If a picture is worth a thousand words, an underride crash test video is worth at least a million. Nothing is more convincing of the fact that underride protection can mean the difference between life and death. Well, nothing except viewing a crash test in person.
To that end, here is a sample of crash test videos which serve to document the technical effectiveness of underride protective devices — more startling when juxtaposed against crash tests with no underride protection or too-weak designs.
In case you need a reminder, these crash tests are not conducted merely to satisfy curiosity, but in an effort to bring an end to ongoing preventable, unimaginable underride tragedies.
NHTSA closed the Public Comment Period on the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) for side underride guards on July 20, 2023. NHTSA asked commenters to respond to these nine questions. Here’s where the comments are posted: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Side Underride Guards. To make it easier to read through the thousands of comments, I’m providing pdfs and/or links to many of them — although it’s not an exhaustive compilation.
The majority of comments (over 1,000) posted from June 16 through June 23 were from individuals and organizations which support the requests in the Public Comment from the League of American Bicyclists – calling for pedestrians and bicyclists to be included in the data for side guard regulatory analysis. (Motorcyclists are vulnerable to underride as well.)
According to the federal rulemaking process, the next step is for NHTSA (and that will include the Advisory Committee on Underride Protection)to begin reviewing and evaluating the comments which have been submitted from the public. Now is the time for the development of a recommendation to the Secretary of Transportation as to whether a side guard regulation would be cost effective.
In other words, now is the time to finally determine that safety is an acceptable cost of doing business and Death By Underride is an unacceptable, unreasonable, and preventable risk for all road users. At least, that’s what I think.
We know that the trucking industry has expressed concern about potential operational issues which could occur when side guards are installed on large trucks. In order to address those concerns, we asked several trucking companies to give us feedback about their experience after installing side guards on their tractor-trailers.
In November 2017, Lois Durso and I were privileged to meet the inventor of this design –Wabash engineer, Rod Ehrlich — along with his son Mark Ehrlich, who have been a vital part of this important research. Rod died in October 2018, after a long career of useful contributions to the trailer industry — including more than 60 patents, and most recently a side underride guard patent.
Wabash National continues their side underride protection R&D, as evidenced by a side underride guard patent filed on April 17, 2018, and issued on February 4, 2020. The prototype was introduced in a September 2017 commercial vehicle show in Atlanta.
“A side underride system configured to be coupled to a trailer may comprise a first skirt wall coupled to the trailer, positioned below a first side wall of the trailer, and extending along a first length of the trailer between a skirt wall front end and a skirt wall rear end and a cable system including a first cable coupled to the trailer, positioned below the first side wall, and extending along a second length of the trailer between a cable system front end and a cable system rear end, the skirt wall rear end being positioned forward of the cable system rear end.”https://patents.justia.com/patent/10549797
In fact, we were able to see a successful crash test of his design. As evidenced by Rod’s work, along with that of many other engineers, this country has the talent to bring about effective solutions to deadly underride. Unfortunately, the lack of a mandate is holding the trucking industry back from moving forward with tangible action to once and for all get it on the road.
Let’s grab the baton from Rod’s legacy. Surely we can put our heads together and reach the finish line in the long-standing pursuit of that elusive goal: underride protection on the sides of all large trucksso that we might save lives and prevent horrific injuries.
Lois Durso-Hawkins, Atlanta TMC Conference, March 2018 Wabash side impact guard prototype, March 2018, Atlanta TMC Conference
It’s time to provide the documentation to counteract unfounded fallacies and speculations about underride protection.
COMMON MISCONCEPTION: ” A European trailer maker saw trailer failures due to the increased rigidity in the trailer structure from added frame supports for side underride guards, TTMA reported. The trailers were less flexible when operated over uneven road surfaces or on surfaces that produced twisting forces, which led to the trailers becoming disabled during highway use, presenting safety risks to other motorists.” https://www.truckinginfo.com/340949/should-truck-trailers-have-side-underride-guards
RELATED FACTS: 1. ATA is referring to concerns about thekinds of damage experienced by owners of Krone trailers in Europe. A side guard developed by the Krone company in Europe had problems with causing cracks over time in the trailer floor. This has been pointed to by many in the industry as “proof” that no side guard can be designed which will not damage the trailer and cause other safety problems. Please take some time to review this deposition and an excerpt which includes questioning of a Krone representative.
2. You will find that although it was not a technical success, the company chose not to continue developing it due to economic reasons because safety was not their original motivation. At the time they were the only ones trying to stop cars from going under the side of trucks in Europe and they chose not to continue on that path. However, Mr. Sanders was not implying that it would have been impossible to make corrections had they tried.
3. Krone embarked upon a complete curtain-sided trailer redesign, which happened to have a low frame. Clearly the connections and the members weren’t designed/constructed adequately and they had problems. Mr. Sanders says that this experience is not indicative of what will happen when a side guard is added to an existing US-style box trailer.
4. It should be noted that Krone did not design a side guard to go on the side of a trailer, instead they designed a new type of trailer which had side underride protection. It was the trailer design which had technical problems — not a side guard which caused structural problems to an existing trailer design.
5. Also, it is my understanding, from the deposition, that Krone had a working relationship with Wabash Trailers in the U.S. at the time when they were working on the trailer which had a side guard on it. Although Krone made the decision not to continue development of side underride protection on their trailers, Wabash Trailers themselves did R&D work on side guards. In fact, they have showcased their prototype side guard at truck shows in the U.S. in 2017 and 2018. And they have a side guard patent issued in the U.S. on March 14, 2019.
