Underride committee to focus on side guards at March 13 meeting

Side underride crashes will be the focus of the next meeting of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Advisory Committee on Underride Protection.

The committee, which is tasked with finding ways to reduce underride crashes, is scheduled to meet virtually from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, March 13. The public can register to attend the meeting here.

While this will be the committee’s fourth meeting since its start in May 2023, it will be the first to specifically focus on side underride guards. That is notable given that NHTSA is considering a potential side underride guard mandate on tractor-trailers and that the committee’s recommendations could play a big role in how the agency decides to proceed.

Current regulations specify requirements for rear impact guards on trailers, but there are no federal requirements for side underride guards.

Different perspectives

Underride crashes most commonly occur when a car slides underneath a tractor-trailer.

Safety groups have long pushed for a side underride guard mandate, while many truckers have pointed to unintended consequences and concerns regarding maintenance and practicability.

Last April, NHTSA published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking that aims to “assess the feasibility, benefits, costs and other impacts of installing side underride guards on trailers and semitrailers.”

NHTSA’s advisory committee includes three members – Jennifer Tierney, Marianne Karth and Jane Mathis – who lost loved ones in underride-related crashes. Tierney, who represents the Truck Safety Coalition, urged her fellow committee members to take action.

“I just want you all to understand that if you could guarantee that this never happened to you, you would, but you can’t,” Tierney said. “So anybody on this committee today could be sitting here with the same broken heart that Jane has, that Marianne has and that I have. And I just ask that you all remember that and think about that. If we sit on this committee for all these months, if we do nothing to stop these horrific crashes and then God forbid, something happens to someone you love, would you ever forgive yourself?”

Jeff Bennett, a committee member representing the Utility Trailer Manufacturing Company, said that the agency must avoid trading one type of fatality crash for another.

“I agree that we should be doing all that we can do to reduce fatalities on the road – no question,” Bennett said. “My heart goes out to those of you who have lost loved ones. I can’t imagine a greater hell on earth. But at the same time, these side underride guards do change the system, and they change the system in ways that we are not fully aware … We do not want to trade off side underride deaths for another type of death.”

Doug Smith, an OOIDA board member who is the only trucker on the committee, said its meetings have come with challenges.

“We’re like 19 members and you can say that three of us are pro-industry,” Smith recently told Land Line Now. “We spend a lot of our time talking about unintended consequences … I feel like we’re really in an uphill battle because there are members of this committee who have in their mind what they want, and they’re not going to stop until they get it.”

NHTSA estimates that a side underride mandate on all trailers and semitrailers would save 17.2 lives and reap up to $166 million in safety benefits annually. Meanwhile, the annual cost of the mandate would be up to $1.2 billion.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fall 2023 Unified Regulatory Agenda, the rulemaking is in the “analyzing comments” stage, and no action is expected until October. NHTSA is expected to wait for the committee’s recommendations before taking its next step.

Following the Wednesday, March 13 meeting, the underride committee is scheduled to meet on April 24 and May 22. LL