Lawmakers renewed efforts to mandate side underride guards on commercial motor vehicles.
On Thursday, Feb. 5, Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced the Stop Underrides Act 2.0. The bill would not only direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to issue a final rule requiring side underride guards, but it would also restart the DOT’s Advisory Committee on Underride Protections.
Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif.; and Deborah Ross, D-N.C., introduced the Stop Underride Act 2.0 in the House, while Sens. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., introduced the Senate version.
Underride crashes most commonly occur when a car slides underneath a tractor-trailer. Regulations already require rear underride guards, but truck safety groups have long advocated for mandated side underride guards.
“I’m proud to join my colleagues in introducing life-saving legislation to make our roads safer,” Luján said. “The Stop Underrides Act will help prevent deadly underride crashes and protect families from tragic, preventable loss. I’m proud to partner with my colleagues on this important issue, and I look forward to working to get this bill signed into law.”
Opponents call a mandate unfeasible, pointing to NHTSA’s cost-benefit analysis showing the regulation would cost up to $1.2 billion while saving fewer than 20 lives annually.
The Stop Underrides Act 2.0 would:
- Require NHTSA to finalize a rulemaking requiring side underride guards on commercial trucks
- Restart the DOT’s Advisory Committee on Underride Protection to provide recommendations for how to reduce underride crashes, severe injuries and fatalities caused by underrides
- Require the DOT to publish a website making underride research accessible to researchers, industry and advocates
- Instruct the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to conduct a study on the prevalence of underride incidents, including those involving the fronts of large trucks
- Instruct the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of the implementation of NHTSA’s 2022 rear underride rule and provide suggestions to improve the rule
- Instruct NHTSA to review its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and correct crashes in the database that should have been classified as an underride but were not
- Instruct NHTSA to create free, on-demand web-based training for state and local law enforcement to better identify and document underride crashes
Advisory Committee on Underride Protections
If the bill passes, the DOT would be directed to relaunch an advisory committee on underrides and hold monthly meetings through September 2031 or until a mandate is issued – whichever comes first.
The first attempt at an advisory committee ended with a fractured group that spent much of its time arguing over the definition of consensus rather than working toward a unified plan.
In late June, the committee submitted a 410-page report to NHTSA that included pro-mandate recommendations from the majority of members and a separate dissenting report from the minority.
The fractured report prompted the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association to write a letter to lawmakers. The July 10 letter called out the lack of a true consensus.
“NHTSA should not advance potential new underride standards until further research, analysis and testing is completed as directed in the bipartisan infrastructure law,” OOIDA wrote. “The only recommendations that garnered true consensus support among panel members generally involved enhancing research and reporting. As such, these are the only elements of the final report Congress and USDOT should take seriously.” LL
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