Proving that underride protection can save lives is not enough to convince federal regulators that underride mandates should be issued. The regulatory process requires that a rule be cost effective. There are many factors which should go into a cost benefit analysis equation. Unfortunately, we are aware of a multitude of flaws in this process and that includes excluding certain categories of underride victims:
- Vulnerable Road Users (pedestrians, motorcyclists, and bicyclists) were not included in the 2023 Side Impact Guard ANPRM (See Senior Agency Officials Suppressed Side Guard Research — Impacting Regulatory Analysis);
- victims of crashes where the posted speed limit is above 40 mph (not taking into account Delta-V forces in collisions);
- victims of crashes which involve multiple vehicles (NHTSA only includes two-vehicle crashes in their regulatory analysis!);
- as well as overestimating the weight of guards, not counting the fuel savings of side guards installed in conjunction with side skirts, or ignoring the cost to industry of lawsuits for preventable fatalities.
Another problem is the undercounting of underride fatalities, as we have previously documented, Joshua Brown/Tesla Side Underride Crash Coded as “No Underride” in FARS Data, and as described by Safety Research Strategies, GAO Concludes Underride is Underreported, Duh. In fact, very few states even have a checkbox for underride on their official state crash report form, as reported by the Institute for Safer Trucking in 2022:
A Georgia 11Alive investigative report continues to address that problem and is watching to see whether Georgia will add an underride checkbox to their state crash report form, Georgia looks to police to decide whether to start tracking deadly underride crashes:
This report, published on December 10, 2025, follows up on a previous report published in April 2025:
