It is to their credit that nine U.S. trailer manufacturers have improved their rear underride guard design to meet the IIHS TOUGHGuard standard and seven of them are putting it on all new trailers as Standard. What that means is that they have surpassed the current federal standard and have been crash tested to show that they are more likely to prevent underride and catastrophic Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI) — thereby more likely to save lives when passenger vehicles rear end tractor-trailers.
See the difference between a too weak and a stronger guard:
Read more here: Recognizing good rear underride protection
Unfortunately, that does not help underride victims who crash into older models with too weak rear underride guards. Until the entire fleet has this stronger protection, people will continue to die from an engineering problem that has already been solved.
Underride Crash Memorials (the tip of the iceberg)
Thankfully, there are retrofit solutions available. This is what I know:
- Great Dane Trailers has a retrofit solution.
- Stoughton Trailers has a retrofit kit.
- Utility Trailers aftermarket sells only the current production horizontal bumper as a replacement for any damaged Utility bumper.
- Vanguard Trailers and Manac Trailers have the improved guard available for sale.
- I don’t have information about retrofit options for the other trailer manufacturers.
- TrailerGuards offers a generic Rear Impact Guard (RIG) Retrofit out of aluminum which can be installed on most any model of trailer. See it crash tested here at 38 mph:
Note: When I called a local truck part company, the person with whom I talked knew nothing about improved rear guard retrofit parts. They were still selling the old model of generic horizontal bumper tubes. In other words, despite the availability of improved guards, many trucking companies are replacing damaged guards with the old model which can’t stop a car in an offset crash.
