NHTSA, in the Preliminary Regulatory Evaluation of the NPRM issued in December 2015 for Rear Underride on Trailers, requested information about underride guard crash tests at higher speeds (than the 35 mph currently being proposed). This is what they said,
We recognize, however, that benefits may accrue from underride crashes at speeds higher than 56 km/h (35 mph), if, e.g., a vehicle’s guard exceeded the minimum performance requirements of the FMVSS. NHTSA requests information that would assist the agency in quantifying the possible benefits of CMVSS No. 223 rear impact guards in crashes with speeds higher than 56 km/h (35 mph) . See: NPRM Rear Impact Guards, Rear Impact Protection December 2015 document; A Summary of Some of the Highlights
Here are some additional links to underride research around the world which should be taken into consideration when developing improved underride designs and standards.
If you LIKE the facebook page of the Nurenberg, Paris, Heller & McCarthy law firm during the month of May, they will donate $2 to AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety (maximum $1500).
We are excited at this opportunity to benefit from a community-minded organization.
We were privileged to become friends with one of their attorneys, Andy Young, who also holds a CDL, owns a small truck company, and is passionate about truck safety. He will be the Moderator of the panel discussion at the upcoming Underride Roundtable at IIHS on May 5.
On May 5, 2016, over 65 representatives from the trucking industry, government, safety advocates, engineers, crash reconstructionists, attorneys, and media will be on hand at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s Vehicle Research Center to discuss and demonstrate truck underride crashes.
In addition, the Underride Roundtable, which will be taking place from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., will be available to watch via livestreaming–with viewer interaction anticipated. The webcast link will be provided here when it is available.
In order to prepare for that, I am going to highlight some past and current underride research papers and efforts here. It will, of course, not cover everything and others are welcome to send additional information my way, which I would be more than happy to add to the list.
Although most of the research below will not appear as a presentation on the agenda, I am hopeful that the information will be considered by all as recommendations for underride protection are discussed and proposed.
I had actually wanted to put together a packet of this kind of information to hand out to participants. Then I thought that it might be more useful to provide it to a wider audience by posting it on our website. So here it is.
In addition, I have prepared a feedback form to enable you to let me know what you think should be done about truck underride protection. I am hoping to get a good response and will compile any results which I receive before the Underride Roundtable, as well as after the event.
Although I don’t know all the names and details, I imagine that there are countless individuals and organizations who have contributed, over a span of many years, to the discussion and development of underride protection. I am thankful that we can build upon that foundation.
Here is some of the research which I have come across in my search for the best possible protection.
And last, but not least, out of the mouths of babes. . .
NOTE: I will likely be updating this post as we get closer to the Underride Roundtable on May 5, 2016! And, of course, I can hardly wait to post the results of the Roundtable itself!
In memory of AnnaLeah & Mary, Precious Ones whose lives were cut far too short.
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.
The Virginia Tech Senior Design Team has installed their innovative underride guard with sine beam to a trailer and sent photos to me! Testing is yet to come.
Doesn’t it look awesome?!!!!!! And we’ll get to see it and meet the Team on May 5 at the Underride Roundtable at the IIHS Vehicle Research Center.
VA Tech Underride Sine BeamVA Tech guard installedVA Tech Team with installed guard
L to R: Kristen Adriano, Daniel Carrasco, Andrew Pitt, Wayne Carter (Team Facilitator), Brian Smith, Sean Gardner
Not pictured: Jared Bryson (their Sponsor) and Robin Ott (their Project Advisor).
The Virginia Tech Senior Underride Design Team is asking for help to pay for their unique underride guard design. How cool is that to see students dedicating their senior year to saving lives!!!
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.
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.
IIHS was reporting on a meeting that took place on March 16, 1977 — three days before I got married! That’s almost 39 years ago — long before any of my 9 children were born, let alone my two youngest daughters, AnnaLeah and Mary!
The government and industry apparently didn’t get underride rulemaking right then! And they clearly hadn’t gotten it right by May 4, 2013 — when Mary and AnnaLeah died from truck underride! But they better watch out, because I am not going to sit by and watch while thousands more die for no good reason!
See the testimony in May 2009 by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in which they call for tougher underride guard standards and with an attachment of the history of federal rulemaking on underride guards (pasted below): http://tinyurl.com/phlaqon
“The history of Federal rulemaking on truck underride guards:
1953 Interstate Commerce Commission adopts rule requiring rear underride guards on trucks and trailers but sets no strength requirements.
1967 National Highway Safety Bureau (NHSB), predecessor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), indicates it will develop a standard for truck underride guards.
1969 NHSB indicates it will conduct research on heavy vehicle underride guard configurations to provide data for the preparation of a standard. In the same year the Federal Highway Administration publishes a proposal to require trailers and trucks to have strong rear-end structures extending to within 18 inches of the road surface.
1970 NHSB says it would be “impracticable” for manufacturers to engineer improved underride protectors into new vehicles before 1972. The agency considers an effective date of January 1, 1974 for requiring underride guards with energy-absorbing features as opposed to rigid barriers.
1971 National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommends that NHTSA require energy-absorbing underride and override barriers on trucks, buses, and trailers. Later in the same year NHTSA abandons its underride rulemaking, saying it has “no control over the vehicles after they are sold” and “it can only be assumed that certain operators will remove the underride guard.” The Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety (BMCS), predecessor to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, considers a regulatory change that would prohibit alteration of manufacturer-installed equipment. This would nullify the major reason NHTSA cited for abandoning the proposed underride standard.
1972 NTSB urges NHTSA to renew the abandoned underride proposal.
1974 US Secretary of Transportation says deaths in cars that underride trucks would have to quadruple before underride protection would be considered cost beneficial.
1977 IIHS testifies before the Consumer Subcommittee of the US Senate Commerce Committee, noting that devices to stop underride have been technologically available for years. IIHS tests demonstrate that a crash at less than 30 mph of a subcompact car into a guard meeting current requirements results in severe underride. IIHS also demonstrates the feasibility of effective underride guards that do not add significant weight to trucks. IIHS petitions NHTSA to initiate rulemaking to establish a rear underride standard. The agency agrees to reassess the need for such a standard and later in the year announces plans to require more effective rear underride protection. BMCS publishes a new but weak proposal regarding underride protection.
1981 NHTSA issues a proposal to require upgraded underride protection.
1986 IIHS study reveals that rear guards designed to prevent cars from underriding trucks appear to be working well on British rigs.
1987 European underride standard is shown to reduce deaths caused by underride crashes.
1996 NHTSA finally issues a new standard, effective 1998.”
Mariolani, J., Schmutzler, L., Arruda, A., Occhipinti, S. et al., “Impact Project: Searching for Solution to the Underride Problem,” SAE Technical Paper 982755, 1998, doi:10.4271/982755.
“Rear underride crashes kill thousands of people yearly worldwide. Underride guards did not follow the progress achieved by the automotive safety technology. . .”
“Basically controlling risk during crashes is an energy-management problem. Our knowledge and understanding of energy management today is a lot better than it was in 1998. And in 1998, it was a lot better than it was in 1988.”
