The purpose for our current road trip happened last Tuesday. We and other members of the Truck Safety Coalition family attended a conference to discuss car and truck crashes, specifically the situation when a car slides under the trailer of a semi truck from the side.
That’s called a side underride and it’s usually deadly.
When you slide under a trailer your car’s safety features aren’t activated because your front bumper doesn’t hit anything. The first part of your car to come in contact with the trailer is your windshield. And then your head.
It’s been a problem for years. Jennifer’s dad was killed when his car slid all the way under a trailer on a dark country road more than thirty years ago and she’s been fighting this and other truck safety issues ever since.
But in this past year a solution has been developed. And it happened because people began to talk about the issue. Last year was the first conference on underride, and there the inventor of a side guard and a manufacturer happened to meet. They’ve been collaborating ever since, and at this year’s conference we got to witness their side guard in action.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) hosted our meeting, and did a test crash so that we could see what would happen. (Click the ‘meeting’ link above to see the crash test yourself.) The car was driven at 40 mpr into the side of a trailer with a side guard, named Angel Wing, installed behind the wind flow shield.
The car did not slide under the trailer. Though the trailer itself was moved several inches, the passenger compartment of the car was not penetrated.
The driver of this vehicle probably would have had a wrist injury, probably a headache, and bruises from the seat belt, but would have walked away.
Members of our truck safety family, there to witness this test, cried softly after. Unspoken was the knowledge that if something like this had been installed on trucks years ago they wouldn’t have been in Virginia this week, standing up on a platform, watching hope unfold.
Hope.
We have hope that someday, maybe sooner than we imagine, you’ll see Angel Wings, or some iteration of it, moving down the highway near you. We have hope that someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, a family will only have to deal with bumps and bruises, and not a funeral.
Someday soon the results of lots of peoples dreams will come to fruition. And it will happen because people from all walks of life sat down and talked. Trailer manufacturers, truck companies, safety experts, devastated families, government officials.
Everyone has a different viewpoint, but together an answer can be found. Truck crashes happen to all sorts of people and it takes all sorts of people to find a way to fix the problem.
Someday another mother will be holding her child, alive and safe. She might not know who to thank. But I, and now you, do.
Stay tuned. And stay safe.
September 2, 2017 at 8:51 am
God bless, Dawn.
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September 4, 2017 at 8:51 pm
Thank you.
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September 2, 2017 at 9:37 am
I’ve noticed the Angel Wings on transport trucks here in Canada since you’ve written about it. Now I appreciate why they have been installed. Thanks, Dawn.
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September 4, 2017 at 8:53 pm
Angel Wings have just been developed, so likely what you’re seeing is the air foil which is on trucks to make them more aerodynamic. Though in Canada there MIGHT be a side guard, if so we are not aware of them. The manufacturer IS Canadian….but I think he’d have told us if there were already side guards there….we could use the data from any that are out there. Here in the states there are only a hand full on trucks, mostly in the South. We are testing them and collecting data.
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September 5, 2017 at 6:35 am
aaaah! Thanks for this information. 🙂
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September 2, 2017 at 7:02 pm
Wow Dawn you are doing amazing and wonderful work.
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September 4, 2017 at 8:54 pm
Thank you. It’s in honor of my dad, and all the others who were killed or injured by crashes with big trucks.
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September 3, 2017 at 7:49 am
Such important work you do Dawn. Powerful to see this and offer hope for the future
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September 4, 2017 at 8:54 pm
There is definite hope, bypassing government and going straight to the industry. Some will do what is safe and right without being regulated into it.
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September 5, 2017 at 5:50 am
That always seems to be the case, unless forced by law or regulation it won’t get done
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Pingback: In underride, first point of contact with the truck is your windshield, then your head. | AnnaLeah & Mary
September 3, 2017 at 3:18 pm
I don’t know if it’s the same as Angel Wings, but I’ve seen more and more eighteen-wheelers with drop-down side panels. Is that what you’re talking about? If so, way to go! The more families we can protect from miseries like losing loved ones in crashes, the better.
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September 4, 2017 at 8:55 pm
I wonder what those drop down panels are. Inside city limits of Boston, NYC, some of Chicago and a few other urban areas, the trucks with contracts with the city have to have side guards that are strong enough to keep pedestrians and bikes out from under the trailers…you might have seen that.
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