluded, “[V]ery little has changed regarding side underride guard advancements in the last 50 years and no substantial progress has been made by DOT to prevent these horrific crash fatalities and injuries.”

All I can say is that NHTSA’s apologia to Congress is woefully inadequate. In a nutshell, “Woulda, coulda, shoulda.”* It further documents that the agency continues its disturbingly long history of inaction. Safety delayed is most certainly safety denied.

The ACUP report can be found here. NHTSA’s report can be found here.

* Put another way, “Spare me the useless & endless excuses!”

Press Release

Advisory Committee on Underride Protection Reports to Congress & DOT Secretary

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , , , , ,

On June 28, 2024, the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection (ACUP) completed a scathing critique of the Department of Transportation. In a 410-page report, it documented a long history of agency reluctance to regulate the trucking industry’s safety practices, exposed allegations of misconduct by senior officials, and called for the reversal of recent rulemaking that the committee believed made “no substantial progress” to improving public safety.

In its Biennial Report, commissioned by Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the committee contended that fatalities from underride crashes, in which large commercial trucks cause severe injuries to occupants of passenger vehicles, as well as pedestrians, bicyclists or motorcyclists, are largely preventable. But the committee found that, for over 50 years, the Department has not required manufacturers to install guards under the open sides of trailers, due to pressure from the industry.

The report exposed allegations from a whistleblower of serious misconduct. According to a former project manager at the Department in the agency that enforces rules for the trucking industry, senior Department officials in the Trump administration suppressed taxpayer-funded research into the cost-effectiveness of regulations requiring side guards on trucks. Trucking company lobbyists reportedly were angered by the research findings and pressed the Department to alter them. Officials in the Biden administration commenced a rulemaking process that ignored the key findings of the suppressed research. The report called upon the Biden administration to reverse course and start the rulemaking process over again, this time by counting the benefits it previously ignored. Advocates have asked the Inspector General to investigate.

Many of the ACUP’s critiques and recommendations were adopted over the objections of the trucking industry, which lacked the ability to veto the committee’s actions. They published their dissent in a minority report authored by the CEO of Utility Trailer Manufacturing Corporation, which recently was found negligent for the fiery death of a 16 year-old boy in a side underride crash. Utility’s share of the punitive damages was $18.9 million.

The committee, which was composed of engineers, emergency medical professionals, victims, safety advocates, law enforcement, and the trucking industry, sent its Report via NHTSA to Congress and the Secretary of Transportation on July 2, 2024. 

Below are links to the complete ACUP Biennial Report, the Majority Report, a Minority Report, and Appendices, including the statements of concurrence or dissent from ACUP members:

Other useful information to help you dig deeper into the work of the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection: