Five members of Congress have introduced legislation to require side underride guards on all new trucks and trailers.
The bill says that since the formation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) more than 50 years ago, underride crashes have claimed 31,500 lives with "no substantial progress" to prevent such deaths. Underride guards are already required on the rear of trailers.
[RELATED: Read about a previous effort to require side underride guards]
"The Stop Underrides Act 2.0 would help prevent these terrible and too-often fatal truck-trailer accidents by ensuring that cars can no longer slide underneath trucks," says Rep. Steven Cohen (D-Tenn.), co-sponsor of the bill. He is joined by Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), Rep. Deborah Ross (D-N.C.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.).
In the House, the bill is H.R. 7354. Its companion bill in the Senate is S. 3775.
"With truck underride collisions claiming the lives of at least 300 people per year, the time to act on reforms is now," says Rep. DeSaulnier. "Small changes will make a big difference, and we cannot leave any room for error."
According to the bill, the side underride guards required would prevent the commercial vehicle's intrusion into the passenger motor vehicle upon impact up to 40 mph and would also impede any road user from passing underneath a truck or trailer along the sides. The guards should also contribute to fuel savings through the integration of aerodynamic design or other components to improve efficiency.
[RELATED: Stoughton underride guard qualifies for Insurance Institute for Highway Safety award]
This legislation would require NHTSA to finalize rulemaking requiring side underride guards on commercial trucks. It would also restart the Department of Transportation's (DOT's) Advisory Committee on Underride Protection to provide recommendations for how to reduce underride crashes and severe injuries and fatalities caused by underrides. The DOT would also have to publish a website making underrides research accessible.
"Requiring trucks to have underride guards is a simple way to prevent hundreds of deaths on our roads," Rep. Ross says. "These guards are a proven, effective safety measure that will reduce underride crashes as well as severe injuries and fatalities caused by underrides."
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine would be instructed to conduct a study on the prevalence of underride incidents, including those involving the fronts of large trucks. The bill would also instruct the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of the implementation of NHTSA's 2022 rear underride rule and provide suggestions to improve it.
NHTSA would also be required to review its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and correct crashes that should be classified as an underride but were not. The agency would also create free, on-demand web-based training for state and local law enforcement to better identify and document underride crashes.
Cohen's office says the bill is supported by a group of safety organizations, including the Center for Auto Safety, EndDistractedDriving.org, Families for Safe Streets and the Truck Safety Coalition.
"I commend Sen. Gillibrand and Congressman Cohen for introducing the Stop Underrides Act 2.0" says Jennifer Tierney of the Truck Safety Coalition. "I lost my father, James Mooney, in a preventable side underride crash over 40 years ago. It is unconscionable that trailers till are not required to have side underride guards and my heart breaks for every single loss of life that could have otherwise been saved. This bill will save lives."
