17 ms·

Trapped Under Trucks

301 points by danso 3y ago

AtlasBarfed 3y ago
The dumb thing is that making semis aerodynamic likely will encompass something that would make them safer for other vehicles. You need to fill in the space under the tractor. A fairing would save money and lives.
fargle 3y ago
I see several comments focusing on the ridiculous figure of $127. Please don't make arguments based on that. It's off by at least an order of magnitude: https://ustrailerparts.com/icc-bumper-assy-no-s-tubes/ https://ustrailerparts.com/icc-bumper-assy-no-s-tubes/ And certainly we can have all the same arguments about the cost of a human life vs. corporate greed, etc. etc. at a more realistic price. But what this really speaks to is the level of honesty and accuracy of this article. It's a hit piece and is extremely one-sided propaganda, regardless of what anyone thinks is the right thing to do about better bumpers.
miguelazo 3y ago
>According to NHTSA’s latest figures, more than 400 people died in underride crashes in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. But experts say the true number of deaths is likely higher. >The technology at issue — strong steel guards mounted to the back and sides of trucks — is simple and “relatively inexpensive,” Friedman argued. “The costs are small.” Talk about a "failed state".
- local_crmdgeon 3y ago
  Failed state is when no underguards
  - masklinn 3y ago
    It’s rather when the industry can keep fighting for 50 years to save pennies over lives, and faces no punishment for it.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      You'd think some of the trucking companies would do it just for publicity, if it was cheap enough. Then again, cars could all come with roll cages and five-point harnesses, and they don't, so there's some limit to safety equipment.
      - MrFoof 3y ago
        >Then again, cars could all come with roll cages and five-point harnesses, and they don't, so there's some limit to safety equipment. No roll cages historically was the result of no federal safety belt law. Roll cages are great until an un-belted occupant has their head hit the cage. "Second collision." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impact_(safety) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impact_(safety) At this point New Hampshire is the last remaining holdout on state safety belt laws. Live free or die (in a car crash). Even then, you still have the issue of noncompliance. Automakers don't want to end up on 60 Minutes in an episode about how their "safer car" kills some people, because some of those people were un-belted in a crash. Numbers are all over the place for people not wearing their seat belt, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 10.
        memefrog 3y ago
        Nobody is going to hear about someone not wearing a seatbelt dying in an accident and blame it on the manufacturer of the vehicle.
      - KennyBlanken 3y ago
        Most modern passenger car passenger cells don't need roll cages because their passenger safety cells are properly engineered, and because crash safety is much more comprehensive, with wheels and suspension components designed to intentionally fail and crumple in a crash so they aren't pushed into the passenger cell. A ton of cars pass Euro-NCAP and IIHS crash and rollover tests with flying colors. Roll cages were a Thing because, well, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U Obviously not every car is up to snuff, especially at the bottom end of the market. You couldn't pay me to drive a current production GM, Ford, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, etc compact sedan. 5-point harnesses aren't really that necessary at 0-60mph speeds in a vehicle with modern airbags; the fifth strap is mostly for anti-submarining but a number of manufacturers have produced seats that are anti-submarining and anti-submarining dashboard design (both material and shape) is a thing as well. All of it's possible, it's just a lot of car companies are cheap and consumers don't really shop based on stuff like "is there an anti-submarining design to the dash."
JimtheCoder 3y ago
I have always wondered why those trailers with the super low floors are not more popular... They look to be more aerodynamic, they can hold more stuff, and they would prevent the problems presented in the article. Maybe does it have to do with the fact that loading docks are already high, and this would make the loading process more cumbersome? I am not sure...
- bombcar 3y ago
  It's the loading dock. The vast vast majority of trucks are not filled to the brim (and even if they're at their weight limit, they often have "air" in the box). "Lowboys" are mainly used for large construction equipment where they need the extra height. A semi-trailer is a surprisingly cheap piece of equipment. Some trucks that are special purpose use the lower areas (see https://www.mayflower.com https://www.mayflower.com for an example; household movers have more weight capacity than space).
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    Retrofitting loading docks to work with lower-floor vehicles would be trivial, not to mention many buildings that could not accept deliveries would be able to.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      If the trucking industry didn't want to spend $127 per trailer to add underride protection, I doubt building owners will want to spend what is likely to be several thousand dollars or more on retrofitting their loading docks.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      You’d potentially have to load from the side. Probably more effective to move the trailer wheels to the far back of the trailer.
      - HankB99 3y ago
rnga1dco 3y ago
As the article mentions, there is collaborative documentary that was produced with this story. You can watch it, and I think most FRONTLINE documentaries free on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyaWzOesXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyaWzOesXk
- milkytron 3y ago
  I watched this last night, and it's always interesting to people in business talk about the cost of saving lives. There was one point where the reporter was interviewing a guy from the ATA (American Trucking Associations) where the ATA person says that one lost life is too many. And this is very common across so many industries, safety first as they always say. But then as soon as you put a cost associated with saving a life, the whole idea of safety first goes out the window. In this case, underrides are clearly avoidable and really don't cost that much to prevent. Retrofitted truck solutions are available, cheap, and easy to install. It just irks me that so many industries preach about safety, but as soon as it has even the most minor impact on the bottom line, it becomes a hot topic. They should really be saying, "Safety first (but only after profits, shareholders, revenue, etc)" I get that businesses need to make money to stay afloat, but with a profit margin of 14% [0], surely there is room to save some lives. [0] https://www.projectionhub.com/post/10-trucking-industry-financial-statistics#average-net-profit https://www.projectionhub.com/post/10-trucking-industry-fina...
  - bamfly 3y ago
    > There was one point where the reporter was interviewing a guy from the ATA (American Trucking Associations) where the ATA person says that one lost life is too many. You see the same crap inside companies. All-hands rah-rah meetings or zoom calls or mass emails with this kind of stuff in it, then the next day, directives to the contrary. Or, the handbook says to do X, for safety reasons, but your supervisor says to do Y that will be impossible to accomplish if you do X, like you're supposed to. In union shops the workers often have leverage to point at the handbook, laws, or contract, and tell their supervisor to get fucked, but others just have to deal with it or find another job. Ditto non-safety stuff like violating the company's own policies on shift scheduling, or overtime wage-theft, or any number of other things.
Schnitz 3y ago
Europe has mandatory underride guards for this reason since 20+ years ago.
- detuur 3y ago
  I really thought this was missing in the article. I understand that it's about the situation in the US, but at the very least a comparative analysis could've been made how the US regulatory environment differs from others around the world.
- berniedurfee 3y ago
  Thanks, I was going to ask just this question. Maybe it was just my perception, but I remember driving in Germany (long time ago) and noting how trucks seemed to be driving at a reasonable speed over in the right lane. Very different from highways in the US where trucks typically drive as if they were just another sedan on the road.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  27 years ago in the US: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2004/11/05/04-24737/federal-motor-vehicle-safety-standards-rear-impact-guards https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2004/11/05/04-2473... ...and then updated two years later. Still watered down to the point of near uselessness in order to placate the trucking industry lobbyists.
  - caf 3y ago
    I believe Europe has required side underride guards since the 1990s.
- Archelaos 3y ago
  50 years in Germany: A rear underride guard was made mandatory in Germany by a 1973 law for vehicles registered on or after 1 January 1975 with a carriage height of 55 cm or more above ground. Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterfahrschutz_(Nutzfahrzeug)#Hinterer_Unterfahrschutz https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterfahrschutz_(Nutzfahrzeug)... (in German)
- 3y ago
jmclnx 3y ago
