A recent television news report focused on the efforts of two mothers who have joined together in seeing that the needless deaths of their respective daughters won’t be in vain. The goal is to prevent deaths caused directly by there conspicuously being a lack of a certain safety feature on big trucks.

Here is the issue. Years ago we had truck accident cases where injuries were routinely deaths due to there being no undercarriage bar installed on these truck’ trailers. The next time you pull up behind a large truck, you will probably notice a horizontal bar that until now you may have thought was there for the convenience of the trucker to climb into the back of his trailer. Well, it may serve a dual purpose, but those bars are required by regulations designed to prevent cars from driving up under the bottom of the big rig in rear-end collisions. Without those bars, even small fender-benders were routinely turning into death cases due to decapitation and serious head injuries. The government stepped in and mandated them – they actually cost very little – and many small accidents have remained small accidents.

The problem, however, is that without being forced to take action to save lives, many companies will refuse to act. As a result, most trucks do not have undercarriage bars on the sides of the trailers. As a consequence, we are still seeing a great number of deadly accidents that shouldn’t be, simply because the car slides under the side of the trailer, such as in a t-bone intersection accident. Again, people could walk away from such accidents but for the disparity between the height of the two vehicles involved. The roofs of most cars and SUVs are not designed to withstand much of an impact, as compared to the front end.

With that said,  it should be noted that even the bars in the back of the truck trailer that are now required are not sufficient and too often give way to impact at low speeds. So, not only are side rails needed, but the rear rails need increased crash-worthiness requirements.

I applaud those who are fighting this fight, and I can only hope the end result will be that National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will step up and do its job of protecting the public.