Tag Archives: underride

21st Century Truck Partnership Third Report mentions front override but not front override protection.

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Just found a 21st Century Truck Partnership Third Report in which SAFETY is mentioned. Front override is also mentioned! I have not yet read every single word, but I see little mention of Front Underride/Override Protection (only crash avoidance technologies).
Here is Chapter 7 from that report. It is entitled, “Safety” (21st Century Truck Partnership — Third Report, 2015).
Please read it with the STOP Underrides Bill in mind (in which Front Underride Protection would be mandated by Congress).
(Note: How is it that I brought up the 21st Century Truck Partnership with NHTSA officials in 2017 but they did not once mention this report!)
p.s. Some quotes:
The review of LTCC cases produced evidence that front override and side underride are significant problems in serious crashes between heavy trucks and light vehicles. Front override and side underride were found in most of the crashes examined. Preliminary estimates from this review are that override occurs in almost three-quarters of crashes involving the front of the truck and in over half of the crashes when the sides of the trucks were struck (Blower and Woodrooffe, 2012).
 
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Finding 7-1. Many safety technologies could be effectively evaluated and demonstrated in a safety-focused program— for example, a Safety SuperTruck similar to the DOE fuel consumption reduction SuperTruck program. 
 
Recommendation 7-1. DOT should consider implementing a Safety SuperTruck program to develop, integrate, and evaluate safety technologies such as cab structural integrity, side curtain airbags, advanced forward warning and collision mitigating systems to help industry attain a more integrated and complete safety package with a view to generating greater purchaser acceptance of safety technology not mandated by law.
 
My posts last year on this:

Mary Barra: “If it’s a safety issue, there should not be a business case calculated.” What about underride?

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I have been wrestling with the question: Does NHTSA do a cost/benefit analysis before issuing a recall on an auto safety defect which has been shown to cause deaths? And if not, then why do they do a cost/benefit analysis to determine whether or not to require underride protection be put on trucks to prevent deadly underride?

And, in general, is the cost/benefit analysis which they have done on underride been flawed? Cost Benefit Public Comments on Underride Rulemaking

 

The Price Of Human Life, According To GM

Cost benefit analysis of safety recalls cspan video footage of GM Ignition Recall Senate Hearing, Mary Barra, CEO at GM

Mary Barra at 0:25: “If there is a safety defect, there is not a calculation done on business case or cost. It’s how quickly we can get the repair. . .whatever needs to be done to make sure the vehicles are safe that our customers are driving.”

Mary Barra at 3:21: “Again, if it’s a safety issue, there should not be a business case calculated.”

The difference is that underride is not about an auto safety defect. It is not about occupant protection on a car, and it is not about occupant protection on a truck. It is about equipment on a truck to protect those who might collide with it. No man’s land in terms of perceived responsibility.

See this description of that dilemma from a Transportation Research Board report titled, The Domain of Truck and Bus Safety Research, May 2017, p. 135:

An added complication for safety technologies is that the beneficiaries of heavy-truck safety are primarily other drivers, not the owners or drivers of the trucks. In a highly competitive business atmosphere, truck buyers are not easily motivated to purchase new technologies solely for the public good. Added equipment must also contribute to their company’s profitability in some way and thereby enable them to compete with other companies that have not purchased the same technologies. For this reason, many new safety technologies that are developed and demonstrated are very slow to be deployed. Those safety devices that do gain widespread acceptance generally have secondary-ancillary functions or capabilities that offer a short-term payback to the buyer.

Given these realities, the federal government plays an important role in the process of introducing new safety technologies into the commercial market. Large demonstration programs, involving broad involvement of all the suppliers of a given technology and all the medium-to heavy-truck manufacturers are essential to creating both a sufficient body of data and evidence that a product or technology performs well, in addition to a sense within the industry that the product will be cost-effective and, therefore, worth buying. It is a difficult task to create this critical mass and one that often only the government can accomplish.

In some cases, regulation may be the only way to achieve significant deployment. Even when there is a general consensus that the total benefits of introduction of a new safety technology would outweigh the total costs, there is still the problem of convincing individual vehicle buyers to pay for societal benefits. A regulatory requirement would level the playing field by requiring all companies to buy the equipment and thus eliminate the competitive financial disparity. Regulations are always controversial. It is extremely difficult to quantify the benefits of a technology before the fact. The Domain of Truck and Bus Safety Research

Another interesting read: The Hidden Benefits of Regulation: Disclosing the Auto Safety Payoff, 1985, Joan Claybrook and David Bollier

What do you think?

@SenatorBurr, the underride problem clearly has not gone away since we discussed it with you 5 years ago.

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We are hoping for another meeting with our senator, Richard Burr. Clearly the underride problem has not gone away since our family met with him five years ago — just a few months after our crash.

