This Simple Change To Trucks Could Save Your Life

IIHS highlights how a simple truck design change could save many people's lives each year.

The Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) has released a new video showing the effectiveness of side underride protection on trucks. As the video shows, the protection is very effective. The screenshot at the top of our page shows two accidents. At the top, the car is striking a truck with the new protection. The dummy's head is protected because the active and passive safety systems the car is equipped with can operate in the crash due to the underride protection system the truck has. The lower image shows the mid-crash point at which the dummy's head is about to suffer catastrophic injury due to striking the bottom of the truck trailer. The video shows the rest of that crash.

IIHS says that "In 2015, 301 of the 1,542 passenger vehicle occupants killed in two-vehicle crashes with a tractor-trailer died when their vehicles struck the side of a tractor-trailer." The group says that underride guards like the AngelWing brand of guard shown in the image and video can reduce serious injuries in crashes of this type by about 90% in semi trailers.

As we reported previously, IIHS is also working to reduce rear underride crash deaths. In combination, truck rear and side underride crashes result in about 600 deaths annually in the U.S.