>An investigator with the local police department blamed the collision on the truck driver, who was initially charged with negligent homicide, though charges were eventually dropped I wonder why. Another issue is the size of trucks. The state where I lived: * Truck size was limited, large trucks were only allowed on one Highway. Goods were transferred to smaller Trucks for transport to factories. * Driving trucks on Sundays was not allowed. * Large Trucks were not allowed on City Streets. Since this happened it is open season on bicycle riders. Reagan de-regulated and Trucks can be any size, plus they can clog the roads on Sunday. The last item I do not know when it was enabled, but it happened after Reagan. I now heard of trucks with 3 trailers but never saw one. I think it is about time we limit sizes to what existed on the 60s. If you need 3 trailers, time to go back to freight trains.
- cafard 3y ago
  Trucking deregulation began several months before Reagan was elected.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "If you need 3 trailers, time to go back to freight trains." Trains can only run on train tracks. The tracks/train stations don't always go close to where the freight needs to go. It is bordering on impossible to build new rail infrastructure to get freight where it needs to go. It takes a lot longer to ship something on a train than on a truck. Add on the fact that transport in general is getting more expensive, and I don't think more regulations on trucking is the right answer. Just install the guards on the side of trailers and be done with it...
  - hattmall 3y ago
    The answer is more, smaller, trucks / vans. If trucking creates jobs then a great way to create MORE jobs is to have smaller trucks. With smaller loads you lower the element of danger as well as lowering the barrier to entry. Additionally with smaller loads transfer's can be accomplished much more quickly with smaller equipment. Hot shot trucking is already pretty popular and typically works out to be cheaper. The idea overall idea would be an expansion of the interior ports network with loads small enough that drivers can self service.
mastazi 3y ago
> Year after year, federal officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the country’s primary roadway safety agency, ignored credible scientific research and failed to take simple steps to limit the hazards of underride crashes. NHTSA officials don't have time to do that of course, they are too busy denying right to repair in order to "protect" motorists https://youtube.com/watch?v=2nXVljRUnoc https://youtube.com/watch?v=2nXVljRUnoc As an external observer (I don't live in the USA) it seems to me that the NHTSA is captured by lobbyists, as a result it is currently only there to protect the interests of auto makers, instead of protecting traffic safety. Why is this illegal behaviour not investigated?
- pnw 3y ago
  NHTSA definitely seems like one of the more dysfunctional agencies. The US headlight standard from 1967 has never been updated to allow modern adaptive headlight designs despite at least two decades of requests from car manufacturers. Congress finally forced NHTSA to take action in 2021 with a timeline of two years, but they still aren't available because now the NHTSA is dragging their feet on testing. Meanwhile American car companies like Ford sell adaptive headlights overseas but we make do with 1960's technology in the US. I wonder how many lives have been lost in the meantime?
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > Congress finally forced NHTSA to take action in 2021 with a timeline of two years What's the method of forcing them to do it, though? Like, if it's not done in two years, what happens?
    - pnw 3y ago
      Congress put it in a bill. Not sure exactly what happens if they don't do anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if the car companies sued, because it seems like they've been asking for this for a long time. H.R.3684 - Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 117th Congress (2021-2022) Rulemaking.--Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule amending Standard 108..[lots of text omitted]..to allow for the use on vehicles of adaptive driving beam headlamp systems. There's an interesting article about it here. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/business/us-approves-smart-headlights.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/business/us-approves-smar...
CoastalCoder 3y ago
There's something I don't understand about this crash in particular: It sounds like Marcos' death is blamed on the actions of the truck driver, as well as the lack of an under-ride bumper. But don't we normally consider drivers responsible for crashing into objects towards which they're travelling? It doesn't sound like a situation where the truck jumped into traffic suddenly from a hidden driveway: > The truck edged out of a driveway and began, slowly, to turn left onto the road, blocking traffic in both directions. I.e., wouldn't death have also been avoided if Marcos had been traveling at a speed that allowed him to stop in time? I'd think that addressing that (if I'm right) would save a lot more than ~100 lives/year.
- robnado 3y ago
  It happened to me previously to be surprised by a stopped vehicle on the road. All you need is a large SUV driving in front of you blocking your vision of anything ahead. Then the SUV changes lane suddenly to avoid the stopped vehicle. Good luck reacting in time especially if you don't keep a multi-second separation between you and the car in front.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  I might see the truck edging out of a driveway and trust that they're going to properly yield right of way and not make themselves an obstacle. By the time I realize "my" mistake, I might not have enough distance to stop.
  - shakow 3y ago
    Without putting blame anywhere and independently of who has the right of way, don't you just have your preservation instinct kicking in telling you that just giving a bit of brakes is not a bad idea, and that the risk/gain ratio of losing 10 seconds of your day vs. getting killed is not worth it?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - 3y ago
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
I remember reading a claim that logistics companies will often tell their drivers to break traffic laws (ostensibly "only when it's not dangerous") and they consider any citations to be a cost of doing business. While I can't really verify that's true, it tracks with behavior I see of truck drivers in tight quarters; it's been trending towards this "I'm turning and I barely care if you're able to stop in time" kind of behavior.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "I remember reading a claim that logistics companies will often tell their drivers to break traffic laws" I don't think most drivers are waiting for permission from their superiors to break traffic laws...
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    I get what you mean. The sibling comment about “incentives” helps to paint an even more complete picture. The drivers have a pay incentive to be impatient, increasing the number of instances in which they choose to do this sort of thing regardless of what Management “allows”. They’d just hope to get away with it. I mean to bring up the point that Management is complicit in this. They might fire this driver as a token measure because someone died (part of me even sees the driver as a victim in such a scenario) but they’re not going to stop encouraging the behavior that gets people killed. It’s not much speculation that one of Management’s primary concerns right now is “how expensive” this is and probably not much consideration is given about how to improve the situation. (Especially not if the solutions are all cost and no gain; it would be irresponsible of them to lower their profitability if they’re publicly traded. /s)
- praptak 3y ago
  Why would they tell this? Just set incentives. Wink wink, we don't care how you do it but here's the bonus for the speed of delivery.
cracrecry 3y ago
As a European I see this kind of accident as a non issue because we use roundabouts. It is only important in the back of the truck. The main bug is using so many square corners road junctions in the US. Those are super dangerous.
- llampx 3y ago
  No, its because underride guards are mandated in many parts of Europe. In Germany, for example, roundabouts are far less frequent than normal turns.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  Eh? There are normal turns all over Europe. In fact, my closest near miss was at one in France.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    There are also many more roundabouts, and they seem to be especially favoured near factories and at other locations where lorries are especially likely to make turns. The road mentioned in the article has two lanes in each direction and a speed limit of 75mph (120km/h). The major junctions are fully grade-separated, but there are many flat junctions.
JoeyBananas 3y ago
new Metallica song?
- berbec 3y ago
  dying to live!
ethagknight 3y ago
>>It was a little after 7 p.m. and Ricardo Marcos was rolling through the darkness in his gray Hyundai Elantra. Marcos had spent a long day toiling as a mechanic at a trucking company in McAllen, Texas, a sunbaked city nestled right on the U.S.-Mexico border. Reading the opening story, it sounds like he fell asleep or wasn't paying attention. We will never know, but it's very sad no matter. It's also true, assuming he fell asleep, he could have killed others, as happened to Rod Bramblett and his wife, radio announcer for the Auburn Tigers, who was killed at a stoplight when rear ended by a driver who fell asleep while driving at a high rate of speed. Another sad story. Hitting an 80,000lb mass in any configuration at high speed is going to be nasty no matter what. One option is to ask truckers to provide heavy bumpers and crumple zones and airbags around their trucks. The other option is to operate your vehicle safely, reducing speed if visibility is limited, etc. I dont doubt that rear bumpers being stronger would be a good start, but by the same token, the starting assumption of a car rear ending a very large object at 60mph head-on does not seem like a scenario to weigh too heavily in the grand scheme. However, maybe there is a compromise of better rear guards and 20% additional side coverage by guards? i.e. dont make perfect the enemy of good.
