I’m sitting on the edge of my seat — waiting for a breakthrough that will bring us to a day where there will be no need for yet-another lawsuit to be filed for a side underride wrongful death. Because underride protection will make that a thing of the past. . .
Meanwhile the Valenzuela family filed a lawsuit in California on September 24, 2019, because their son, Irving Valenzuela (18), died as a result of a side underride crash on July 10, 2017. Because — among other things — side underride protection could have given him a CHANCE AT A BETTER OUTCOME.
According to a WUSA9 Investigative Report on Underride, court documents show, “As a direct, legal, and proximate result of Utility Trailer’s negligence, Plaintiffs’ decedent Riley Hein LOST A CHANCE AT A BETTER OUTCOME when instead of simply colliding with the semitrailer, his car became trapped underneath the semitrailer, resulting in a fire and directly leading to his death.”
That’s what the #STOPunderrides Bill is all about! If passed, this legislation will give motorists and vulnerable road users A CHANCE AT A BETTER OUTCOME when they have the misfortune of colliding with a truck. Effective underride protection will prevent underride and enable the car’s crashworthy safety features, like the crumple zone, airbags, and seat belt tensioners, to do their job and protect the car’s occupants from deadly injuries.
This includes not only SIDE underrides but also those collisions that occur at the FRONT and the REAR of trucks. A few weeks ago, I obtained a FARS data report from NHTSA (DOT) for “reported” underride deaths during 1994-2017. It clearly shows that the number of reported underride deaths did not significantly decrease after a federal standard for rear underride guards was implemented in 1998.
Apparently, neither NHTSA nor the trucking industry bothered to make it a priority to look at those statistics and ask some hard but important questions, “Why are people continuing to die under trucks?” and “What can we do about it?”
In fact, just the opposite apparently occurred as evidenced by court documents which reveal that the trucking industry deliberately acted to protect themselves from being forced to add underride protection to their trucks. The TTMA (Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association) did not do this alone; the ATA(American Trucking Associations) played their part as well.
The question is: Where do we go from here? Congress, I’d say that the ball is definitely in your court.
Latest WUSA9 underride series segment reports on the $42 million jury verdict in Riley Hein’s side underride case. The report includes Eric Flack’s interview of Andy Young, CDL holder and truck litigation attorney, during the D.C. Underride Crash Test Event.
“These are the things that ultimately result in the eight-figure verdicts which can push a motor carrier into bankruptcy,” Andy Young said, a former truck driver who now represents accident victims families in lawsuits against trucking companies.
“So, you’re actually protecting everyone in the industry as a result of these devices,” Young said.
A New Mexico jury found a trailer manufacturer “negligent” yesterday in a side underride fatality. “The family hopes the verdict ‘sends a message’ to the truck-trailer industry to take measures to prevent underride crashes.” Read more here.
Everyone, please call Congress at this D.C. phone no. and ask for your U.S. Senators and Representatives. When you get transferred to their office, simply tell the staffer that you want their boss to cosponsor the STOP Underrides Bill (S.665 and HR.1511): (202) 224-3121.
Thank you, Eric Hein and family. Thinking of you and all underride victims. Precious ones gone too soon. Never forgotten.
How do “we” want to handle it? Ask the trucking industry to pay for underride protection as a Cost of Doing Business or continue to force the society and victims to pay for the cost of large truck crashes?
Fuel Savings (aerondynamics when combined with side skirts)
Return On Investment (see #1)
Trucks get Back on the Road more quickly when a crash does not involve a fatality.
Driver Benefit: less negative impact on their career and avoidance of PTSD from someone dying under their truck.
Job Creation (design, manufacture, installation, and maintenance of underride protective devices).
Trailer Manufacturers burden lifted if mandated; they no longer have to persuade customers to buy trailers with safer equipment/design.
BTW, lives are saved and serious injuries are prevented
Incentives:
Sponsors of the STOP Underrides! Bill are open to discussing a weight exemption for added weight of safety equipment (so that payload is not impacted).
Section 179 of the IRS Tax Code allows for a tax deduction for safety equipment purchased by trucking companies.
Decreased insurance risk. Wouldn’t it be great if the insurance industry would play their part and provide incentives for use of this equipment (perhaps discounts for early adopters of this life-saving technology)?
Fair Warning recently published an article on litigation related to the tobacco industry. Do you detect startling similarities to the disregard for human life by the trucking industry’s inaction on the underride problem?
Rosen said he expects to litigate tobacco cases for the foreseeable future. “To me these are the best cases to represent people and go up against an industry that has just completely disregarded human life and consumer safety,” he said. “The companies just look at their bottom line at the expense of consumers who didn’t really understand what they were getting into.” Florida Still a Dismal Swamp for Cigarette Makers Fighting Death and Injury Claims
We would have liked to see the DOT and trucking industry solve the underride problem on their own because it is the right thing to do. Because they have not, we are now faced with the question: Litigation or Legislation?
Last week, a side underride case in Texas was settled as a wrongful death suit. The trailer manufacturer acknowledged their failure to act to install technology which could have prevented the death of Kathryn Dodgen:
Kathy’s family and their lawyers believe the accident was entirely preventable—and so this week, they filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the trailer’s manufacturer, PJ Trailers. In the lawsuit, they accuse the manufacturer of releasing a defectively designed product onto the market, violating Texas’s products liability laws. The trailer didn’t have any side guards that would have prevented Kathryn’s car from going underneath it.
What does this mean for the future? Likely, with the hundreds if not thousands of underride deaths (and debilitating injuries) which occur every year in this country, there will be many more such lawsuits filed because of the precedent that this case has set.
How do we want this to play out? Do we want the trucking industry to face massive loss due to this de facto standard which will hold them liable for these preventable underride tragedies? Or do we want to protect them from litigation through legislation which will provide them underride standards to follow?
