The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety is urging regulators to require stronger guards on the backs of tractor-trailers to prevent cars from sliding underneath trucks in accidents, with deadly consequences.
The Arlington, Va.,-based institute said its recent tests of three “underride” guards that meet existing requirements showed the equipment can fail even in relatively low-speed crashes, exposing motorists to potentially “catastrophic” results, including decapitation. An earlier study by the non-profit organization estimated that underride occurs in half of all fatal crashes between large trucks and passenger vehicles.
Citing its new test results, the institute said in a petition to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the rear guard safety standards “should be upgraded to require underride guards that are strong enough to remain in place during a crash, allowing the energy absorbing structures of passenger vehicles to deform and provide protection to their occupants.”
In its tests of rear guards, the safety institute crashed 2010 Chevrolet Malibus, a model with strong safety ratings, into the backs of three makes of trucks. The institute’s president, Adrian Lund, said in a news release that damage to the cars in some of the tests “was so devastating that it’s hard to watch the footage without wincing.” In these instances, he said, “If these had been real-world crashes there would be no survivors.”
The most common cause of failure, the Institute said, “was simply that the attachment between the guard and trailer was weak.” But tests showed that even the strongest guard was insufficient in many accidents.
In 2009, 3,163 people died in crashes of large trucks with passenger vehicles, and 70 percent of the victims were occupants of the passenger vehicles.
lease go to http://www.dangeroustrailers.org do you understand that only 32 million “passenger Cars That Tow Trailers” have killed in 2009 ALONE 379 people and injured over 21,542 people and nobody but us are addressing.
Do you realize that a cop was just killed two weeks ago by the same thing…and NHTSA does nothing but fight us.
Help us!!!! Please we know how to save lives…but our government is fighting us.
NHTSA doesn’t require the guards to be tested on trailers themselves, which has led to weaknesses, Lund said in an interview. Guards can fail if hardware attaching them to the trailer isn’t strong enough to withstand impact, he said. The tests underscore that guards installed to U.S. standards aren’t holding up in the real world, Lund said.
Please know that Dave Strickland is incompetent….look at this…quote..”NHTSA doesn’t require the guards to be tested on trailers themselves, which has led to weaknesses, Lund said in an interview. Guards can fail if hardware attaching them to the trailer isn’t strong enough to withstand impact, he said. The tests underscore that guards installed to U.S. standards aren’t holding up in the real world, Lund said..
Well guess what? Every Trailer Hitch on Everybody care HAS THE SAME ISSUE!!!!
Law makers in Australia already know this…yet they act to save lives..but in America nothing happens? Shame on us..