- mistercheph 3y ago
  The purpose of the NHTSA and vehicle safety regulations broadly is not to litigate who is at fault in an accident and sentence them to death, it is to make traveling on the road by motor vehicle or bicycle or foot as safe as is feasible given costs and available technology and data about the nature of injuries in collisions. Most people most of the time are in control of their vehicles and are paying attention to the road. But every single person that drives a car will make a mistake, become distracted, suffer a mechanical failure, or become unavoidably implicated in the mistake of another road user. Slamming into the back or coming through the side of a semi-trailer is not something that just happens to "dangerous drivers". It is something that can happen to anyone placed in the wrong place at the wrong time. That said, the position of the regulators and trucking industry at present make sense, underride crash data indicates that the costs of proposed safety measures could be better spent improving other known road-safety issues with known or projected solutions. And the point that TFA is making is that NHTSA data is severely underreporting underride crash incidents in the sample that they investigated, making underride crash safety regulations worthwhile. And the mass of the vehicle is really not the issue in this sort of collision. This type of collision would occur in the same exact way if the trailers weighed 1,000 lbs, the bottom of the trailer would shred through the windshield and decapitate the occupants. A better underride guard would turn an unknown number of fatal accidents into scary crashes that people walk away from unharmed.
renewiltord 3y ago
Fortunately, if you avoided listening to environmentalists, transit advocates, and people with children and bought a high ride-height vehicle like a Dodge Ram 1500, your vehicle will be tall enough to actually contact the truck or trailer without a decapitation! Pickups and SUVs are way safer, guys. Up to you what you do with the information.
- sarchertech 3y ago
  High ride-height vehicles are safer for you in specific kinds of crashes. They aren’t safer for everyone else.
- wolfgang42 3y ago
  If you listened to transit advocates, you'd be riding in a bus or a train, both of which are much higher and heavier than your vaunted SUVs.
- dahart 3y ago
  > Pickups and SUVs are way safer The NHTSA stats seem to somewhat contradict this claim. Looks like light trucks (< 10k lbs) have historically had a higher fatal crash rate, both per mile traveled, and per registered vehicle, than passenger cars, up through 2015. The numbers have equalized and maybe gone slightly lower only in the last ~8 years, but certainly not “way” lower. The injury-crash numbers are lower for trucks, so you might be less likely to get injured in a truck, but no less likely to die. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813375#page39 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... - see Table 3, page 23 (Fatal crashes) and page 24 (Injury crashes). Trucks are heavier and have a longer stopping distance, and for a long time (until 1999) they had much lower safety standards than passenger cars. That’s not to mention it’s maybe short-sighted to ignore many legitimate concerns about air quality, fuel efficiency, children, and where to park, since under-ride crashes are only a teeny tiny fraction of fatal crashes involving any vehicles. I’m pretty sure you’re way better off from a safety perspective just driving a little slower than buying a truck, all else being equal.
  - AlgorithmicTime 3y ago
jiveturkey 3y ago
This article is intentionally written to sidestep the victim driver's own responsibility. It's hard to underride into a truck if you're driving attentively. That's not to say they are wrong, if the fix is as simple and as cheap as described. I do value the expose of the politics around the non-action, even if TFA has other faults. Mandatory AEB (automatic emergency braking) systems should address it to some degree, albeit only in new cars. There's no reason we shouldn't do both.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  Did you read the whole article? There’s a second accident cited where the truck changed lanes suddenly and trapped the car next to them under the trailer and dragged it for quite distance. Then the car caught fire and the driver was burned to death. Sounds like it’s pretty easy to underride if the truck changes lanes or swerved into you. Not a victim that I would blame. What about the accident where the truck blew through a stop sign at 40mph and the victim was wedged underneath the trailer. I wouldn’t blame that victim either for not avoiding a truck moving at speed outside their line of sight. What about the person who was rear-ended and propelled under the truck in front of them. Should that victim be blamed for their lack of attentiveness? Yeah, people can be better drivers, but we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Even if it costs equipment manufacturers several hundred more dollars
  - jiveturkey 3y ago
    > Did you read the whole article? I did. You are cherry picking the accidents where it's quite clear the victim did nothing wrong. There are other accidents described where I find it hard to draw that conclusion. There are only about 4-5 accidents described out of about 400 in 2021 (an undercount per the article). Have you been on the road? It's very dangerous due to most drivers around you being absolutely awful and inattentive. At least in the USA which is the concern in this article. I swear, not a day goes by where someone either in front or behind me pulls off onto the shoulder to do a heavy braking, surprised that traffic in front is slowing. Whereas truck drivers IME tend to be the most attentive and good drivers. (Of course there are exceptions and the trucks are massive so they have an outsized result.) At least in california. So I'm hard pressed to believe that most of those 400+ annual accidents are the fault of the truck driver. > we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Agreed, and I said as much. Why the NHTSA is not acting on this is beyond my understanding. As well, I noted that I endorse AEB, even though it's a negative for me personally due to 100% false positive events in my own usage. AEB will fix far more hazards than trailer underride guards. Again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do both. This is why non-level crossings, armcos, botts dots, LED traffic signals, and so on are all great things. Sure an excellent, courteous and attentive driver doesn't need any of those. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have them, and I said as much re underride guards. I think you are misreading my comment as victim blaming and reacting to that. That's not what I said.
mhb 3y ago
If the absurd increase in the heights of the fronts of cars continues - problem solved.
elihu 3y ago
> "The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association, a lobbying outfit representing semitrailer builders, had little desire to make safer rear guards. In correspondence with the department, the TTMA said it would be 'far more practical' to force Volkswagen and other companies making compact cars to produce larger vehicles that were less likely to slip beneath a truck." Of course.
- cornholio 3y ago
  > 'far more practical' to force Volkswagen and other companies making compact cars to produce larger vehicles While being far more dangerous to children due to the low frontal visibility of American style trucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDH3FDfVQl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDH3FDfVQl0 The "huge car to overcompensate for a tiny brain" fad is growing in Europe and it's a travesty.
- bob_neumann 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    Is this supposed to be satire?
    - LordShredda 3y ago
      Could be nixon from hell
      - sn41 3y ago
        Don't forget that Nixon established the EPA. So he wasn't entirely anti-regulation. (or maybe there were political pressures, I don't know the details.)
        HPsquared 3y ago
        Environmental protection was historically a conservative thing. "Conservation" and all that. Free markets were a left-wing thing in the past. These things aren't set in stone.
bob_neumann 3y ago
[flagged]
- nayuki 3y ago
  > Regulators have long-since become a bunch of career busybodies [...] I want it to stop. [...] I support "hands-free"/anti distraction traffic laws. Zero cost That's a regulation, and it costs police resources to enforce it. Stop contradicting yourself.
- kelnos 3y ago
  If that's how you truly feel, please move out into the wilderness and completely cut yourself off from society. If you want to live in society, then you have to put up with the rest of us actually caring about making things safer for the average (or below-average) driver, not just you, the apparent perfect driver who will never end up in a car crash, ever, because of course you have perfect control over everything around you, including the actions of all the other drivers on the road. Absolute rubbish.
noisy_boy 3y ago
> The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. > They said there’s not enough research to support a government mandate, which would impose huge costs on businesses that operate on thin profit margins. So thin that they can't afford $127 a truck; they are running a no profit charity out of the goodness of their heart and that pittance of an one-time amount per truck would push them over into red.
- olyjohn 3y ago
