The Department of Transportation collects statistics from crash reports given to them by each state on fatalities each year. I requested a chart of those crash deaths related to truck underride since they began collecting that information.
Unfortunately, it does not contain a breakdown of rear vs side vs front collisions. Also, there is a column for Passenger “Compartment Intrusion Unknown.” Our crash was listed as this category in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). However, there clearly was intrusion into the passenger compartment where AnnaLeah and Mary were sitting.
It makes me wonder how many PCI crashes are underreported. These statistics are taken from the police crash reports and it would be helpful if all states were provided with, and required to use, a uniform report form in order to make reporting and research more efficient and effective.
Our particular crash was, of course, due to the failure (for whatever reason) of a truck driver to maintain lane and hitting our car so that we went backwards under another truck. I, and my son in the front seat with me, survived that crash. But, because the underride guard failed to do its intended job, Mary and AnnaLeah (in the backseat) experienced an untimely and unnatural end to their lives.
My question is: Should someone be held accountable for the failure of that federally-required piece of equipment which resulted in two deaths? Is the manufacturer liable to prevent someone from being killed when they collide with a truck? And, mind you, expecting them to do so would not be some pie-in-the-sky kind of expectation. It has been proven that protection is possible from much worse circumstances than are currently required.
Every time another layer of apparent deception is peeled away, I am incensed anew at what seems like betrayal. How many times have decisions been made over a span of decades that have deliberately blocked a strengthening of protection against truck underride? How many people have looked the other way? Surely this is not just a case of ignorance on the part of all persons involved.
The Judicial third branch of the government has provided little hope for ensuring that the truck/trailer manufacturer will be held responsible for the failure of their product, upon collision with it, to prevent horrible, unnecessary death. I was reminded of that unfortunate reality again, when we were in Washington to deliver the Vision Zero Petition, as the topic came up again related to our crash.
In fact, upon a simple search of the internet, I found this example of the difficulty of pinning liability upon the manufacturer:
Defendant . . . avers that despite the truth of these facts, it owed no duty to persons such as plaintiff’s decedent who crash into the rear of its trailers. . . . maintains that there is no duty to design, manufacture and sell a trailer which is “accident-proof” that is, able to protect “invaders” or “trespassers” who run into the trailer and later seek legal redress U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama – 816 F. Supp. 1525 (M.D. Ala. 1993) March 26, 1993.
What?! So there you have it. At least some manufacturers are willing to fight for their right to avoid ethical responsibility for designing their product to be safe to travel around.
the manufacturer is obliged to secure the occupants of only its vehicle from that foreseeable harm: the manufacturer does not owe a duty to protect those who collide with its vehicle. See Mieher, 301 N.E.2d at 308-10; but see id. at 310-11 (Goldenhersh, J. dissenting) (arguing that the duty of care should extend to prevent unreasonable risk to occupants, other drivers, and pedestrians).
In my mind, the question remains: Does the manufacturer owe travelers on the road the duty to exercise reasonable care in designing its motor vehicle?
One author takes a look at this question:
Does a vehicle manufacturer owe a duty to design a vehicle with which it is safe to collide? The Illinois Supreme Court said no in the case of an underride accident, where one vehicle rear-ended a truck and proceeded unimpeded under its bed. The decision unleashed an ongoing debate over the concept of “enhanced injury,” where a manufacturer can be liable for defects in its vehicle that cause injuries over and above those that would have occurred from the accident but for a defective design.Illinois vehicle manufacturers have no duty to protect non-occupants who collide with their vehicles
As it stands, it appears to me that, in general, the manufacturing community is prone to protect themselves from legal impunity rather than protect travelers on the road. I would welcome the opportunity to hear differently.
So, how then do we bring about a more responsible solution to this solvable underride problem? In addition to considering how we might impact each of the three branches of our government, we have also sought for, and encouraged, voluntary action on the part of truck/trailer manufacturers–which has met with some limited success. For the most part, the manufacturers tend to take a wait-and-see attitude–particularly when NHTSA is in the midst of rulemaking–rather than take the initiative to simply go ahead and design a guard which is capable of preventing deadly underride in real life crashes.
I am thankful for the upcoming Underride Roundtable because these questions need to be addressed, once and for all. And I, for one, am unwilling to sit by and watch another underride rule be compromised so that travelers on the road continue to unwittingly play a game wherein too many people will inevitably be dealt a card with a Death by Underride sentence written all over it.
I hope that, this time around, the truth of the matter will be fully revealed and all will agree upon a comprehensive solution which offers the best possible protection. I don’t want any more people to needlessly lose their lives or suffer the unrelenting grief (complicated by anger and helpless frustration) which families like mine undergo.
Perry Ponder from Seven Hills Engineering makes some timely observations. Anyone concerned about preventing deadly underride crashes will want to make sure that regulators and manufacturers are listening.
Here is the 1969 DOT document to which Perry refers–in which they indicate their intent to extend underride protection to the sides of large vehicles:
Looking forward to a lively Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016.
What kind of underride protection would be the result of a Vision Zero Rulemaking Policy?