UPDATE, June 19, 2023: Please note that we were able to have a Zoom discussion with the German engineer who designed the system used on the Krone trailers. Here the story from him: Global Underride Discussion.
RELATED FACTS: Attached below is a compilation of all railroad grade crossing accidents compiled by the Federal Railroad Administration for the past 5 years — compiled to address the supposed counter-safety “concerns” expressed by TTMA etc. like railroad hang-ups.
In the last five years for the population of trailers we currently have including the lowboys, car haulers, cattle haulers, beverage trailers, etc there have been ZERO fatalities coded as truck-trailer stuck on track.
Even if one were to assume a side guard at 18 inches high would create more hangups and accidents – and the standards on grade crossings say they won’t – it is just not a statistically frequent fatal or injurious event in comparison to side underrides. Maybe this is why the NTSB, the one responsible for investigating significant rail transport accidents, still recommended side guards for trailers.
RELATED FACTS: 1) Like any new technology, over time the technology will be improved upon and costs will decrease. 2) If reduced payload means more trucks are on the road (although a weight exemption has been entertained and not all trucks run full all the time), some people speculate that there will be more truck crashes as a result. I postulate that those crashes (because of the underride protection which will be on those trucks) will be more survivable and, thus, will not lead to an increase in fatalities. 3) Some say that if there are side guards, when cars collide with the side guard and are deflected, then there may be secondary collisions as a result. I say that any secondary collision will most probably be less deadly because the crashworthy safety features of the cars will be triggered and effective at protecting passengers — unlike what occurs in underride when the crumple zones, airbags, and seat belt tensioners are not able to function as intended. 4) Besides, if a car goes under the side of a truck and keeps going, as Joshua Brown’s Tesla did, it could also lead to secondary collisions.
A comment has been made that a side underride regulation would be putting the cart before the horse due to the limited amount of available alternatives. That brings up the question: If there is an engineering problem in an industry, should we look to the industry to see what they can do about it? Why on earth should they sit around waiting for someone else to solve it for them?! Sadly, that seems to have been the prevailing industry attitude since at least 1969.
Fortunately, in addition to Perry Ponder’s AngelWing side guard and Aaron Kiefer’s SafetySkirt, some trailer manufacturers have been working on development of side underride solutions. But, unfortunately, there has been little to no encouragement given to them by the federal government or other components of the trucking industry to move forward. And potential investors are hesitant to back innovations until they are assured that there is likely to be a market.
Aaron Kiefer is making plans to do a preliminary crash test of his innovative side/rear underride protection system – before taking it to the Underride Roundtable at the IIHS on May 5, 2016.
He has asked us to be on the lookout for two things which he needs for the crash test:
a used 53′ box trailer with its rear underride guard and its landing gear intact (not bent or rusted) and
an older model Chevy Malibu–from the year 2000 or younger.
If you have either one of those which you could donate (or sell for almost nothing) to make this important crash happen, please email me atmarianne@annaleahmary.com.
Here is more information about Aaron’s hard work to make trucks safer to be around:
Aaron plans on using the crash test results to refine his design and make it as effective as possible. Please spread the word about this need. Thank you.
Who loses when there is a truck underride crash? Well, of course, the smaller vehicle’s driver and/or passengers (and their loved ones) are the most obvious victims of a truck underride crash. But does anyone else lose when an underride crash occurs?
How about the truck driver, who was not necessarily the one causing the crash but might lose some wages by being off the road in the aftermath? Or, how about the owner of the truck (trailer) who now has a damaged vehicle? Calling them victims makes sense.
But how about the company which manufactured the truck/trailer? Do they lose out on this deal? No. They are not impacted by a failed underride guard on a vehicle which they produce. However, I hope that that will not stop them from voluntarily jumping on the bandwagon and taking the lead to improve safety.
In fact, in 2014, we wrote to numerous companies in the trucking industry–asking them to voluntarily manufacture or purchase trucks with the safest possible underride protection. We are getting ready to send another letter out to them–letting them know what is happening in underride research efforts, which makes this a manageable request.
Some trailer manufacturing companies have been voluntarily taking steps to improve their underride guards. IIHS reports on their progress in this October 2014 Status Report: http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4907.pdf
For more information on what is happening around the globe to improve underride standards, especially side underride guards, see this article by Andy Young, a truck driver/owner/attorney and chair of the American Association for Justice Truck Litigation Group’s Underride Committee (that’s a mouthful!):
I hope to see a future where the trucking industry goes beyond compliance and voluntarily leads the way to providing the best possible protection by means of more effective underride prevention systems–rear, side, and frontal–on all applicable vehicles.
My daughter just set up a Twitter account for me (@MaryandAnnaLeah), so yesterday I tweeted this: SIDE Underride Guards in Canada & US. A Solution to Save Lives. Not yet required: http://tinyurl.com/lgnddkx #trucksafety#underrrideguards
Today, I was going to talk about how I wanted to make sure that I was not giving the impression that my advocacy efforts were fueled by vengeance or unforgiveness. In fact, the passion behind my relentless pleas for change are based on the growing awareness and belief that an alarming number of deaths have occurred, and continue to occur, due to what are largely-preventable truck crashes—for any of a long list of possible reasons.
Well, there I did talk about it, didn’t I—but only because I do not want to be misunderstood and because I want to make you equally aware.
And now I want to talk about side underride guards, which I am just beginning to learn more about because our crash was a rear underride and that is mainly what I have been focused on. Thankfully, NHTSA has initiated the rulemaking on rear underride guards but our request for them to require side underride guards–which very few trucks have– is still under consideration.
