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.
Sorry, saying mass doesn't matter is a false assertion. A 1000lb trailer will absolutely react differently in this scenario, including getting pushed up and out or yielding/crushing.
NHTSA also has to weigh the cost of compliance. Cars also could have stronger A pillars, that way the burden of compliance is placed on the one at higher risk.
The article tries to make it a big conspiracy by Big Truck, that bothered me. Trucks are easy to hate on, but efficient transport over very long distances is a tremendous strength of the American economy.
> The article tries to make it a big conspiracy by Big Truck, that bothered me.
I mean, one of the people who sued uncovered evidence of a literal conspiracy to hide safety-related data, so I'm not sure why the article's framing should bother you.
> Cars also could have stronger A pillars, that way the burden of compliance is placed on the one at higher risk.
That's not a completely unreasonable take, but my position is that the thing that causes the damage -- the trailer -- should be required to be made less lethal.
It's also unclear that A pillars can be made strong enough to survive those situations anyway. And even if they can, the car's crumple zones (which absorb kinetic energy) won't end up getting "used" in this type of crash, so the A pillar will take all the force, stop the car way faster than an impact on crumple zones would, and throw the driver forward much harder than in other types of crashes, possibly still fatally.
The US basically ignores transport efficiency though. Otherwise, there's be shipping on boats within the US
Why not put the burden of compliance of the operators creating the risk?
Otherwise, the trucks will build themselves bigger, such that the improved aframes are no longer sufficient. Somebody walking around with a bomb doesn't make it reasonable for everyone else to have to bomb proof everything
> 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.
It's certainly an avoidable mistake, especially on an open highway where the trailer was 'edging slowly' out into traffic. Failing to avoid it results in danger. The article doesn't even mention extenuating circumstances such as a blind turn or something, but even if that were the case, the situation would simply require extra caution to successfully navigate the dangerous area.
"Dangerous" doesn't have to mean intentionally so or that the driver was reckless; the danger could simply be in lacking the experience to recognize the danger that exists.
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.