Tag Archives: underride legislation

Twice Victims: Underride Families Re-traumatized When Elected Officials Fail To Speak Up

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, ,

Too often, families of underride victims not only face the trauma of horrific, unexpected, and preventable death by underride but they, also, have to deal with the frustration of failure to convince their U.S. legislators to support change.

Amy Cohen, co-founder of Families for Safe Streets, a coalition of surviving family members that confronts traffic violence through advocacy and support services, said that . . . the families she works with frequently report being re-traumatized when their elected officials fail to speak up. Joe Biden Lost His Wife and Daughter to Our Traffic Violence Epidemic. Could He Be the First President to Do Something to End it?

On August 19, we hosted another Underride Staff Briefing — this time via Zoom. We are providing Congressional Offices with the PowerPoint pdf from that presentation, including comments from engineers with expertise in underride as well as underride families.

Underride Briefing PowerPoint pdf (inc. links to resources & video)

Underride tragedies happen to the constituents of every elected official. They’ve been made fully aware of both the deadly problem and its available engineering solutions. The ball is in your court, Congress. Do your job.

Urgent Call to Action on Truck Safety (June 16)

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , ,

UPDATE, June 18, 2020: Thank you to those who took action. The Garcia Amendment passed. The Cohen Amendment did not pass.

When a vehicle goes under a big truck, it’s called an underride crash.  This type of crash is extremely dangerous and completely preventable.  Installing better guards on big trucks would prevent this type of crash.  There is a bill being considered now under the INVEST in America Act which would require these life saving guards.  

The Infrastructure Bill includes an Underride Section.

Become part of the solution by sending an email TODAY to U.S. Representatives on the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee (T&I). They will be considering the INVEST in America Act on Wednesday, June 17, at 10:00 a.m. in a live hearing.

Use this website link to search for your U.S. Representative, or ones from your state who are on the T&I Committee. Send these two simple messages in your own words — asking them to make trucking safer by:

  • Supporting the Cohen Amendment 089 to strengthen the Underride legislation in the INVEST in America Act by directing NHTSA to do a pilot program in order to prove that underride protection is effective and technically feasible.
  • Supporting the Garcia Amendment 062 which will raise the Minimum Insurance Liability for truck companies from $750,000 – an amount set in 1980 – to $2 million in a simple adjustment for inflation. This needed change has been neglected for decades and will help not only truck crash victims but also truck drivers, who are often victims of truck crashes. It creates a financial incentive to enforce safety.
  • Late-breaking addition: Ask them to OPPOSE the Perry Amendment 115, which strikes Automatic Emergency Braking from the Bill. This amendment appears to be getting in the way of advancing crash avoidance technology to prevent or reduce the severity of crashes. Why would they want to do that?

Watch this short video which vividly tells the story of Mike, a truck crash victim who was impacted by the woefully-low insurance requirement:

You can also tag them on a Tweet.

Thank you for taking action. Share this message with your friends so we can make a significant impact at a crucial time.

House T&I Committee’s INVEST in America Act Includes Underride Legislation

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , ,

The House T&I Committee published their draft of the renewal of the FAST Act. Section 4405 addresses Truck Underride: Underride Section of FAST Act 2020 – INVEST in America

You can compare it to the STOP Underrides Bill: Text – H.R.1511 – 116th Congress (2019-2020)_ Stop Underrides Act _ Congress.gov _ Library of Congress

Update (September 13): Comparison Chart of Underride Provisions in Various Bills

And here are the GAO Underride Recommendations: GAO Truck Underride Recommendations

Will Congress & NHTSA move forward with bold and decisive action to end underride?

Rebuttal to Concerns Raised By the ATA About Proposed Underride Legislation

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety, , , , ,

From the very beginning of our journey to make truck crashes more survivable with the installation of effective underride protection, we have been reaching out to members of the trucking industry — manufacturers, transport companies, truck drivers, industry associations, and engineers among others. We have found some who are cooperative and many who are committed to working on solutions. However, we have also observed a reluctance to move forward with R&D — not to mention installation of solutions.

Beyond industry hesitation, we have also read about and listened to outright opposition. While I appreciate that they would find it important to express concerns they might have about the legislation and the technology, I do not find it helpful if their statements are not backed up with facts or documentation — especially when there is little openness to sit down together and discuss how to address those concerns collaboratively.

I remain hopeful that we can yet reach that point where we will be able to hold conversations through the process laid out in the STOP Underrides Act for a Committee On Underride Protection. It holds the potential for cooperation, transparency, and accountability which could help us reach the goal of ending preventable death by underride in a timely fashion.

Meanwhile, because I have been unable to get them to participate in a meeting to discuss these concerns, I am going to share two documents here:

  1. A letter which the American Trucking Associations emailed to Members of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee’s Highway & Transit Subcommittee on June 19, 2019, following the trucking hearing on June 12, 2019. The ATA letter outlines their concerns about, and opposition to, the STOP Underrides! Act. ATA Stop Underrides Act Follow Up Opposition Letter 6.19.19
  2. A rebuttal to that letter — detailing what we have discovered over the last several years regarding those concerns. RESPONSE to ATA Stop Underrides Opposition Letter

May we allow nothing to interfere with reaching the goal of protecting all travelers from the unimaginable injuries and grief which all too often come about when we don’t equip our trucks with underride protection so that passenger vehicles and vulnerable road users cannot go under them.