  You can't even buy the steel to build these for $127. That figure is trash just like this whole scare article.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Seriously. If they aren't even making $127 of profit on a single haul of an individual truck, this business is just kinda pointlessly unsustainable?
  - midasuni 3y ago
    Wouod someone reply not buy a truck if it was $127 more?
- klabb3 3y ago
  I think the article could have done a better job of portraying the side of the industry. The majority cost is probably fuel efficiency. At the end of the article, they describe a new technical solution which is more light weight, involving a polyester mesh and steel, instead of just steel. When you think about it, that’s an argument FOR requiring these regulations early, like back in the 70s when the issue was on the table. Because when you DO put safety first, engineering now has a bounded problem that they can improve on quickly (which engineers are particularly good at). So, stupid all-around, and tens of thousands of people died for no good reason.
  - Drunk_Engineer 3y ago
    Closed sideguards actually improve fuel economy due to reduced air drag.
sn41 3y ago
I saw the PBS documentary yesterday. If I am not mistaken, one of the accidents mentioned involved a Chevy Silverado [1]. If so, then the lobbyists are full of it. On the whole, I don't understand why the objection is there: are bars all that expensive? For comparison, here are Daimler trucks sold in India [2] - side protection is clearly visible. (Admittedly, they are high-end trucks as far as the Indian market is concerned.) [1] https://youtu.be/1LyaWzOesXk?t=1374 https://youtu.be/1LyaWzOesXk?t=1374 [2] https://trucks.cardekho.com/en/trucks/bharat-benz/2623r https://trucks.cardekho.com/en/trucks/bharat-benz/2623r
- elihu 3y ago
  I suspect there's an aerodynamic cost as well. Over time, that might be significantly more expensive than the manufacturing costs. Weight is also an issue, though in this case at least the weight is low to the ground and would improve the trailer's stability.
  - newaccount74 3y ago
    The article mentions that some trailers already have plastic skirts to improve fuel efficiency because of aerodynamics. However, for safety, you would have to put steel bars behind the plastic.
- Freeaqingme 3y ago
  > are bars all that expensive? From the article: > The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. I'm inclined to think that 127 USD (even if the side rails were a little bit more expensive because they're larger) is not too expensive for a feature like this. Also, I think that in Europe these rails are already mandatory. At least the rear guard is required in The Netherlands if the trailer protrudes >60cm at the rear iirc.
  - tecleandor 3y ago
    I think that $127 is for when then first tried to pass it in the 80s. But even after inflation, and price raises, and whatever calculations we do... That's a ridiculously cheap price for a security feature. That's not even the price for installing a bunch of airbags. I'm not in the market (nor the region), but for a new semi-truck plus bed I guess you're going to expend north of $200K. A thousand or two in security features is absolutely nothing. So instead of a low percentage of vehicles expending a little money on security features, they want the rest of the world to buy way more expensive and ridiculously big cars? Upgrading a single vehicle to a SUV would be way more expensive than their upgrades. Regular cars have all sorts of active and passive safety features for the people inside, and for pedestrians and other vehicles outside, and that's fine. I don't tell pedestrians to buy an armor if they want to be safe when I'm driving around.
csours 3y ago
> "In 2022, more than a decade after Brumbelow’s tests, NHTSA updated its rules. Even then, the agency acted only after the passage of a federal law directing it to do so." Not going to defend NHTSA here, but it's a good idea to pass laws like this. NHTSA would likely have been sued if they passed the rule. Having a law really cuts down on the lawsuits. After reading 5th Risk by Michael Lewis, I updated my thinking about government agencies. Government agencies are often quite limited by law and cannot advocate for effective policies. Lawmakers really should be updating rules much more often in consultation with agency scientists and specialists. I feel like we've gotten used to lawmakers not doing the jobs they are elected to. I also believe that we should have a Greenhouse Gas Administration, and not rely on the EPA and Clean Air and Water Acts to cover CO2.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Even from the perspective of keeping authoritative powers held within the reins of the people, it is better for rules and regulations to be legislated into proper laws by the legislature. Legislatures are voted in by and answer to the people, at least ostensibly. Government agencies don't necessarily answer to the people.
  - IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
    Yet legislators are in the grasp of associations, who want no such legislation to occur and either block it or never allow it to be proposed. They are in the clutches of corporations & oligarchs.
    - esyir 3y ago
      That sounds like the problem to solve then. Otherwise you're just applying a band-aid to an aortic rupture.
      - miguelazo 3y ago
        Hence my comment about the US being what it likes to call a "failed state," which was promptly and thoroughly down-voted. :-)
deleted 3y ago
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fooker 3y ago
India has an interesting solution to these issues. Ban large trucks from city roads (including highway sections) during daytime. The large US cities are getting dense enough to start enacting rules from third world countries. No amount of safety regulations will make these issues go away.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Interesting. Isn't this the case everywhere? In European countries there are rules for where and when large trucks and trailers can go; inside cities, plenty of roads have size/weight limits, and outside, many roads allow trailer truck traffic only at night or during weekends.
  - stefan_ 3y ago
    Lots of US cities also have designated truck routes but no one enforces them and if a truck happens to kill someone on them, they collectively throw up their hands and go "unlucky".
acyou 3y ago
Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical argument. Now multiply that amount by all of the areas where safety could be better, and all of a sudden, we start to see why things are the way that they are. $127 for a heavier rear guard and side guard. What about the change in operating costs from the increased weight and aerodynamic losses? We could limit all drivers to 30 mph everywhere too. Save lives and gas. Think of the children!
- sofixa 3y ago
  Am I understanding correctly that your argument is basically "fuck human lives if there's any barrier to making anything even a tad safer that will save some of them"? Where does your logic stop? What about seat belts, how much do they cost to add to vehicles?? Or airbags? Or any of the other safety features that have already been added? Or to go out of cars, infrastructure design - do you know how much more it costs to make sure that bridge/building won't fall apart? Or how much it costs to have multiple exit points from venues with hundreds of people? Safety regulations are written in blood, lots of it.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    Raising shipping costs increases food costs — doubling shipping causes 0.7% inflation. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring-shipping-costs-raise-prices-around-the-world https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring... There are 13,000,000+ households in the US which face challenges having enough food, at least once during the year. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... When you propose a change that makes food less efficient to ship, you increase the number of people who struggle to feed their families — and make the challenge worse for those who already are struggling. What the person you’re replying to is saying is that you have to balance the benefits (fewer truck crashes) against the costs (more hungry people) — and that such a choice isn’t nearly as simple as shallow histrionics, about how we must spend money to save lives! I think your shallow false dichotomy, rather than engaging with the fact that economics also costs lives and causes human suffering, is exactly the problem.
stuaxo 3y ago
Other countries do this, I remember when safety measures were introduced in the UK to stop these kind of accidents in the 80s (and maybe 90s).
- abainbridge 3y ago
  I think rear underrun protection and sideguards became mandatory in May 1983. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1982/1576/pdfs/uksi_19821576_en.pdf https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1982/1576/pdfs/uksi_1982...
Rapzid 3y ago
Hundreds! AKA >1 in a million odds each year. Can't spare brain cycles on this. It sounds like someone else is already thinking about it. I believe in them.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
“During discovery they obtained a seven-page document signed by executives from Utility and 10 other semitrailer companies. The document, drafted in 2004, was a pact struck by the biggest companies in the business, a pledge to work cooperatively — and secretly — to thwart any lawsuits stemming from side and rear underride crashes. The arrangement had been orchestrated by Glen Darbyshire, an attorney for the TTMA, the trade group. As part of the agreement, the firms would keep crucial safety information confidential. That material — including ‘documents, factual material, mental impressions, interview reports, expert reports, and other information’ — wasn’t to be shared with anyone outside of the circle.” This…sounds like someone took notes on their criminal conspiracy. Has any prosecutor said they’re looking at this?

