The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is petitioning the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require stronger “underride guards” on trucks to better prevent serious injuries and deaths that occur when a smaller vehicle slams into the rear of a tractor-trailer.
Steel underride guards are designed to stop smaller vehicles that crash into the back of tractor-trailers from sliding underneath the truck, compressing the passenger compartment and seriously injuring or killing the smaller vehicle’s occupants. But an IIHS study found that the guards don’t work as well as they should. The institute is asking NHTSA to require stronger underride guards and to require them on more large trucks and trailers.
NHTSA estimates that about 423 people in passenger vehicles die and more than 5,000 are injured each year when their cars strike the back of large trucks.
