A trip to South Dakota by Lois Durso, to raise awareness of the truck underride problem at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, led to some media interviews in which both she and Senator John Thune talked about the STOP Underrides! Bill.

According to Senator Thune,

“Obviously, any safety accident or safety incident we’ll do everything we can to prevent it. The authority exists on the Department of Transportation to require that.” . . .

I’d like the opportunity to discuss with Senator Thune the fact that, if that is truly so, then moving the STOP Underrides! Bill to a vote would be a logical action for him to take to prevent underride tragedies.

I’d also like to discuss with the senator that the Department of Transportation may have the authority to require strong underride protection but, in over 50 years, they have not acted upon it to require side guards — even though they said that they intended to in March 1969. Furthermore, NHTSA has not acted upon that authority to adequately address the underride deaths and injuries which continue to occur year after year.

It seems to me that the three branches of the government were designed for the purpose of keeping each other in line and that the role of Congress includes making sure that the administrative branch is doing its job to protect the American people. ( To ensure the government is effective and citizens’ rights are protected)

“The cost that is associated with that obviously is a big issue,” Sen. Thune said. “And there are also, I think, as they look at these things, other safety issues come into play, as well. So, sometimes when you tweak one thing or fix one problem, you create others. .  “

I would like the opportunity to sit down at the table with Senator Thune and show him the facts about the negative financial impact of underride injuries and deaths upon the trucking industry. I would also like to discuss with him the tangible ways in which the passing of the STOP Underrides! Bill will lead to a win/win for both the industry and the vulnerable victims of underride violence.

Senator Thune is not the first to mention “unintended consequences.” It is a tired old argument that the trucking industry is always using and gets us nowhere. Frankly, I don’t think that it is productive to talk in generalities like that and refuse to engage in open and honest discussion about specifics. Just what safety issues is he talking about anyway, because he doesn’t spell them out? And really, what could be worse than dying at the scene like AnnaLeah who was crushed and died because she couldn’t breathe or Mary who had just about every bone in her face broken and suffered multiple strokes and head trauma so that she died a few days later?

The industry also frequently brings up issues like: Will the guards be so low that trucks will get caught on railroad tracks or in loading docks? Will they weaken the trailer structure? Will they negatively impact over the road travel? Will they last the life of the truck? I don’t know about the people who ask those kinds of questions, but I have talked to engineering experts to find out the answers to those questions; mostly they don’t think those concerns are valid and realize that, if issues do crop up, then they can be addressed with engineering ingenuity.

“I think as they evaluate and examine this proposal they’re trying to do it in a way that makes sense and find the right balance in terms of the path forward,” Sen. Thune said. . .

There is nothing that does not make sense about the STOP Underrides! Bill. Engineering experts were an integral part of developing the legislation. And the bill itself calls for the establishment of a Committee On Underride Protection to be part of the rulemaking process.

The right balance? What does that mean? Does that mean that we will continue to let the trucking industry off the hook from taking responsibility for deaths and injuries which occur from the dangerous design of truck bodies in relationship to a geometric mismatch with passenger vehicles? Does that mean that some people will have to continue to die from preventable Death By Underride to protect the profit of the trucking industry? Were my daughters’ lives not worth saving? How about yours or your loved ones? The industry has avoided paying anything for years. Shouldn’t they have to make up for lost time and finally pay the piper?

Senator Thune says there have not been any proposals that would cost the taxpayers. He says truckers would have to pay for the changes. http://www.ksfy.com/content/news/Two-women-are-traveling-across-the-state-to-raise-awareness-of-Underrides-490493581.html

Senator Thune is right that the bill does not require that money be added to the federal budget which would cause further debt to taxpayers. Although he says that truckers would have to pay for the changes, he doesn’t spell out exactly what that will mean or that an honest cost/benefit analysis will show that effective and comprehensive underride protection will, in the end, actually be to their financial benefit and it will help to preserve their careers and emotional well-being.

Of course, it will require an initial output of money but won’t those costs be passed along so that we all share in this? And, in all this talk of costs, no one has actually indicated what the costs will be compared to the overall revenue and profit of the industry.

What it gets down to is that Senator Thune, as the Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee to whom the bill has been referred, has the power to protect the traveling public and therefore the responsibility to act in a way that is in the best interest of the American people. It behooves him, therefore, to meet with those of us who understand every nuance of the underride issue. That is why Lois Durso and I have asked to meet with him to discuss this in depth.

He needs to know that the trucking industry has, for decades, neglected the known problem of deadly underride and refused to take appropriate action to aggressively address the issue. Clearly, they are not going to get it solved without intervention from the federal government.

There, the gauntlet has been thrown down — not to defeat Senator Thune or the trucking industry but to engage in productive and passionate dialogue which will help us to arrive more quickly at a resolution of this public health problem — together.

If Senator Thune is unwilling to take decisive action, then who should bear the responsibility for the people who continue to die as a result of this needless delay in passing the bill?