301 points by danso 3y ago

The dumb thing is that making semis aerodynamic likely will encompass something that would make them safer for other vehicles. You need to fill in the space under the tractor. A fairing would save money and lives.

fargle 3y ago

I see several comments focusing on the ridiculous figure of $127. Please don't make arguments based on that. It's off by at least an order of magnitude: https://ustrailerparts.com/icc-bumper-assy-no-s-tubes/ https://ustrailerparts.com/icc-bumper-assy-no-s-tubes/ And certainly we can have all the same arguments about the cost of a human life vs. corporate greed, etc. etc. at a more realistic price. But what this really speaks to is the level of honesty and accuracy of this article. It's a hit piece and is extremely one-sided propaganda, regardless of what anyone thinks is the right thing to do about better bumpers.

miguelazo 3y ago

>According to NHTSA’s latest figures, more than 400 people died in underride crashes in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. But experts say the true number of deaths is likely higher. >The technology at issue — strong steel guards mounted to the back and sides of trucks — is simple and “relatively inexpensive,” Friedman argued. “The costs are small.” Talk about a "failed state".

local_crmdgeon 3y ago
Failed state is when no underguards
- masklinn 3y ago
  It’s rather when the industry can keep fighting for 50 years to save pennies over lives, and faces no punishment for it.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    You'd think some of the trucking companies would do it just for publicity, if it was cheap enough. Then again, cars could all come with roll cages and five-point harnesses, and they don't, so there's some limit to safety equipment.
    - MrFoof 3y ago
      >Then again, cars could all come with roll cages and five-point harnesses, and they don't, so there's some limit to safety equipment. No roll cages historically was the result of no federal safety belt law. Roll cages are great until an un-belted occupant has their head hit the cage. "Second collision." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impact_(safety) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impact_(safety) At this point New Hampshire is the last remaining holdout on state safety belt laws. Live free or die (in a car crash). Even then, you still have the issue of noncompliance. Automakers don't want to end up on 60 Minutes in an episode about how their "safer car" kills some people, because some of those people were un-belted in a crash. Numbers are all over the place for people not wearing their seat belt, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 10.
      - memefrog 3y ago
        Nobody is going to hear about someone not wearing a seatbelt dying in an accident and blame it on the manufacturer of the vehicle.
    - KennyBlanken 3y ago
      Most modern passenger car passenger cells don't need roll cages because their passenger safety cells are properly engineered, and because crash safety is much more comprehensive, with wheels and suspension components designed to intentionally fail and crumple in a crash so they aren't pushed into the passenger cell. A ton of cars pass Euro-NCAP and IIHS crash and rollover tests with flying colors. Roll cages were a Thing because, well, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U Obviously not every car is up to snuff, especially at the bottom end of the market. You couldn't pay me to drive a current production GM, Ford, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, etc compact sedan. 5-point harnesses aren't really that necessary at 0-60mph speeds in a vehicle with modern airbags; the fifth strap is mostly for anti-submarining but a number of manufacturers have produced seats that are anti-submarining and anti-submarining dashboard design (both material and shape) is a thing as well. All of it's possible, it's just a lot of car companies are cheap and consumers don't really shop based on stuff like "is there an anti-submarining design to the dash."

JimtheCoder 3y ago

I have always wondered why those trailers with the super low floors are not more popular... They look to be more aerodynamic, they can hold more stuff, and they would prevent the problems presented in the article. Maybe does it have to do with the fact that loading docks are already high, and this would make the loading process more cumbersome? I am not sure...

bombcar 3y ago
It's the loading dock. The vast vast majority of trucks are not filled to the brim (and even if they're at their weight limit, they often have "air" in the box). "Lowboys" are mainly used for large construction equipment where they need the extra height. A semi-trailer is a surprisingly cheap piece of equipment. Some trucks that are special purpose use the lower areas (see https://www.mayflower.com https://www.mayflower.com for an example; household movers have more weight capacity than space).
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  Retrofitting loading docks to work with lower-floor vehicles would be trivial, not to mention many buildings that could not accept deliveries would be able to.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    If the trucking industry didn't want to spend $127 per trailer to add underride protection, I doubt building owners will want to spend what is likely to be several thousand dollars or more on retrofitting their loading docks.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    You’d potentially have to load from the side. Probably more effective to move the trailer wheels to the far back of the trailer.
    - HankB99 3y ago

rnga1dco 3y ago

As the article mentions, there is collaborative documentary that was produced with this story. You can watch it, and I think most FRONTLINE documentaries free on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyaWzOesXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyaWzOesXk

milkytron 3y ago
I watched this last night, and it's always interesting to people in business talk about the cost of saving lives. There was one point where the reporter was interviewing a guy from the ATA (American Trucking Associations) where the ATA person says that one lost life is too many. And this is very common across so many industries, safety first as they always say. But then as soon as you put a cost associated with saving a life, the whole idea of safety first goes out the window. In this case, underrides are clearly avoidable and really don't cost that much to prevent. Retrofitted truck solutions are available, cheap, and easy to install. It just irks me that so many industries preach about safety, but as soon as it has even the most minor impact on the bottom line, it becomes a hot topic. They should really be saying, "Safety first (but only after profits, shareholders, revenue, etc)" I get that businesses need to make money to stay afloat, but with a profit margin of 14% [0], surely there is room to save some lives. [0] https://www.projectionhub.com/post/10-trucking-industry-financial-statistics#average-net-profit https://www.projectionhub.com/post/10-trucking-industry-fina...
- bamfly 3y ago
  > There was one point where the reporter was interviewing a guy from the ATA (American Trucking Associations) where the ATA person says that one lost life is too many. You see the same crap inside companies. All-hands rah-rah meetings or zoom calls or mass emails with this kind of stuff in it, then the next day, directives to the contrary. Or, the handbook says to do X, for safety reasons, but your supervisor says to do Y that will be impossible to accomplish if you do X, like you're supposed to. In union shops the workers often have leverage to point at the handbook, laws, or contract, and tell their supervisor to get fucked, but others just have to deal with it or find another job. Ditto non-safety stuff like violating the company's own policies on shift scheduling, or overtime wage-theft, or any number of other things.

Schnitz 3y ago

Europe has mandatory underride guards for this reason since 20+ years ago.

detuur 3y ago
I really thought this was missing in the article. I understand that it's about the situation in the US, but at the very least a comparative analysis could've been made how the US regulatory environment differs from others around the world.
berniedurfee 3y ago
Thanks, I was going to ask just this question. Maybe it was just my perception, but I remember driving in Germany (long time ago) and noting how trucks seemed to be driving at a reasonable speed over in the right lane. Very different from highways in the US where trucks typically drive as if they were just another sedan on the road.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
27 years ago in the US: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2004/11/05/04-24737/federal-motor-vehicle-safety-standards-rear-impact-guards https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2004/11/05/04-2473... ...and then updated two years later. Still watered down to the point of near uselessness in order to placate the trucking industry lobbyists.
- caf 3y ago
  I believe Europe has required side underride guards since the 1990s.
Archelaos 3y ago
50 years in Germany: A rear underride guard was made mandatory in Germany by a 1973 law for vehicles registered on or after 1 January 1975 with a carriage height of 55 cm or more above ground. Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterfahrschutz_(Nutzfahrzeug)#Hinterer_Unterfahrschutz https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterfahrschutz_(Nutzfahrzeug)... (in German)
3y ago

jmclnx 3y ago

>An investigator with the local police department blamed the collision on the truck driver, who was initially charged with negligent homicide, though charges were eventually dropped I wonder why. Another issue is the size of trucks. The state where I lived: * Truck size was limited, large trucks were only allowed on one Highway. Goods were transferred to smaller Trucks for transport to factories. * Driving trucks on Sundays was not allowed. * Large Trucks were not allowed on City Streets. Since this happened it is open season on bicycle riders. Reagan de-regulated and Trucks can be any size, plus they can clog the roads on Sunday. The last item I do not know when it was enabled, but it happened after Reagan. I now heard of trucks with 3 trailers but never saw one. I think it is about time we limit sizes to what existed on the 60s. If you need 3 trailers, time to go back to freight trains.