Rose, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

How many votes will be needed for the STOP Underrides! Bill to pass?

Truck Safety, ,

My daughter, Rebekah Karth Chojnacki, is an Instructor for a First-Year Experience class at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her students were required to do a community service project as part of the class. They chose to work on our underride prevention advocacy efforts.

First they gave us some feedback on our various social media sites. Then they divided up into three groups and did some research to determine just how many votes we would need to get in order to pass the STOP Underrides! Bill — especially those hard-to-get Republican votes.

Here are the results:

Making progress toward better underride protection is a team effort involving many, many people; and I am thankful for the students’ practical assistance.  I hadn’t looked at the numbers previously and, when Rebekah shared the results of their class project, I thought, “Maybe this won’t be so hard to win after all!”

But wait. . .  Republicans chair the Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee and the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. Once the bill is introduced, we will definitely need these committees to take a lead and team up with us to end these preventable deaths  — because they play a key role in getting the bill to the floor for a vote.

Surely they don’t want people to die, do they?

 

Understanding Underride VIII: Making the Case for Comprehensive Underride Protection Legislation

Truck Safety, , , ,

The basic problem of truck underride is the fact that there is a geometric mismatch between the large trucks and the smaller passenger vehicles. Crush zones are structural areas in a vehicle that are designed to absorb energy upon impact in a predictable way. However, upon collision of a passenger vehicle with a truck, there is no opportunity for engagement of the passenger vehicle crush/crumple zone with a solid portion of the truck.

The result? The crashworthiness of the passenger vehicle is not initiated. The car is allowed to go under the truck and the first point of impact is in the Passenger Occupant Space. The passengers are left vulnerable to horrific injuries and violent deaths.

In fact, although underride deaths are vastly underreported and undercounted, FARS data from the NHTSA show that hundreds of people die every year from truck underride passenger compartment intrusion (PCI). NHTSA reported 4,006 underride deaths from 1994 to 2014.

The rear underride guards, which are installed on semi-trailers, are supposed to prevent underride. But the IIHS, in 2011 and 2013, conducted crash testing which proved that the guards of eight major trailer manufacturers, though designed the meet the 1998 federal standard, too often fail. Subsequently, improved rear underride guards and side guards have been crash tested by the IIHS; crash dummies emerge with survivable results.

The majority of the large trucks on the road either have weak, ineffective rear underride guards – even though they meet the current federal standard – or none at all (as in the case of exempt single-unit trucks) or improperly maintained rear guards (initially known as ICC bumpers, later as Mansfield bars, or sometimes as Rear Impact Guards or RIGs). In addition, there is currently no federal requirement for commercial motor vehicles to have side guards – despite the fact that there is normally 4 feet between the bottom of the trailer and the road. And, although Europe has standards for Front Underrun Protection, the U.S. does not.

There were 340,000 large trucks manufactured in 2015. The majority of those have weak rear guards and no side guards. Volvo Trucks produces tractors with front underride protection in Europe but not on their North American trucks. There are nearly 2 million semi trucks in operation in the U.S. and around 5.6 million semi trailers. These drive around every day on our roads putting travelers at risk of Death by Underride.

The truck industry has known about the problem of underride for over a century. In fact, a patent was filed for a side guard in 1913. In response to the rear underride death of actress Jayne Mansfield in 1967, we saw some improvement in rear underride protection with a 1998 standard – although you will notice that that took 31 years to achieve and it still falls short of what is technologically possible some 50 years after her death.

The government is also well aware of the side underride problem. On March 19, 1969, the FHWA indicated in the Federal Register, in an analysis on rear underride rulemaking, that they intended to extend underride protection to the sides of large trucks after further studies. However, DOT has not done so and the industry – despite some voluntary improvement in response to appeals from victim families armed with information on the IIHS crash testing – has not shown an ability or willingness to solve this problem on their own.

As David Ward recently said, at the Road to Zero Coalition October 2017 quarterly meeting, there will always be a strong need for regulation and/or fiscal incentives to break market failure. Only then will we see 100% adoption of comprehensive underride protection. In fact, trailer manufacturers have said that a mandate would lift the burden from them; they would no longer have to persuade their customers to buy safer trailers.

The underride problem has been documented in numerous studies. The IIHS petitioned NHTSA in 2011 and the NTSB made recommendations in April 2014 that NHTSA initiate underride rulemaking to address safety vulnerabilities. The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center has recognized the problem and has worked with numerous Vision Zero Cities to install side guards on city trucks in order to protect Vulnerable Road Users.

A comprehensive underride protection rule, STOP Underrides! — because it will include single-unit trucks — will make it easier for cities throughout the U.S. to protect vulnerable road users. Every truck that drives on their streets will be equipped with comprehensive underride protection – a significant victory in the battle to create safer mobility for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists, as well as passenger vehicles.

With comprehensive underride protection installed on the entire large truck fleet, we should see a significant decrease in the 4,000 truck crash fatalities/year (4,713 in 2016), along with a major reduction in debilitating injuries. Truck crashes can be made more survivable.

Or do we want to continue to allow people to die?