I was driving to Raleigh/Durham today and, shortly after I merged onto 64, a car passed me and then immediately proceeded to get back into the right lane–squeezing in front of a car and directly behind a tractor-trailer. Within less than 1/2 a mile, all three vehicles exited.
Why couldn’t the driver have waited patiently behind me and then exited?! An underride crash could so easily have occurred.
Do driver education programs teach about the dangers of truck underride? Maybe every written driver’s test should contain a question related to the avoidance of Death by Underride (when it is within one’s control).
I hope that the truck trailer manufacturing community (and those who purchase from them) take a cue from the CMTA–a non-profit organization which is supporting an effective research strategy to find treatment for Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a hereditary disorder which multiple members of my family have.
CMTA has organized a collaborative process which brings together a global interdisciplinary team:
One of the most important ways the CMTA accelerates the research process is by putting together teams of top scientists recruited from an international body of scientific and clinical Key Opinion Leaders in CMT. The STAR program’s unique character stems from the willingness of the scientists to come together to advance CMT research collaboratively, sharing and communicating ideas, discoveries and research findings.
The CMTA’s funding and operations focus is on translational research that will lead as directly as possible to therapeutic treatments of CMT. To further this goal, the CMTA has put in place a STAR Advisory Board that includes both a Scientific Expert Board and a Therapy Expert Board. The CMTA’s STAR (Strategy to Accelerate Research)
This is the kind of strategy which we hope will be taking place at, and following, the Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016, at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville, Virginia.
March has historically been a momentous, memorable month for truck underride safety advocacy. Not that other months are totally devoid of such activity, but I have observed a noticeable pattern:
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has studied and reported on the truck underride problem for many years. After our underride crash on May 4, 2013, we discovered that they had published a report on this issue just a few months earlier on March 14, 2013, as well as a prior report on March 1, 2011.
On the 37th anniversary of our marriage, our family launched the AnnaLeah & Mary Stand Up for Truck Safety Petition on March 19, 2014, with one of the petition requests being to improve truck underride protection (rear, side, and front on tractor trailers, as well as for Single Unit Trucks).
Later that week, on March 23, 2014, I published a Youtube video to explain why we had launched the petition and what we were asking for–including an upgrade of the weak, ineffective federal underride standards.
During the almost three years which have passed since that terribly tragic day in May, we continue to uncover new (to us) information which surely should have led to improved underride protection long before now. For example, about a month ago, I became aware of a March 16, 1977 (when I was 21–just a few days from my wedding) Senate Investigative hearing, which was reported on in the March 29, 1977 IIHS Status Report.
This is how that report began: The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has released the results of a crash test program focused on the deadly problem of car-into-truck underride crashes. Appearing as lead-off witness at a March 16 Senate Investigative hearing, the Institute’s president, William Haddon, Jr., M.D., presented crash test films and analyses showing that: The 25 year-old federal “rear end protection” standard for devices on the backs of tractor-trailers and trucks is “a sham.”
Further, Haddon warned Senators, “Blood has been shed, heads literally have rolled and countless thousands of Americans have been injured because these agencies did not act. Further inaction would be inexcusable.”
On March 5, 2016, we delivered our second petition to Washington, DC, when we took our Vision Zero Petition Book with 20,000 signatures to the Department of Transportation and President Obama. We asked for a Vision Zero Executive Order to pave the way for Vision Zero Rulemaking policies so that a truly effective and comprehensive underride standard can be issued.
On March 10, 2016, the Vision Zero Petition Book and 20,000 signatures were posted as a Public Comment on the current rear underride rulemaking.
On March 12, 2016, Jerry and I were privileged to participate in a successful side guard crash test in Hillsborough, North Carolina. This innovative side/rear combination can be retrofit to existing trucks on the road. Imagine the potential for saving lives!
On March 2, 2016, just three days prior to our recent delivery of the Vision Zero Petition, I discovered a March 19, 1969, Federal Highway Administration underride rulemaking document on the Federal Register which indicated that their intent was to extend underride protection to the sides of large vehicles! Eight years before my wedding day, when I was 13 years-old, DOT was intending to call for stronger underride protection. And yet, 44 years later, when my daughter Mary was 13 and AnnaLeah was 17, we still had not gotten it right! That’s just wrong!
It is my fervent hope that, when March2017 rolls around, we will be celebrating a vastly improved federal standard–enthusiastically and immediately adopted by the trucking industry–for all-around-the-truck underride protection at higher speeds, including now-exempt single unit trucks as well as retrofitted to existing trucks and trailers.
If this seems like a costly venture, try comparing it to the price paid by thousands upon thousands of individuals and families during the past decades of ineffective underride protection–added to the countless precious people who will be saved in the years to come from tragic, preventable death by underride.
We have been following the progress of Aaron Kiefer’s development of an innovative side/rear underride guard, which he has designed on his own time when not working as a crash reconstructionist or spending time with his family. So we eagerly welcomed his invitation to help out in his MacGyver-style crash test this past Saturday. (By the way, I am a big fan of MacGyver–watched every episode on DVD with Mary & AnnaLeah.)