cafard 3y ago
Trucking deregulation began several months before Reagan was elected.
JimtheCoder 3y ago
"If you need 3 trailers, time to go back to freight trains." Trains can only run on train tracks. The tracks/train stations don't always go close to where the freight needs to go. It is bordering on impossible to build new rail infrastructure to get freight where it needs to go. It takes a lot longer to ship something on a train than on a truck. Add on the fact that transport in general is getting more expensive, and I don't think more regulations on trucking is the right answer. Just install the guards on the side of trailers and be done with it...
- hattmall 3y ago
  The answer is more, smaller, trucks / vans. If trucking creates jobs then a great way to create MORE jobs is to have smaller trucks. With smaller loads you lower the element of danger as well as lowering the barrier to entry. Additionally with smaller loads transfer's can be accomplished much more quickly with smaller equipment. Hot shot trucking is already pretty popular and typically works out to be cheaper. The idea overall idea would be an expansion of the interior ports network with loads small enough that drivers can self service.

mastazi 3y ago

> Year after year, federal officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the country’s primary roadway safety agency, ignored credible scientific research and failed to take simple steps to limit the hazards of underride crashes. NHTSA officials don't have time to do that of course, they are too busy denying right to repair in order to "protect" motorists https://youtube.com/watch?v=2nXVljRUnoc https://youtube.com/watch?v=2nXVljRUnoc As an external observer (I don't live in the USA) it seems to me that the NHTSA is captured by lobbyists, as a result it is currently only there to protect the interests of auto makers, instead of protecting traffic safety. Why is this illegal behaviour not investigated?

pnw 3y ago
NHTSA definitely seems like one of the more dysfunctional agencies. The US headlight standard from 1967 has never been updated to allow modern adaptive headlight designs despite at least two decades of requests from car manufacturers. Congress finally forced NHTSA to take action in 2021 with a timeline of two years, but they still aren't available because now the NHTSA is dragging their feet on testing. Meanwhile American car companies like Ford sell adaptive headlights overseas but we make do with 1960's technology in the US. I wonder how many lives have been lost in the meantime?
- kelnos 3y ago
  > Congress finally forced NHTSA to take action in 2021 with a timeline of two years What's the method of forcing them to do it, though? Like, if it's not done in two years, what happens?
  - pnw 3y ago
    Congress put it in a bill. Not sure exactly what happens if they don't do anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if the car companies sued, because it seems like they've been asking for this for a long time. H.R.3684 - Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 117th Congress (2021-2022) Rulemaking.--Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule amending Standard 108..[lots of text omitted]..to allow for the use on vehicles of adaptive driving beam headlamp systems. There's an interesting article about it here. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/business/us-approves-smart-headlights.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/business/us-approves-smar...

CoastalCoder 3y ago

There's something I don't understand about this crash in particular: It sounds like Marcos' death is blamed on the actions of the truck driver, as well as the lack of an under-ride bumper. But don't we normally consider drivers responsible for crashing into objects towards which they're travelling? It doesn't sound like a situation where the truck jumped into traffic suddenly from a hidden driveway: > The truck edged out of a driveway and began, slowly, to turn left onto the road, blocking traffic in both directions. I.e., wouldn't death have also been avoided if Marcos had been traveling at a speed that allowed him to stop in time? I'd think that addressing that (if I'm right) would save a lot more than ~100 lives/year.

robnado 3y ago
It happened to me previously to be surprised by a stopped vehicle on the road. All you need is a large SUV driving in front of you blocking your vision of anything ahead. Then the SUV changes lane suddenly to avoid the stopped vehicle. Good luck reacting in time especially if you don't keep a multi-second separation between you and the car in front.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
I might see the truck edging out of a driveway and trust that they're going to properly yield right of way and not make themselves an obstacle. By the time I realize "my" mistake, I might not have enough distance to stop.
- shakow 3y ago
  Without putting blame anywhere and independently of who has the right of way, don't you just have your preservation instinct kicking in telling you that just giving a bit of brakes is not a bad idea, and that the risk/gain ratio of losing 10 seconds of your day vs. getting killed is not worth it?
  - deleted 3y ago
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lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

I remember reading a claim that logistics companies will often tell their drivers to break traffic laws (ostensibly "only when it's not dangerous") and they consider any citations to be a cost of doing business. While I can't really verify that's true, it tracks with behavior I see of truck drivers in tight quarters; it's been trending towards this "I'm turning and I barely care if you're able to stop in time" kind of behavior.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
"I remember reading a claim that logistics companies will often tell their drivers to break traffic laws" I don't think most drivers are waiting for permission from their superiors to break traffic laws...
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  I get what you mean. The sibling comment about “incentives” helps to paint an even more complete picture. The drivers have a pay incentive to be impatient, increasing the number of instances in which they choose to do this sort of thing regardless of what Management “allows”. They’d just hope to get away with it. I mean to bring up the point that Management is complicit in this. They might fire this driver as a token measure because someone died (part of me even sees the driver as a victim in such a scenario) but they’re not going to stop encouraging the behavior that gets people killed. It’s not much speculation that one of Management’s primary concerns right now is “how expensive” this is and probably not much consideration is given about how to improve the situation. (Especially not if the solutions are all cost and no gain; it would be irresponsible of them to lower their profitability if they’re publicly traded. /s)
praptak 3y ago
Why would they tell this? Just set incentives. Wink wink, we don't care how you do it but here's the bonus for the speed of delivery.

cracrecry 3y ago

As a European I see this kind of accident as a non issue because we use roundabouts. It is only important in the back of the truck. The main bug is using so many square corners road junctions in the US. Those are super dangerous.

llampx 3y ago
No, its because underride guards are mandated in many parts of Europe. In Germany, for example, roundabouts are far less frequent than normal turns.
deleted 3y ago
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throwaway22032 3y ago
Eh? There are normal turns all over Europe. In fact, my closest near miss was at one in France.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  There are also many more roundabouts, and they seem to be especially favoured near factories and at other locations where lorries are especially likely to make turns. The road mentioned in the article has two lanes in each direction and a speed limit of 75mph (120km/h). The major junctions are fully grade-separated, but there are many flat junctions.

JoeyBananas 3y ago

new Metallica song?

berbec 3y ago
dying to live!

ethagknight 3y ago

>>It was a little after 7 p.m. and Ricardo Marcos was rolling through the darkness in his gray Hyundai Elantra. Marcos had spent a long day toiling as a mechanic at a trucking company in McAllen, Texas, a sunbaked city nestled right on the U.S.-Mexico border. Reading the opening story, it sounds like he fell asleep or wasn't paying attention. We will never know, but it's very sad no matter. It's also true, assuming he fell asleep, he could have killed others, as happened to Rod Bramblett and his wife, radio announcer for the Auburn Tigers, who was killed at a stoplight when rear ended by a driver who fell asleep while driving at a high rate of speed. Another sad story. Hitting an 80,000lb mass in any configuration at high speed is going to be nasty no matter what. One option is to ask truckers to provide heavy bumpers and crumple zones and airbags around their trucks. The other option is to operate your vehicle safely, reducing speed if visibility is limited, etc. I dont doubt that rear bumpers being stronger would be a good start, but by the same token, the starting assumption of a car rear ending a very large object at 60mph head-on does not seem like a scenario to weigh too heavily in the grand scheme. However, maybe there is a compromise of better rear guards and 20% additional side coverage by guards? i.e. dont make perfect the enemy of good.

