Raleigh mom: Infrastructure bill will prevent crashes like the one that killed my girls
For more than eight years, Marianne Karth has been seeking tougher safety standards for trucks and truck trailers that would prevent the kind of crash that killed her teenage daughters in 2013.
After countless speaking engagements, TV interviews and meetings with politicians, safety advocates and representatives of the trucking industry, Karth’s goal was partially achieved in the infrastructure bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week.
Along with $1 trillion in spending, the law requires manufacturers to equip trucks and trailers with rear guards strong enough to prevent a car going 35 mph from sliding underneath. It also gives the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration a year to complete research on measures to prevent cars from going under the sides of trucks and trailers and, “if warranted, develop performance standards for side underride guards.”
Underride crashes are especially dangerous because the first contact a car or SUV has with the truck is often at the windows. Karth, who lives in Raleigh, is convinced that her daughters, AnnaLeah and Mary, would be alive today if trucks were required to have stronger underride guards.
They were riding in the back seat of the family’s Ford Crown Victoria when it was hit from behind by a tractor-trailer truck on Interstate 20 in Georgia. The car spun around and slid backwards, its trunk going under the back of another truck’s trailer which smashed through the rear window into the back seat. AnnaLeah died instantly, just shy of her 18th birthday. Mary, 13, died a few days later.
“This infrastructure bill has recognized the importance of solving this deadly problem and given NHTSA a clear mandate to begin working on it,” Karth wrote in an email. “This is unprecedented. For that I’m grateful.”
The bill makes headlines primarily for the money it provides for roads and bridges, mass transit, electric vehicle charging stations and broadband internet.
But it also includes several regulations and other measures that aim to make traveling safer. One provision requires NHTSA to evaluate new technologies to prevent people from driving while impaired and to require the best on new vehicles within three years, something Mothers Against Drunk Driving hails as the “most significant lifesaving legislation” in the group’s 41-year history.
Stop Underrides Act came first
The truck underride provisions in the bill were originally part of the Stop Underrides Act, which was first introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, in 2017 and co-sponsored by 15 other senators, including Republicans Richard Burr of North Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida. Much of Karth’s energy has gone into trying to get the bill passed over objections of the trucking industry and others.
Karth says Senate and congressional staff members had told her the Stop Underrides Act wasn’t likely to pass on its own but would instead get folded into a larger piece of legislation, in full or in part. And that’s what happened.
One provision that made it requires periodic inspections of the guards designed to keep vehicles from sliding under the backs of trucks. A missing, damaged or corroded guard would have to be replaced for the truck or trailer to remain on the road. The truck that Karth’s Crown Victoria hit had a rear guard, but it gave way, allowing the car to slide underneath.
Other parts of the Stop Underrides Act were watered down, including a provision that would have required guards to prevent cars from going under the sides of trucks. The infrastructure bill only directs regulators to assess the “feasibility, benefits and costs” of requiring them.
Another compromise came in the types of crashes the rear guards must survive. The law requires tougher rear guards to prevent underrides when at least 50% of a car’s width hits the truck.
But it leaves it up to regulators to decide whether the guard must stand up if only 30% of the car’s nose hits it, which occurs at the ends of the guards where many are weakest. Karth says she won’t let up as NHTSA studies the rear- and side-guard standards in the months ahead.
“The clock has now begun ticking, and you can count on me to keep their feet to the fire,” she wrote. “Although it will not bring back AnnaLeah and Mary, it will save many people in the years to come from Death by Underride.”
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 12:27 PM.
