Progress has been made in reducing underride deaths. But we’re not done yet; we’ve got a lot more work to do.
For example, seven trailer manufacturers are installing stronger rear underride guards as Standard on all new trailers. However, two trailer manufacturers, who have also designed a stronger rear underride guard, are merely offering it as an Option and are, in fact, still selling tens of thousands of new trailers every year with a too-weak rear underride guard — putting road users at risk of Death By Underride.
Not only that, despite the availability of Rear Impact Guard (RIG) retrofit solutions, millions of trailers on the road still pose a known unreasonable risk. It certainly doesn’t help that NHTSA recently issued a new RIG Rule but failed to require that these safety devices meet a technically feasible level of strength proven possible by nine manufacturers.
RIG Retrofit Crash Test In January 2020, Aaron Kiefer crash tested a reinforced trailer with a 2012 Chevy Impala at 38 mph. This test illustrated that bolt on reinforcements can prevent deadly underride and passenger compartment intrusion (PCI)
Not only have we lost two daughters due to a weak rear underride guard, but we continue to see countless loved ones lost to other families in a similar way. Senseless deaths. Solutions are available — developed by innovative engineers but too often left on the shelf while people continue to die.
I get Google Alert notifications of truck crashes every day. Here are the rear underride fatalities which I have found in the last few months:
Anyone, who observes a rear underride guard in an obvious state of disrepair, can report it to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) via their online National Consumer Complaint Database. Make note of the name of the trucking company. If possible, memorize its DOT# and get a photo of the guard. Then follow these step-by-step instructions for reporting this truck safety hazard as soon as possible:
Here are some examples of rear underride guards in disrepair — a condition which weakens their ability to stop a car from riding under the truck in the event of a collision:
Millions of trucks on the road have rear underride guards which are already too weak to prevent deadly underride. When they are not properly maintained, their strength is reduced even further.
See the DIFFERENCE:IIHS crash tests of weak & stronger rear underride guards
As of December 9, 2021, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is requiring that trucking companies monitor the condition of the rear underride guards on the back of their trailers. Truck drivers should look over this safety equipment when they do a pre-trip inspection. If this Rear Impact Guard has not been properly maintained, the trucking company and the truck driver could receive violations with fines attached at the time of annual vehicle inspection due to a Final Rule published by the FMCSA.
If a truck fails the inspection, the violation could cost a motor carrier a maximum of $15,876 and a truck driver $3,969. This could lead to the replacement of many rear underride guards — hopefully, with guards that meet the TOUGHGuard level of strength proven possible by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and now on many new trailers.
Motorists who notice guards in questionable condition can help to make sure that this important regulation gets enforced by using this tool to report them to the U.S. Department of Transportation:
Let’s hope that trucking companies and truck drivers will take responsibility themselves to properly maintain this safety equipment and even go so far as to replace outdated equipment with the stronger retrofit kits which are available thanks to innovative engineers — at a cost less than that of fines!
Last evening, I received some amazing news! Utility Trailer Manufacturing has announced that their improved Rear Impact Guard (RIG) will be offered at a discount.
Utility “is pleased to announce its dry vans, refrigerated vans and flatbeds produced after 2002 can be retrofitted with Utility’s standard 7” deep horizontal Interstate Commerce Commission (I.C.C.) bumper. . .
“Utility strongly recommends their 7” deep horizontal bumper for horizontal bumper replacement on new or older Utility trailer models that were built after 2002 in order to exceed all rear trailer guard safety regulations. Utility will discount the new bumpers as an incentive to replace the old bumpers with the new upgraded 7” deep bumper. . .
We are hopeful that this bold move will pave the way for all trailer manufacturers to follow suit. These retrofit kits will be available to replace not only damaged RIGs but the RIGs on millions of trailers on the road today which have rear underride guards which are TOO WEAK to stop underride all across the back of the trailer.
This just goes to show you that, by working together, we can STOP underrides. I’m hoping that 2021 will bring significant progress in underride protection!
Engineering ingenuity and a lot of hard work went into the research, development, and installation of this fully-guarded trailer system. This week, a small carrier in North Carolina became part of our pilot program. We are thankful that they have agreed to provide us feedback on this #SaferTruck as they drive it on the road to carry out their transport business.
What does fully-guarded mean? It means that every part of the trailer — at the rear and both sides — is covered by equipment which has been installed to prevent a car (or pedestrian, biker, or motorcyclist) from going under the trailer in the event of a collision.
After seeing the latest segment of the WUSA9 Underride Investigative Series by Eric Flack, Teresa Woodard at WFAA in Dallas interviewed Rebekah Karth Chojnacki on January 22, 2020. Here’s the result of that interview:
According to a WUSA9 Investigative Report on Underride, court documents show, “As a direct, legal, and proximate result of Utility Trailer’s negligence, Plaintiffs’ decedent Riley Hein LOST A CHANCE AT A BETTER OUTCOME when instead of simply colliding with the semitrailer, his car became trapped underneath the semitrailer, resulting in a fire and directly leading to his death.”
That’s what the #STOPunderrides Bill is all about! If passed, this legislation will give motorists and vulnerable road users A CHANCE AT A BETTER OUTCOME when they have the misfortune of colliding with a truck. Effective underride protection will prevent underride and enable the car’s crashworthy safety features, like the crumple zone, airbags, and seat belt tensioners, to do their job and protect the car’s occupants from deadly injuries.