mistercheph 3y ago
The purpose of the NHTSA and vehicle safety regulations broadly is not to litigate who is at fault in an accident and sentence them to death, it is to make traveling on the road by motor vehicle or bicycle or foot as safe as is feasible given costs and available technology and data about the nature of injuries in collisions. Most people most of the time are in control of their vehicles and are paying attention to the road. But every single person that drives a car will make a mistake, become distracted, suffer a mechanical failure, or become unavoidably implicated in the mistake of another road user. Slamming into the back or coming through the side of a semi-trailer is not something that just happens to "dangerous drivers". It is something that can happen to anyone placed in the wrong place at the wrong time. That said, the position of the regulators and trucking industry at present make sense, underride crash data indicates that the costs of proposed safety measures could be better spent improving other known road-safety issues with known or projected solutions. And the point that TFA is making is that NHTSA data is severely underreporting underride crash incidents in the sample that they investigated, making underride crash safety regulations worthwhile. And the mass of the vehicle is really not the issue in this sort of collision. This type of collision would occur in the same exact way if the trailers weighed 1,000 lbs, the bottom of the trailer would shred through the windshield and decapitate the occupants. A better underride guard would turn an unknown number of fatal accidents into scary crashes that people walk away from unharmed.

renewiltord 3y ago

Fortunately, if you avoided listening to environmentalists, transit advocates, and people with children and bought a high ride-height vehicle like a Dodge Ram 1500, your vehicle will be tall enough to actually contact the truck or trailer without a decapitation! Pickups and SUVs are way safer, guys. Up to you what you do with the information.

sarchertech 3y ago
High ride-height vehicles are safer for you in specific kinds of crashes. They aren’t safer for everyone else.
wolfgang42 3y ago
If you listened to transit advocates, you'd be riding in a bus or a train, both of which are much higher and heavier than your vaunted SUVs.
dahart 3y ago
> Pickups and SUVs are way safer The NHTSA stats seem to somewhat contradict this claim. Looks like light trucks (< 10k lbs) have historically had a higher fatal crash rate, both per mile traveled, and per registered vehicle, than passenger cars, up through 2015. The numbers have equalized and maybe gone slightly lower only in the last ~8 years, but certainly not “way” lower. The injury-crash numbers are lower for trucks, so you might be less likely to get injured in a truck, but no less likely to die. https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/813375#page39 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/... - see Table 3, page 23 (Fatal crashes) and page 24 (Injury crashes). Trucks are heavier and have a longer stopping distance, and for a long time (until 1999) they had much lower safety standards than passenger cars. That’s not to mention it’s maybe short-sighted to ignore many legitimate concerns about air quality, fuel efficiency, children, and where to park, since under-ride crashes are only a teeny tiny fraction of fatal crashes involving any vehicles. I’m pretty sure you’re way better off from a safety perspective just driving a little slower than buying a truck, all else being equal.
- AlgorithmicTime 3y ago

jiveturkey 3y ago

This article is intentionally written to sidestep the victim driver's own responsibility. It's hard to underride into a truck if you're driving attentively. That's not to say they are wrong, if the fix is as simple and as cheap as described. I do value the expose of the politics around the non-action, even if TFA has other faults. Mandatory AEB (automatic emergency braking) systems should address it to some degree, albeit only in new cars. There's no reason we shouldn't do both.

dghlsakjg 3y ago
Did you read the whole article? There’s a second accident cited where the truck changed lanes suddenly and trapped the car next to them under the trailer and dragged it for quite distance. Then the car caught fire and the driver was burned to death. Sounds like it’s pretty easy to underride if the truck changes lanes or swerved into you. Not a victim that I would blame. What about the accident where the truck blew through a stop sign at 40mph and the victim was wedged underneath the trailer. I wouldn’t blame that victim either for not avoiding a truck moving at speed outside their line of sight. What about the person who was rear-ended and propelled under the truck in front of them. Should that victim be blamed for their lack of attentiveness? Yeah, people can be better drivers, but we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Even if it costs equipment manufacturers several hundred more dollars
- jiveturkey 3y ago
  > Did you read the whole article? I did. You are cherry picking the accidents where it's quite clear the victim did nothing wrong. There are other accidents described where I find it hard to draw that conclusion. There are only about 4-5 accidents described out of about 400 in 2021 (an undercount per the article). Have you been on the road? It's very dangerous due to most drivers around you being absolutely awful and inattentive. At least in the USA which is the concern in this article. I swear, not a day goes by where someone either in front or behind me pulls off onto the shoulder to do a heavy braking, surprised that traffic in front is slowing. Whereas truck drivers IME tend to be the most attentive and good drivers. (Of course there are exceptions and the trucks are massive so they have an outsized result.) At least in california. So I'm hard pressed to believe that most of those 400+ annual accidents are the fault of the truck driver. > we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Agreed, and I said as much. Why the NHTSA is not acting on this is beyond my understanding. As well, I noted that I endorse AEB, even though it's a negative for me personally due to 100% false positive events in my own usage. AEB will fix far more hazards than trailer underride guards. Again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do both. This is why non-level crossings, armcos, botts dots, LED traffic signals, and so on are all great things. Sure an excellent, courteous and attentive driver doesn't need any of those. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have them, and I said as much re underride guards. I think you are misreading my comment as victim blaming and reacting to that. That's not what I said.

mhb 3y ago

If the absurd increase in the heights of the fronts of cars continues - problem solved.

elihu 3y ago

> "The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association, a lobbying outfit representing semitrailer builders, had little desire to make safer rear guards. In correspondence with the department, the TTMA said it would be 'far more practical' to force Volkswagen and other companies making compact cars to produce larger vehicles that were less likely to slip beneath a truck." Of course.

cornholio 3y ago
> 'far more practical' to force Volkswagen and other companies making compact cars to produce larger vehicles While being far more dangerous to children due to the low frontal visibility of American style trucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDH3FDfVQl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDH3FDfVQl0 The "huge car to overcompensate for a tiny brain" fad is growing in Europe and it's a travesty.
bob_neumann 3y ago
[flagged]
- bmicraft 3y ago
  Is this supposed to be satire?
  - LordShredda 3y ago
    Could be nixon from hell
    - sn41 3y ago
      Don't forget that Nixon established the EPA. So he wasn't entirely anti-regulation. (or maybe there were political pressures, I don't know the details.)
      - HPsquared 3y ago
        Environmental protection was historically a conservative thing. "Conservation" and all that. Free markets were a left-wing thing in the past. These things aren't set in stone.

bob_neumann 3y ago

[flagged]

nayuki 3y ago
> Regulators have long-since become a bunch of career busybodies [...] I want it to stop. [...] I support "hands-free"/anti distraction traffic laws. Zero cost That's a regulation, and it costs police resources to enforce it. Stop contradicting yourself.
kelnos 3y ago
If that's how you truly feel, please move out into the wilderness and completely cut yourself off from society. If you want to live in society, then you have to put up with the rest of us actually caring about making things safer for the average (or below-average) driver, not just you, the apparent perfect driver who will never end up in a car crash, ever, because of course you have perfect control over everything around you, including the actions of all the other drivers on the road. Absolute rubbish.

noisy_boy 3y ago

> The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. > They said there’s not enough research to support a government mandate, which would impose huge costs on businesses that operate on thin profit margins. So thin that they can't afford $127 a truck; they are running a no profit charity out of the goodness of their heart and that pittance of an one-time amount per truck would push them over into red.

olyjohn 3y ago
You can't even buy the steel to build these for $127. That figure is trash just like this whole scare article.
kelnos 3y ago
Seriously. If they aren't even making $127 of profit on a single haul of an individual truck, this business is just kinda pointlessly unsustainable?
- midasuni 3y ago
  Wouod someone reply not buy a truck if it was $127 more?
klabb3 3y ago
I think the article could have done a better job of portraying the side of the industry. The majority cost is probably fuel efficiency. At the end of the article, they describe a new technical solution which is more light weight, involving a polyester mesh and steel, instead of just steel. When you think about it, that’s an argument FOR requiring these regulations early, like back in the 70s when the issue was on the table. Because when you DO put safety first, engineering now has a bounded problem that they can improve on quickly (which engineers are particularly good at). So, stupid all-around, and tens of thousands of people died for no good reason.
- Drunk_Engineer 3y ago
  Closed sideguards actually improve fuel economy due to reduced air drag.

