Tag Archives: underride guards

Virginia Tech Senior Design Project is Addressing the Need for Stronger Underride Guards; Mid-Semester Progress Report

October 29, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck SafetyIIHS, NHTSA, underride crash fatalities, underride guards, underride research, underride roundtable, Virginia TechMarianne

I received a wonderful email this morning with the Mid-Semester Progress Report from the 6-student team of engineering students at Virginia Tech who took on the creation of a better rear underride guard design as their senior capstone project.

In their words, “our team must strive to achieve the perfect design with respect to each specification, ensuring the absolute best final product.” (Sweet words to this mother’s heart!)

We look forward to seeing them in person at the IIHS Vehicle Research Center on May 5, 2016, as they share the results of their dedicated and innovative efforts at the Underride Roundtable.

Here is their 30-page progress report: Virginia Tech Semi-Trailer Bumper Design Mid Semester Progress Report .

I will be praying for the team everyday, including Wayne Carter (Team Facilitator), Daniel Carrasco, Kristine Adriano, Sean Gardner, Andrew Pitt, and Brian Smith–along with Jared Bryson (their Sponsor) and Robin Ott (their Project Advisor).

AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety is raising money to support Underride Research efforts: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

I remember our trip back from visiting a research & design center in June 2014 and thinking that surely a group of engineers could get together and design better underride protection. It is amazing to watch this unfold.

Join thousands of other people in calling for a move towards zero crash deaths. Sign our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Underride Roundtable: Save the Date, May 5, 2016

October 26, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck SafetyIIHS, underride crash, underride guards, underride research, underride roundtableMarianne

After a great deal of thinking and talking and preliminary planning, we now have a host facility–the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Vehicle Research Center–and a date, Thursday, May 5, 2016, for our Underride Roundtable.

IIHS Vehicle Research Center http://www.iihs.org/iihs/about-us/vrc

We will be reaching out to engineers, manufacturers, trucking industry representatives, regulatory officials, safety advocates, and others–inviting them to join us in a collaborative effort to bring about the best possible underride protection.

Excited. Encouraged.

Save the date. May 5, 2016

Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

The latest Public Comments on the ANPRM for Underride Protection of Single Unit Trucks

October 21, 2015Truck SafetyNHTSA, single unit trucks, SUTs, underride crash, underride crash fatalitiets, underride guardsMarianne

Here are new comments posted on the Federal Register for

ANPRM for Underride Protection of Single Unit Trucks

See attached file(s)”

View Comment

Submitter Name: Lackore, Roger

Posted: 10/20/2015

ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0062

	Not sure how this is going to prevent people from driving into the rear of a truck… Maybe more money should be spent on educating drivers when they get their…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Anonymous Posted: 10/08/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0061

	Re: Conspicuity Rules. When the rules for class 8 vehicles were implemented, I operated a private fleet operating, primarily, east of the Mississippi river…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Schafer, Robert Posted: 10/08/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0058

	As a long-time transportation industry professional, it is my opinion that CMVs should not be exempt from “bumper height” or any other safety regulations. The…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Gislason, John Posted: 10/08/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0060

	I am not apposed to putting on reflective tape on the side rails or boxes of straight trucks, but as for the rear guard what is going to be the rule for…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Johnson, Paul Posted: 10/08/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0059

http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;dct=FR+PR+N+O+SR;rpp=10;po=0;D=NHTSA-2015-0070

Rear-ending a truck should be a survivable crash. Why isn’t it?

October 19, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride crash, underride guards, underride research, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

I survived a truck underride crash. My daughters did not. Why not? Because we were sent backward into the back of the truck and AnnaLeah and Mary were in the backseat. The weak and ineffective underride guard gave way and the back of the truck broke their bodies.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has shown through crash testing that the current federal standards for underride guards are not strong enough to withstand most crashes but that it is possible to make stronger ones. http://www.iihs.org/externaldata/srdata/docs/sr4907.pdf

We are promoting underride research https://www.fortrucksafety.com/ and organizing a national Underride Roundtable ALMFTS Underride Guard Research Brochure.