Our TV interview, including Senator Burr, on August 13, 2013: https://tinyurl.com/y7ynscpr

Recent underride crashes which have occurred just in the last few days (there may well be more that I have not yet heard about):

Indiana: https://www.wndu.com/content/news/Deadly-crash-on-US-30-in-Kosciusko-County-slows-traffic-498880541.html

Kansas: https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article220852645.html

Michigan: https://wincountry.com/news/articles/2018/oct/30/cass-county-woman-injured-in-crash-with-semi/

Texas: https://www.wcmessenger.com/2018/news/1-killed-in-wreck-on-287-2/

Idaho: https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/vallejo/idaho-man-dies-when-car-hits-parked-tractor-trailer-in-vallejo/

Maine: http://www.sunjournal.com/jay-woman-injured-after-running-into-tractor-trailer-in-wilton/

Could effective underride protection on the school bus have changed the outcome?

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A School Bus Underride Crash took place on September 5, 2018: 
Two issues here: Distracted Driving and Underride. If distracted driving was a factor in the crash, that is so regrettable (and how many of us might be guilty of such foolish behavior?). But could effective underride protection on the school bus have changed the outcome?
 
Here’s a February 2000 article about the problem (unresolved) of School Bus Underride Tragedies: http://www.schoolbusfleet.com/article/610153/should-school-buses-have-rear-underride-guards
My post in May about multiple school bus underrides in the last year: https://annaleahmary.com/2018/05/four-separate-school-bus-underride-crashes-in-the-last-six-months/

“Up against [a tobacco] industry that has just completely disregarded human life”

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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

Underride Question: Litigation or Legislation?

Help us win $25,000! Vote for our video in the #25yearsofgiving video contest!

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Today is the day! Click the link below to vote for us in the #25yearsofgiving video
contest so we can win up to $25,000! You can vote daily from now until Aug. 31, 2018.
Join our team to STOP preventable truck underride tragedies!

“Obviously any safety accident we’ll do everything we can to prevent it,” Sen. Thune

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A trip to South Dakota by Lois Durso, to raise awareness of the truck underride problem at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, led to some media interviews in which both she and Senator John Thune talked about the STOP Underrides! Bill.

Two women are traveling across the state to raise awareness of Underrides (KSFY, Dakota News Now)

According to Senator Thune,

“Obviously, any safety accident or safety incident we’ll do everything we can to prevent it. The authority exists on the Department of Transportation to require that.” . . .

I’d like the opportunity to discuss with Senator Thune the fact that, if that is truly so, then moving the STOP Underrides! Bill to a vote would be a logical action for him to take to prevent underride tragedies.

I’d also like to discuss with the senator that the Department of Transportation may have the authority to require strong underride protection but, in over 50 years, they have not acted upon it to require side guards — even though they said that they intended to in March 1969. Furthermore, NHTSA has not acted upon that authority to adequately address the underride deaths and injuries which continue to occur year after year.

It seems to me that the three branches of the government were designed for the purpose of keeping each other in line and that the role of Congress includes making sure that the administrative branch is doing its job to protect the American people. ( To ensure the government is effective and citizens’ rights are protected)

“The cost that is associated with that obviously is a big issue,” Sen. Thune said. “And there are also, I think, as they look at these things, other safety issues come into play, as well. So, sometimes when you tweak one thing or fix one problem, you create others. .  “

I would like the opportunity to sit down at the table with Senator Thune and show him the facts about the negative financial impact of underride injuries and deaths upon the trucking industry. I would also like to discuss with him the tangible ways in which the passing of the STOP Underrides! Bill will lead to a win/win for both the industry and the vulnerable victims of underride violence.

Senator Thune is not the first to mention “unintended consequences.” It is a tired old argument that the trucking industry is always using and gets us nowhere. Frankly, I don’t think that it is productive to talk in generalities like that and refuse to engage in open and honest discussion about specifics. Just what safety issues is he talking about anyway, because he doesn’t spell them out? And really, what could be worse than dying at the scene like AnnaLeah who was crushed and died because she couldn’t breathe or Mary who had just about every bone in her face broken and suffered multiple strokes and head trauma so that she died a few days later?

The industry also frequently brings up issues like: Will the guards be so low that trucks will get caught on railroad tracks or in loading docks? Will they weaken the trailer structure? Will they negatively impact over the road travel? Will they last the life of the truck? I don’t know about the people who ask those kinds of questions, but I have talked to engineering experts to find out the answers to those questions; mostly they don’t think those concerns are valid and realize that, if issues do crop up, then they can be addressed with engineering ingenuity.

“I think as they evaluate and examine this proposal they’re trying to do it in a way that makes sense and find the right balance in terms of the path forward,” Sen. Thune said. . .