sn41 3y ago

I saw the PBS documentary yesterday. If I am not mistaken, one of the accidents mentioned involved a Chevy Silverado [1]. If so, then the lobbyists are full of it. On the whole, I don't understand why the objection is there: are bars all that expensive? For comparison, here are Daimler trucks sold in India [2] - side protection is clearly visible. (Admittedly, they are high-end trucks as far as the Indian market is concerned.) [1] https://youtu.be/1LyaWzOesXk?t=1374 https://youtu.be/1LyaWzOesXk?t=1374 [2] https://trucks.cardekho.com/en/trucks/bharat-benz/2623r https://trucks.cardekho.com/en/trucks/bharat-benz/2623r

elihu 3y ago
I suspect there's an aerodynamic cost as well. Over time, that might be significantly more expensive than the manufacturing costs. Weight is also an issue, though in this case at least the weight is low to the ground and would improve the trailer's stability.
- newaccount74 3y ago
  The article mentions that some trailers already have plastic skirts to improve fuel efficiency because of aerodynamics. However, for safety, you would have to put steel bars behind the plastic.
Freeaqingme 3y ago
> are bars all that expensive? From the article: > The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. I'm inclined to think that 127 USD (even if the side rails were a little bit more expensive because they're larger) is not too expensive for a feature like this. Also, I think that in Europe these rails are already mandatory. At least the rear guard is required in The Netherlands if the trailer protrudes >60cm at the rear iirc.
- tecleandor 3y ago
  I think that $127 is for when then first tried to pass it in the 80s. But even after inflation, and price raises, and whatever calculations we do... That's a ridiculously cheap price for a security feature. That's not even the price for installing a bunch of airbags. I'm not in the market (nor the region), but for a new semi-truck plus bed I guess you're going to expend north of $200K. A thousand or two in security features is absolutely nothing. So instead of a low percentage of vehicles expending a little money on security features, they want the rest of the world to buy way more expensive and ridiculously big cars? Upgrading a single vehicle to a SUV would be way more expensive than their upgrades. Regular cars have all sorts of active and passive safety features for the people inside, and for pedestrians and other vehicles outside, and that's fine. I don't tell pedestrians to buy an armor if they want to be safe when I'm driving around.

csours 3y ago

> "In 2022, more than a decade after Brumbelow’s tests, NHTSA updated its rules. Even then, the agency acted only after the passage of a federal law directing it to do so." Not going to defend NHTSA here, but it's a good idea to pass laws like this. NHTSA would likely have been sued if they passed the rule. Having a law really cuts down on the lawsuits. After reading 5th Risk by Michael Lewis, I updated my thinking about government agencies. Government agencies are often quite limited by law and cannot advocate for effective policies. Lawmakers really should be updating rules much more often in consultation with agency scientists and specialists. I feel like we've gotten used to lawmakers not doing the jobs they are elected to. I also believe that we should have a Greenhouse Gas Administration, and not rely on the EPA and Clean Air and Water Acts to cover CO2.

Dalewyn 3y ago
Even from the perspective of keeping authoritative powers held within the reins of the people, it is better for rules and regulations to be legislated into proper laws by the legislature. Legislatures are voted in by and answer to the people, at least ostensibly. Government agencies don't necessarily answer to the people.
- IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
  Yet legislators are in the grasp of associations, who want no such legislation to occur and either block it or never allow it to be proposed. They are in the clutches of corporations & oligarchs.
  - esyir 3y ago
    That sounds like the problem to solve then. Otherwise you're just applying a band-aid to an aortic rupture.
    - miguelazo 3y ago
      Hence my comment about the US being what it likes to call a "failed state," which was promptly and thoroughly down-voted. :-)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

fooker 3y ago

India has an interesting solution to these issues. Ban large trucks from city roads (including highway sections) during daytime. The large US cities are getting dense enough to start enacting rules from third world countries. No amount of safety regulations will make these issues go away.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Interesting. Isn't this the case everywhere? In European countries there are rules for where and when large trucks and trailers can go; inside cities, plenty of roads have size/weight limits, and outside, many roads allow trailer truck traffic only at night or during weekends.
- stefan_ 3y ago
  Lots of US cities also have designated truck routes but no one enforces them and if a truck happens to kill someone on them, they collectively throw up their hands and go "unlucky".

acyou 3y ago

Apply this sort of thinking to every facet of modern life, and we will have death by a thousand safety-conscious cuts. This article is based on eliciting an emotional response and by a statistical argument. Of course if we adopt the safety measures then things will be safer. "It's only $XXX. Doesn't that seem like a small amount?" "It's lives we're talking about. Why does money matter?" That's an emotional, illogical argument. Now multiply that amount by all of the areas where safety could be better, and all of a sudden, we start to see why things are the way that they are. $127 for a heavier rear guard and side guard. What about the change in operating costs from the increased weight and aerodynamic losses? We could limit all drivers to 30 mph everywhere too. Save lives and gas. Think of the children!

sofixa 3y ago
Am I understanding correctly that your argument is basically "fuck human lives if there's any barrier to making anything even a tad safer that will save some of them"? Where does your logic stop? What about seat belts, how much do they cost to add to vehicles?? Or airbags? Or any of the other safety features that have already been added? Or to go out of cars, infrastructure design - do you know how much more it costs to make sure that bridge/building won't fall apart? Or how much it costs to have multiple exit points from venues with hundreds of people? Safety regulations are written in blood, lots of it.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  Raising shipping costs increases food costs — doubling shipping causes 0.7% inflation. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring-shipping-costs-raise-prices-around-the-world https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/03/28/how-soaring... There are 13,000,000+ households in the US which face challenges having enough food, at least once during the year. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-u-s/key-statistics-graphics/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/fo... When you propose a change that makes food less efficient to ship, you increase the number of people who struggle to feed their families — and make the challenge worse for those who already are struggling. What the person you’re replying to is saying is that you have to balance the benefits (fewer truck crashes) against the costs (more hungry people) — and that such a choice isn’t nearly as simple as shallow histrionics, about how we must spend money to save lives! I think your shallow false dichotomy, rather than engaging with the fact that economics also costs lives and causes human suffering, is exactly the problem.

stuaxo 3y ago

Other countries do this, I remember when safety measures were introduced in the UK to stop these kind of accidents in the 80s (and maybe 90s).

abainbridge 3y ago
I think rear underrun protection and sideguards became mandatory in May 1983. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1982/1576/pdfs/uksi_19821576_en.pdf https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1982/1576/pdfs/uksi_1982...

Rapzid 3y ago

Hundreds! AKA >1 in a million odds each year. Can't spare brain cycles on this. It sounds like someone else is already thinking about it. I believe in them.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

“During discovery they obtained a seven-page document signed by executives from Utility and 10 other semitrailer companies. The document, drafted in 2004, was a pact struck by the biggest companies in the business, a pledge to work cooperatively — and secretly — to thwart any lawsuits stemming from side and rear underride crashes. The arrangement had been orchestrated by Glen Darbyshire, an attorney for the TTMA, the trade group. As part of the agreement, the firms would keep crucial safety information confidential. That material — including ‘documents, factual material, mental impressions, interview reports, expert reports, and other information’ — wasn’t to be shared with anyone outside of the circle.” This…sounds like someone took notes on their criminal conspiracy. Has any prosecutor said they’re looking at this?