We have also launched a Vision Zero Petition online because we believe that, unless rulemaking policy changes, when the rubber meets the road Saving Lives will not be the criteria used for making highway safety regulations as effective as humanly possible.Unnecessary compromise will occur and preventable deaths will be the result. Profit will win out over the best possible protection.

We know that rear-ending a truck should be a survivable crash and we are devoting our lives to making it a reality.

Sign & share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Why are we devoting our lives to pushing for a DOT Vision Zero policy?

October 12, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride guards, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

Why are we pushing so hard to get people to sign a Vision Zero petition? What difference would it make anyway? The reason we are devoting our lives to pounding on this door and asking for change is that our daughters may have lost their lives due to the lack of a Vision Zero policy.

A decision which concluded that recommended changes would not be cost effective — in other words, that it would supposedly cost more to implement safety measures than the lives saved would be worth — may have led to lax* underride guard standards. If the best possible protection had been pursued when the regulations were last updated (1996), the trucks on the road today (including the one on the road May 4, 2013) might be much safer to be driving around.

Mary and AnnaLeah might even still be around.

Now what would you want for you and your family and your friends? That’s what I would like to know.

*lax = not sufficiently strict, severe, or careful. synonyms: slack, slipshod, negligent, remiss, careless, heedless, unmindul, slapdash, offhand, casual http://tinyurl.com/qbodwjc

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petitions:

About This Petition

Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of death—about 40,000 people die in crashes each year. The Department of Transportation makes highway safety rules based upon how much safety measures will cost. We are hoping to change that and move toward a Vision Zero safety strategy model with goals of: Zero Deaths, Zero Serious Injuries, Zero Fear of Traffic.

“Towards Zero – There’s no one someone won’t miss.” https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI

Read more about Vision Zero: https://annaleahmary.com/tag/vision-zero/

Learn more about Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Establishing a White House Task Force to Achieve a Vision Zero Goal of Crash Death Reduction

“Advocates Garnering Signatures” . . . almost 11,000 in 11 days!

October 11, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetycrash avoidance, underride guards, underride research, Vision Zero, Vision Zero PetitionMarianne

“The latest efforts by a Rocky Mount family to improve trucking safety have garnered more than 9,000 signatures from around the world in just 10 days.

“’We want to get as many signatures as we can,’ said Marianne Karth, whose daughters AnnaLeah and Mary were killed in 2013 when the car Marianne Karth was driving was pushed underneath a tractor trailer. ‘We’d like to see it surpass the 11,000 signatures we got on our first petition and I think that is possible because this has a broader focus than just truck safety. It can positively impact all motor vehicle regulations.’”

Read about it here: https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

“Advocates Garnering Signatures” front page story in Rocky Mount Telegram. Almost 11,000 signatures!

October 11, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetycrash avoidance, underride guards, Vision ZeroMarianne

The Rocky Mount Telegram published an article on our Vision Zero Petition & Underride Research efforts. We are just short of 11,000 signatures (we got 11,545 on our first petition)! https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

Please share this story with your local media. I have given you everything you need here to do so. https://annaleahmary.com/2015/10/tools-for-getting-your-local-media-on-board-with-vision-zero-underride-research/

Please note: The article is on today’s front page. However, there was difficulty with non-subscriber access to the online article, so I am printing it here as well:

Advocates garnering signatures

By Brie Handgraaf

Staff Writer

Saturday, October 10, 2015

The latest efforts by a Rocky Mount family to improve trucking safety has garnered more than 9,000 signatures from around the world in just 10 days.

“We want to get as many signatures as we can,” said Marianne Karth, whose daughters AnnaLeah and Mary were killed in 2013 when the car she was driving was pushed underneath a tractor trailer. “We’d like to see it surpass the 11,000 signatures we got on our first petition and I think that is possible because this has a broader focus than just truck safety. It can positively impact all motor vehicle regulations.”

The online petition through The Petition Site has three points: to change U.S. Department of Transportation regulations from being decided by cost-based analysis and factor in the cost of human lives as well as apply that Vision Zero safety strategy model by requiring underride guards based on crash test performance rather than force-based designs and initiate rulemaking to require collision avoidance and mitigation braking systems on all new large trucks and buses.

