IIHS Announces Award for Not Decapitating Drivers With a Tractor Trailer
The next time you’re driving behind a semitrailer take notice of that metal bumper hanging off the back. That’s the underride guard, and its job it to prevent your minuscule hatchback from hurdling beneath its hulking mass on the off chance that you have a collision.
Sadly, not all guards are created equal and some buckle during an accident — allowing the car’s passenger compartment to impact the rear of the trailer, frequently shearing off the part of the vehicle that your head occupies.
To further scare you out of tailgating trucks, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released a 2011 report stating that the majority of those guards would fail and that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s minimum structural guidelines for underride bars was inadequate. While some manufacturers had begun installing stronger and safer guards, mainly to satisfy higher Canadian standards, the initial round of IIHS’ testing resulted in most underride guards failing in a 30-percent overlap test.
Since those earlier findings, IIHS recorded a significant annual increase in fatal accidents involving passenger vehicle rear-endings of large trucks through 2015. It has also reached out to the NHTSA to impose more stringent regulations on guard manufacturers.
However, many of those earlier-tested underride makers took matters into their own hands and made changes to guard designs, enhancing the feature’s overall safety before regulators turned it into policy. Impressed, the institute praised the companies for not waiting for mandatory NHTSA guidelines.
“IIHS isn’t a regulatory agency, and other than safety, there was no incentive for semitrailer manufacturers to make improvements,” IIHS executive vice president and chief research officer David Zuby said. “When we started testing, we weren’t sure how they would respond. These companies deserve a lot of recognition for their commitment to addressing the problem of underride crashes.”
The institute now has a new “Toughguard” award to bestow upon those companies producing guards specifically designed to prevent a range of underride-related fatalities — including the often-deadly overlap crash. Many even worked with IIHS, asking for retests, to evaluate how to improve safety.
Great Dane, Manac, Stoughton, Vanguard, and Wabash were the manufacturers issued the new award for making changes that exceeded the current rules in place in both the U.S. and Canada. Their updates also surpassed the proposed NHTSA requirements, which would essentially align U.S. underride regulations with the higher Canadian guidelines.
[Images: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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i read somewhere that some companies are moving to "box in" the section of "mansfield bars" so they provide security along the sides as well. bars in the back are great, but if someone blows a stoplight and t-bones a trailer, then its not so great.
Considering how slowly semis are able to brake, it takes a lot of work to rear-end one of them, especially with enough violence to do something like what is pictured here. Having spent 10 months driving all cross-country and all around the American west pulling a 28' travel trailer, I have some appreciation for the difficulty the drivers of these vehicles have (my "rig" was about 49' long, end-to-end), although with 420 hp at my disposal, I had a much more favorable power-to-weight ratio than they do. The worst behavior that I have observed by long-haul truckers is staying about 15 feet off a car's bumper, while exceeding the speed limit on a downgrade. I get what they're trying to do -- build momentum for the coming upgrade -- but if the car in front has a blow out, the result isn't going to be pretty. Pulling my trailer, with a self-imposed speed limit of 60 (dictated by the 65 mph limit on my trailer tires), I tried to avoid the Interstates, except in California, which has a posted limit of 55 for all towed vehicles, including semis. The great majority of problems I observed were created by the "4-wheelers") who just didn't appear to be thinking too much. For example, a semi (or me) trying to merge on an on-ramp needs both more space to fit in and accelerates at a fairly slow pace. Countless times, a car in the right lane doesn't move over to the left lane to accommodate me (or the semi), even though it is free. A very long time ago, when I had to get a California driver's license (because I was working there for a summer), one of the unusual things I learned is that merging traffic had the right-of-way over traffic on the freeway . . . and this seemed to be observed pretty religiously. I have now idea what the law is now, but whatever it is, the practice of allowing merging traffic to have the right-of-way in California seems pretty much dead. As far as dealing with trucks go, life is better if you understand their imperatives and accommodate them: (1) they're much longer than you, (2) they accelerate and stop in much greater distances than you, (3) they often have speed governors on their tractors, (4) they can't see directly behind their trailer and (5) they're on a schedule. My experience was that in the great majority of times when they wanted to pass me doing 60, they appreciated a lights flash from me when the rear of their trailer had cleared the front of my truck and they signaled for a change back to the right lane, especially when they had a train of cars behind them. A "Zen" approach to driving (fitting in with the other drivers by understanding and accommodating their needs) will usually get you there faster and more safely... and with less personal stress.