This includes not only SIDE underrides but also those collisions that occur at the FRONT and the REAR of trucks. A few weeks ago, I obtained a FARS data report from NHTSA (DOT) for “reported” underride deaths during 1994-2017. It clearly shows that the number of reported underride deaths did not significantly decrease after a federal standard for rear underride guards was implemented in 1998.
Apparently, neither NHTSA nor the trucking industry bothered to make it a priority to look at those statistics and ask some hard but important questions, “Why are people continuing to die under trucks?” and “What can we do about it?”
In fact, just the opposite apparently occurred as evidenced by court documents which reveal that the trucking industry deliberately acted to protect themselves from being forced to add underride protection to their trucks. The TTMA (Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association) did not do this alone; the ATA(American Trucking Associations) played their part as well.
The question is: Where do we go from here? Congress, I’d say that the ball is definitely in your court.
June 29 marked the 50th anniversary of Jayne Mansfield’s death by underride. The world knew in 1967 — if it didn’t know it before — about the terrible geometric mismatch between a car and a truck which allowed a car to ride under a truck upon collision.
In those 50 years, how many technological problems have we solved? And yet why have we been unable to solve the problem of truck underride and stem the tide of preventable, horrific, and senseless underride tragedies?
Sure we have made some headway — six trailer manufacturers have upgraded their rear underride guards and there are promising side guard solutions with one of them recently tested by the IIHS. Some manufacturers even have retrofit kits available to replace weak rear guards on existing trailers.
Yet it is well known that more could be done, but hasn’t. And why is that? Why have we been so slow to solve this problem? There are many reasons which could be cited. But the facts are the facts. People are still dying (or suffering catastrophic injuries) at an alarming rate from underride and we are seemingly content to let it continue or address it at a snail’s pace.
Not me. I am not content to take it slow and easy — not when the result is that more people will die because we didn’t act sooner. When we could have.
Take front underride or override for example. Front underride protection is one of the components we are asking for in the Roya, AnnaLeah & Mary Comprehensive Underride Protection Act of 2017 (RAMCUP). People are dying due to lack of adequate front underride protection — just like they are on the sides and rear of trucks.
In Europe, they have requirements to protect against this. Not in the U.S. So what are we waiting for? Well, that’s a good question.
Do we wait until we can reinvent the wheel here and figure it out for ourselves with years of research? Or do we speed up the process by learning from others and encouraging collaboration among relevant stakeholders?
Do we include it in the congressional mandate to the Department of Transportation and ask them to figure it out sooner rather than later? Or do we ask them to solve the side guard problem now and then later on, down the road at some unspecified time in the future, we’ll address the need for front protection?
Well, Lois Durso and I took the bull by the horn and said: We’re sick & tired of waiting. People are dying from underride no matter what part of the truck they are unfortunate enough to collide with. We need to solve every kind of underride problem and we are going to include it all in one big comprehensive piece of legislation. Because it is needed. Because it is long-overdue.
Don’t re-invent the wheel; establish a formal Committee On Underride Protection (COUP) to oversee the development of recommendations for NHTSA underride regulations.
See the history of underride rulemaking as compiled by IIHS and displayed at the first Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016, held at the IIHS Vehicle Research Center:
(d) UNDERRIDE PROTECTION ON THE FRONT OF LARGE TRUCKS Include front override protection in conformance with the following specifications:
(1) An EU requirement was introduced in 2000 based on ECE Regulation
93 requiring mandatory rigid front underrun protection defining a rigid
front underrun protection system for trucks with a gross weight over 3.5
tonnes Directive 2000/40/EEC. Studies performed by EEVC WG 14 have
shown that passenger cars can ‘survive’ a frontal truck collision with a
relative speed of 75 km/h if the truck is equipped with an energy absorbing underrun protection system. Furthermore, these systems could reduce
about 1,176 deaths and 23,660 seriously injured car occupants in Europe
per year. Research shows that the benefits of a mandatory specification for
energy absorbing front underrun protection would exceed the costs, even if
the safety effect of these measures was as low as 5%. European
Commission; Front Underrun Protection Systems [Note: 75 kmh = 46.6028
mph]
(2) Front guards must have 3 levels of resistance; soft front for pedestrians
and cyclists, middle area must be softer than the partner vehicle in crashes
and able to absorb energy such as through crush, and rear area must be
strong and stiff enough to resist underride and rotate high-speed vehicles
away from the truck. Extend the front guard from the truck 600 mm (2 feet) to
give room for a 500 mm (1.6 feet) radius curve to deflect crash partners
including VRU and cars. The extra 600 mm should give 102 km/h or (63 mph)
of protection which would exceed a general goal of 60 mph (100 km/h) — an
average speed for highway crashes in the real world.
(3) NHTSA shall immediately issue an RFP to identify the appropriate
requirements for a front underrun protection standard.
Don’t you think that enough is enough?! Let’s make it a priority to tackle the whole underride problem post haste! If we don’t (knowing what we now know), then who should we hold responsible for the thousands of people who will most surely die from preventable underride?
No compromise. Too many have already paid the price for 50 years of compromise.