“We’re advocating for a paradigm shift,” said Jerry Karth, the father of AnnaLeah and Mary. “When Kennedy gave us the vision of going to the moon, he challenged a change as a nation and we met that challenge. This is the same in that it is challenging the status quo because we never want anyone to become a statistic yet that is what our present system does.”

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the U.S. secretary of transportation said in 1974 that deaths in cars that underride trucks would have to quadruple before underride protection would be considered cost beneficial. The Karths said that is unacceptable and in addition to gathering petition signatures to submit to the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, they also have launched a new Website at https://www.fortrucksafety.com/ that is full of information about trucking safety and enables people to donate to the nonprofit organization, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, they started to help fund underride research.

“If everyone would just give $1 or $5 and shared it with others, we could support research into underride prevention systems and improved underride guards,” Marianne Karth said.

In addition to a group of engineering students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, they are working with University of Alabama-Birmingham Engineer Dean Sicking, who created a system that helps save lives in Nascar and is developing similar barriers to prevent underride collisions. The funds raised also will help crash test the improved underride guards and submit those results to regulators and trucking companies for implementation.

“The problem is these accidents are costing lives and they are preventable,” Jerry Karth said. “This is a solvable problem and it will cost money, but the loss of human lives also has a cost.”

The Karths also are in contact with the Transport Accident Commission in Australia and their campaign, Towards Zero. In a one-minute video posted on YouTube, the TAC eloquently shows that no traffic deaths are acceptable and every effort should be made toward preventing all traffic fatalities.

“On average, 40,000 people die each year in crashes on our roads,” according to the petition to Foxx. “Our families cannot continue to sustain this unacceptably high number of losses and injuries. We urge you to take immediate action so that more lives will not be lost and to assure us that safety is your number one priority.”

Since the tragic deaths of the Karth sisters, the family has joined with other truck safety advocates to push through improved regulations. The Karths also are organizing an Underride Roundtable in the spring with engineers, government officials and other safety advocates to discuss ways to further truck safety.

“We knew this was going to be a long journey and each effort we pursue is one step in a long process,” Jerry Karth said. “We know what our goals are that we want to achieve, though, and until we get there, we’ll continue fighting for change.”

Marianne Karth said she balances her advocacy efforts with bittersweet memories of her beloved daughters through the Website: https://annaleahmary.com/. The couple’s other children also share in the fight for change, never forgetting the quiet and creative girls full of potential.

“It always gets back to those girls we lost that’ll never come back to us,” she said. “That loss is why we can pour ourselves into it and keep fighting for change, even when the going gets rough.

“With the petition, we can get others to be a part of making changes that will ultimately save people’s lives.”

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Support Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

“Towards Zero – There’s no one someone won’t miss.” https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI

“Advocates garnering signatures” Rocky Mount Reporter Tells Our Story

October 11, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride guards, Vision ZeroMarianne

A local reporter from the Rocky Mount Telegram, Brie Handgraaf, has followed our story ever since shortly after our truck crash in May 2013. We had been living in Rocky Mount for less than a year after moving here from West Texas. She has skillfully told the story of our girls, our crash, and our efforts to bring about change in highway safety.

Shortly after we launched our Vision Zero Petition, she interviewed Jerry and I again to find out the details of our second online petition–after having closely followed our first petition in 2014–as well as our efforts to promote improved underride guards through underride research.

Her article was just published online and, as usual, she did an excellent job of telling our story in a way that enlightens the reader: https://www.rockymounttelegram.com/news/advocates-garnering-signatures-3009111

The newspaper is still working to make the article accessible online. Until then, you can read the article here: https://annaleahmary.com/2015/10/advocates-garnering-signatures-front-page-story-in-rocky-mount-telegram-almost-11000-signatures/

I want to clarify a few points so that there is no misunderstanding.