Aaron wanted to take this opportunity to test his design and find out what changes might be needed to make it a marketable and affordable option for trailer owners to install as a retrofit safety improvement. We joined a crew of his family, friends, and fellow crash reconstructionists at a junkyard in the Triangle area.
The morning was for set-up. Then we took a break for some brats and chips before devoting the afternoon to three crash tests. I had been unsure before arriving as to how a pick-up could tow a car and make it crash into a trailer. It became clear to me when I saw Aaron’s pulley contraption.
Test 1 was a side crash. The collision of the car into the side guard caused the innovative side guard to pop off its brace. But, as Aaron and Jerry said, the test was successful because the side guard stopped the car from going under the trailer beyond the windshield; it prevented Passenger Compartment Intrusion (PCI). People in the car could have walked away alive.
Test 2 was a second side guard crash with the same car. Again, the car did not go under past the windshield and there was no PCI. The guard would have protected the people in the car from death and/or severe injuries. This time the added aluminum brace at the rear sheared off. Aaron thinks that he will have to go back to the drawing board and make a stronger brace.
Test 3 was a rear crash test. This time the side guard got rolled up and set aside. The trailer was turned around and the test car set up to aim at the rear of the trailer. The original rear underride guard on the trailer had actually been damaged at some point in the past and only had four of its original eight bolts. (That was the condition the underride guard was in when Aaron purchased the trailer, which had sustained damage from collision with an overpass. The guard had clearly not been properly maintained.)
In this crash, the underride guard failed and the car rode under the trailer. There was PCI and, if there had been people in the car, they would not have escaped unharmed. The added brace on the outer edge did not hold up. In fact, it was still fastened on (come to think of it, as it took a lot of work to unfasten it from the trailer afterward), but the original underride guard popped entirely off and flew to the side — doing nothing to stop the car from going under the truck.
Aaron had actually aimed the car to hit the left outer edge of the trailer, which he had reinforced with some aluminum braces. (Note: The current federal standard, as well as the proposed improved rule, does not require this area of the trailer to be protected against underride.) Instead, the car hit the vertical bar of the guard; the entire original guard then popped off and the car went under the truck.
It’s back to the drawing board for Aaron to find a way to improve his design. It was definitely a great success in that it prevented deadly side underride. On top of that, the trailer was not damaged by the collision (except for a few little nicks). But the bracing needs to be made stronger.
From what I could see, the day’s events only served to strengthen Aaron’s resolve to put a stop to senseless deaths, which he sees all-too-often in his work. I for one am truly thankful for the wonderful work he is doing, along with the group of people who willingly set aside a Saturday to support his effort.
The day gave me a deeper appreciation for all who take the time to solve the problem of preventable traffic fatalities. This includes the Virginia Tech Senior Design Team and Wabash and Manac and many researchers for decades, such as George Rechnitzer and Raphael Grzebieta in Australia and Luís Otto Faber Schmutzler in Brazil, and countless other un-named individuals.
It was also personally very intense. As one participant commented, “That was violent!”
Indeed, it was very violent. All three crashes gave me a jolt. But after the third crash, which resulted in deadly underride, I found myself standing still in the aftermath. Others were busy finding tasks to measure the results and get the clean-up started–including getting the car unstuck from under the trailer. But all I could do was stand there and stare.
Not until the next day really did it all begin to sink in: how I had witnessed from observing from afar what I and my children had gone through ourselves (although with a different crash scenario). I had watched, as an onlooker, the instantaneous destruction of a vehicle and how it was that AnnaLeah’s life had been inconceivably snuffed out in the twinkling of an eye and how, in a matter of mere seconds, Mary’s body had been broken beyond repair by just such a tragically-unresolved traffic safety problem.
It seemed like my own body experienced whiplash as it tensed up and relived, through traumatic muscle memory, what I had gone through. Meanwhile my heart continues to break with the grief that knows no end even as I process this experience.
It is beyond my comprehension how we, in this country, can allow such things to occur year after year without moving heaven and earth to learn how to prevent these tragedies. I can only ask forgiveness, and apologize to the countless families who have lost loved ones through violent death by motor vehicle, for letting them down–for not addressing it as the priority it should be. As a society, we have dropped the ball.
Jerry said several times, “It’s not every day you get to see a dream become a reality–kind of a humbling experience actually.” May there be many more such days.
When we met with DOT policy officials on March 4, we found that we were in agreement on a very important perspective regarding crash fatality causes and solutions: What we need to be addressing is not one thing or another, e.g., improve underride guards OR develop crash avoidance technology. No, no, no. It is not a case of either/or. It is definitely both/and!
Our crash was not an accident and many factors were involved in what came about that day. They all need to be addressed.
My heart is broken and anything less than genuine pursuit of every avenue for safety advancement only serves to deepen the pain.
AnnaLeah, Mary, Marcus, and Vanessa, Spring 2012, Grafa Park, Midland, Texas
Weeping Willow Memories: Mary and AnnaLeah enjoyed a spring-like day in the winter of 2009 at Grafa Park in Midland, Texas. The branches of a weeping willow tree became the setting for the unleashing of their imagination. (Preserved for us by their sister, Susanna Karth)
