In 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration put forth a Notice of Proposed Rule Making. NHTSA announced it wants to change the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to impose stricter rules for rear underride guards. NHTSA’s proposal came after more than a decade of Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recommending a tougher rule to help prevent deadly truck accidents. Underride accidents happen when cars slide under the back or the side of a tractor trailer. Serious injuries and fatalities are common in these crashes.
While it is good news that NHTSA may soon be imposing stricter underride standards, this action has come too late to save many lives. It is one more example of how safety regulators often take far too long to act, increasing the risk of truck crashes and other types of accidents on the road. Consumer Affairs recently reported on how safety organizations, including an organization called AnnaLeaha and Mary for Truck Safety, believe regulators are falling short.
Federal Lawmakers Should Impose Stricter Safety Regulations to Prevent Truck Crashes & Other Collisions
AnnaLeaha and Mary for Truck Safety is named after two sisters who were killed in an accident with a semi-trailer. The parents of the girls believe an absence of sufficient federal regulations were a direct contributing factor to their children’s death. The girls died in an underride accident with a truck driver who was believed to have been on the road too long. If stricter underride standards had been in place at the time of the incident, the deadly accident may never have happened.
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