There is nothing that does not make sense about the STOP Underrides! Bill. Engineering experts were an integral part of developing the legislation. And the bill itself calls for the establishment of a Committee On Underride Protection to be part of the rulemaking process.

The right balance? What does that mean? Does that mean that we will continue to let the trucking industry off the hook from taking responsibility for deaths and injuries which occur from the dangerous design of truck bodies in relationship to a geometric mismatch with passenger vehicles? Does that mean that some people will have to continue to die from preventable Death By Underride to protect the profit of the trucking industry? Were my daughters’ lives not worth saving? How about yours or your loved ones? The industry has avoided paying anything for years. Shouldn’t they have to make up for lost time and finally pay the piper?

Senator Thune says there have not been any proposals that would cost the taxpayers. He says truckers would have to pay for the changes. http://www.ksfy.com/content/news/Two-women-are-traveling-across-the-state-to-raise-awareness-of-Underrides-490493581.html

Senator Thune is right that the bill does not require that money be added to the federal budget which would cause further debt to taxpayers. Although he says that truckers would have to pay for the changes, he doesn’t spell out exactly what that will mean or that an honest cost/benefit analysis will show that effective and comprehensive underride protection will, in the end, actually be to their financial benefit and it will help to preserve their careers and emotional well-being.

Of course, it will require an initial output of money but won’t those costs be passed along so that we all share in this? And, in all this talk of costs, no one has actually indicated what the costs will be compared to the overall revenue and profit of the industry.

What it gets down to is that Senator Thune, as the Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee to whom the bill has been referred, has the power to protect the traveling public and therefore the responsibility to act in a way that is in the best interest of the American people. It behooves him, therefore, to meet with those of us who understand every nuance of the underride issue. That is why Lois Durso and I have asked to meet with him to discuss this in depth.

He needs to know that the trucking industry has, for decades, neglected the known problem of deadly underride and refused to take appropriate action to aggressively address the issue. Clearly, they are not going to get it solved without intervention from the federal government.

There, the gauntlet has been thrown down — not to defeat Senator Thune or the trucking industry but to engage in productive and passionate dialogue which will help us to arrive more quickly at a resolution of this public health problem — together.

If Senator Thune is unwilling to take decisive action, then who should bear the responsibility for the people who continue to die as a result of this needless delay in passing the bill?

Taking the STOP Underrides! Message to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

Safety Advocacy, Truck Safety,
Lois Durso and her friend Anita Bomgaars (injured in an underride crash in the 70s) are bringing the STOP Underrides! message & bumper stickers to the Sturgis, South Dakota, Motorcycle Rally.
 
They were interviewed by a Fox affiliate station today: http://www.kotatv.com/video/?vid=490202881
 
Help us reach our goal to get STOP Underrides! Bumper Stickers on cars in every state in the U.S.A.! Why? So we can raise awareness & get the STOP Underrides! Bill passed to end these senseless tragedies. Find out how to get your bumper sticker here: Reach Every State to STOP Crash Underrides Everywhere! (RESSCUE) Bumper Sticker Project

Reach Every State to STOP Crash Underrides Everywhere! (RESSCUE) Bumper Sticker Project

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I wear my STOP Underrides! shirt wherever I go. It often starts a conversation: “What’s an underride?” “When a car goes under a truck. Like what happened to my daughters.” Too often they say, “That happened to someone I know.”

Help us reach our goal to get STOP Underrides! Bumper Stickers on cars in every state in the U.S.A.! Why? So we can raise awareness & get the STOP Underrides! Bill passed to end these senseless tragedies.

You can participate in this project in three ways:

  • Make a $5 tax deductible donation here. Then, send your mailing address to  stopunderrides@gmail.com. We will mail you one vinyl STOP Underrides! bumper sticker. OR
  • Make a $25 tax deductible donation here. Then, send your mailing address to  stopunderrides@gmail.com. We will mail you ten vinyl STOP Underrides! bumper stickers, so you can put a bumper sticker on your own car and ask 9 friends to do the same! AND
  • Share this post in every way that you can!

Any money donated above our printing and shipping costs will go toward the expenses of the Washington, D.C., Seeing Is Believing Underride Crash Test event, which we are planning for the Fall of 2018.

We will keep an updated list of States With STOP Underrides! Bumper Stickers here:

https://annaleahmary.com/2018/08/states-with-stop-underrides-bumper-stickers-on-cars/

@SenJohnThune, please take a real look at the STOP Underrides! Bill. I hope you do.

Truck Safety

When I read a Tweet by Senator John Thune this morning, I thought he made a great point. So I decided to make the same point back to him:

Senator Thune, Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, could shepherd the STOP Underrides! Bill through to a successful vote and join my Underride Hero Hall of Fame!