First of all, while the Secretary of Transportation in 1974 indicated that underride deaths would have to quadruple before underride protection would be considered cost-beneficial, the federal standards have been improved since that time. However, the problem is that it has been shown that the current standards, required as of 1998, are known to be weak and ineffective–resulting in many preventable underride deaths each year. Our concern is that the new rulemaking being considered now for the purpose of improving underride guards might likewise be judged to not be cost effective–as is hinted at in NHTSA’s preliminary Cost-Benefit Analysis in this document on Single Unit Trucks: “While not directly comparable, the preliminary estimates for rear impact guards on SUTs (minimum of $106.7 million per equivalent lives saved) is a strong indicator that these systems will not be cost effective (current VSL $9.2 million).” https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/07/23/2015-17973/rear-impact-protection-lamps-reflective-devices-and-associated-equipment-single-unit-trucks

Secondly, although we have received a research proposal from Dean Sicking for the design and testing of an underride protection system, at this time he does not have the funding to do the research. So, unless we are able to raise the money for his underride research project, it will not be carried out and we will not be able to find out if his ideas could be more effective than the current underride guard standards and save lives.
Finally, we have been in contact with some people from Australia–although not specifically from the Transport Accident Commission which produced the “Toward Zero” Youtube video: https://youtu.be/bsyvrkEjoXI The people we have talked with are two research engineers from Australia, George Rechnitzer and Raphael Grzebieta, of the Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research unit at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). They have researched and tested designs for improved underride guards and we are hopeful that they will be able to share their findings in the U.S. at our Underride Roundtable.

It is our hope that the research and commitment of many individuals and organizations around the globe, together with a call for a more compassionate Vision Zero approach to regulating highway safety will make an impact. We hope that many will come to understand these issues and join us in calling for change.

AnnaLeah & Mary on a walk in Battle Park in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where they lived for less than a year before the crash on May 4, 2013 ended their lives.

Sign & Share our Vision Zero Petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/417/742/234/save-lives-not-dollars-urge-dot-to-adopt-vision-zero-policy/

Support Underride Research: https://www.fortrucksafety.com/

Additional Public Comments on Underride Protection for Single Unit Trucks

October 9, 2015Truck SafetyNHTSA rulemaking, Public Comments, single unit trucks, underride guardsMarianne

Here is the complete list of comments: http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketBrowser;rpp=25;po=0;dct=PS;D=NHTSA-2015-0070

Here are the most recent comments added to the ANPRM for Underride Protection of Single Unit Trucks after the Public Comment Period was extended for 30 days until November 5, 2015.

Not sure how this is going to prevent people from driving into the rear of a truck… Maybe more money should be spent on educating drivers when they get their…”

View Comment

Submitter Name: Anonymous

Posted: 10/08/2015

ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0061

	I am not apposed to putting on reflective tape on the side rails or boxes of straight trucks, but as for the rear guard what is going to be the rule for…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Johnson, Paul Posted: 10/08/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0059

	As a long-time transportation industry professional, it is my opinion that CMVs should not be exempt from “bumper height” or any other safety regulations. The…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Gislason, John Posted: 10/08/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0060

	Re: Conspicuity Rules. When the rules for class 8 vehicles were implemented, I operated a private fleet operating, primarily, east of the Mississippi river…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Schafer, Robert Posted: 10/08/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0058

	September 21, 2015 Docket Management Facility, M-30 U.S. Department of Transportation West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE…”
	View Comment Submitter Name: Kearney, Brendan Posted: 09/28/2015 ID: NHTSA-2015-0070-0054

Act now to save someone’s life in the future.

October 8, 2015AnnaLeah and Mary, Truck Safetyunderride guards, underride research, Vision ZeroMarianne

I look forward to my peaceful, healing walks through the wood on the Rocky Mount Disc Golf Course (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=11&v=ErAOZ31KpNg ).

Just one thing wrong with them though–I long for Mary and AnnaLeah to be able to enjoy them as well.

https://annaleahmary.com/2015/09/i-discovered-a-new-pastime-frisbeedisc-golf-course/

If I could be a Time Traveler, could I go back — say ten years or so — and push for Vision Zero policies, principles, and projects, and then maybe AnnaLeah and Mary would still be with us today?

Sign & Share the Vision Zero Petition to make a difference. Who knows, you could be saving someone’s life ten years from now: http://tinyurl.com/nhb88cq .