Tag Archives: Rear Reinforcement Attachment

Crash Tests of Rear Underride Guard Reinforcement Attachments, 2016 & 2020

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In 2016, Aaron’s team conducted a full overlap rear crash test at approximately 35 mph closure.  This test, which was conducted on a reinforced trailer that had already suffered significant rear collision damage.  The lightly reinforced rear guard wasn’t able to prevent underride.  (TrailerGuards.com) 

Aaron’s team has continued to develop trailer underride guards.  Recently, they crashed a reinforced trailer with a 2012 Chevy Impala at 38 mph and approximately 25% overlap.  This test illustrated that bolt on reinforcements can prevent deadly underride and passenger compartment intrusion (PCI).   

Video of Crash Test into a 2005 Vanguard Trailer with a reinforced rear underride guard at 38 mph on January 25, 2020:

Compare that to a crash test by IIHS of a Vanguard 2013 trailer with a weak rear underride guard at 35 mph — at 8:28 on this video:

Crash car after the 38 mph collision into the rear of a tractor trailer: No Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI) Hallelujah!!!

Compare that to the initial design of the Rear Reinforcement Attachments on March 12, 2016:

Now that we have proof that these lightweight aluminum plates can prevent deadly underride, should we simply encourage voluntary adoption of this life-saving safety solution? Or should we require every truck in the U.S. to install safety equipment which can meet that level of performance?

In other words, are we going to make it the law to install equipment which can prevent underride when passenger vehicles collide with the rear of large trucks?

8-year-old boy killed in crash involving pickup, tractor-trailer in Lubbock County

1 person dies after pickup truck crashes into delivery truck on Taylorsville Road

Va. family grieves after man killed in Thanksgiving underride crash

Ready For Crash Testing

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

Crash testing is always unnerving: Will it work — successfully preventing underride and Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI)? Or will it fail — providing some useful information but sending the enthusiastic engineer back to the drawing board?

Either way, the adrenaline of anticipation followed by the jarring crash invariably leave me unsettled.

Rear Reinforcement Attachment: an aluminum device installed at outer edges of a trailer’s rear underride guard to strengthen it

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Aaron Kiefer readies his Rear Reinforcement Attachment, an aluminum device installed at the outer edges of a trailer’s rear underride guard to strengthen it — preventing underride to make truck crashes more survivable & save lives.

Making plans for an upcoming crash test in North Carolina. Stay tuned as we work hard to #STOPunderrides!

Why is this needed? See the difference between a weak and strong rear underride guard:

SafetySkirt Inventor Developing Rear Reinforcement Attachment to Strengthen Rear Underride Guards on Trucks

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

Eight major trailer manufacturers have designed stronger rear underride guards to withstand a crash test at 35 mph all the way across the back of the trailer — earning them the TOUGHGuard Award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS). This is significant because their previous designs — though meeting the current federal standard for rear guards — have been proven too weak and ineffective by IIHS.

There are about 300,000 new trailers sold every year. Some manufacturers are selling the stronger guard as Standard on all new trailers. Others are selling it as an Option, meaning that trailers may still be sold with guards known to be too weak to stop cars and save lives.

In addition, if we don’t retrofit the existing 11 million+ trailers with stronger guards — which will meet the TOUGHGuard criteria (plus side and rear underride protection) — it will be years before the entire fleet will be safer to drive around.

Fortunately, some of the trailer manufacturers have a retrofit kit for the rear guards, so that a trucking company could theoretically purchase kits to make their trucks safer. However, without a mandate to do so, I don’t imagine that will happen too quickly.

But I am encouraged by the work of Aaron Kiefer, a North Carolina crash reconstructionist who has seen so many underride tragedies that he decided to design some solutions on his own — primarily out of his own pocket and on his own time, with the support of his family who share their husband and dad with his life-saving project.

Just this weekend, Aaron installed the latest version of his Rear Reinforcement Attachment to a 53 foot trailer. Over the last five years, Aaron has been developing a design for two aluminum triangles, which are fastened to both sides of the trailer and then attached to both ends of the existing rear underride guard.

The latest version installed on September 15, 2019.

This reinforces the strength of the rear guard — improving its capability to stop a car and prevent underride. But it, also, serves as the point of attachment for Aaron’s side guard invention, the SafetySkirt — polyester webbing which can be combined with a side skirt to both save fuel and save lives.

A previous version of the Rear Reinforcement Attachment and SafetySkirt system.

You can see the SafetySkirt being tested at the D.C. Underride Crash Test Event on March 26, 2019:

We are looking forward to the day when Aaron’s SafetySkirt System can be tested at IIHS to prove its usefulness as an affordable, lightweight solution, which could theoretically be available as an option to retrofit any truck on the road with effective side and rear underride protection.

Aaron, like Perry Ponder who invented the AngelWing side guard, and countless other engineers, who should be given a green light to solve the underride problem, are amazing members of my Underride Hero Hall of Fame — along with my husband Jerry who has contributed a wealth of ideas in this underride advocacy journey.