Our view: Crash tests show that hundreds of lives might be saved if future truck trailers were required to have relatively inexpensive underride guards along their sides

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a widely-respected safety advocacy organization financed by the insurance industry, recently conducted tests on truck trailers that produced eye-opening results. Researchers looked at what are known as “underride guards” that are installed along the bottom of the sides of the 53-foot-long trailers commonly towed by big rigs. The guards are meant keep cars from becoming wedged underneath in a crash. Their conclusion? Such relatively simple devices could save hundreds of lives on the road.

Congress and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ought to mandate underride guards as soon as possible. IIHS estimates that half of all fatalities in crashes involving cars colliding with trucks involve cars striking the side of trailers. In 2015, an estimated 301 vehicle occupants died in crashes involving tractor-trailers when their passenger vehicles struck the side of a tractor trailer.

It’s not difficult to understand how such collisions became deadly. While trucks have front and back-mounted guards to protect cars from rolling up under trucks in head-on crashes, striking the side of a trailer can lead to the trailer shearing off the top of the smaller vehicle. No seat belt or air bag is going to protect a driver or passenger from such a devastating circumstance. The IIHS report further notes that some truck trailers already have flimsy fiberglass side guards designed to lessen wind resistance and do little to protect anyone in a crash.

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