Trailer Truck Safety Flaws Cause Underride Crash Injuries and Deaths

Each year, hundreds of people in the US die in underride crashes with semi-trucks, in which a passenger vehicle ends up under a trailer. Underride accidents compose a high percentage of collisions with commercial trucks, and result in a disproportionate number of fatalities. Decades of extensive research by government safety agencies, and even the trucking industry itself, have revealed a relatively simple way to reduce the severity of many underride crashes: rear impact guards. These guards, called RIGs, can help prevent a passenger vehicle from sliding beneath the back of a trailer during a rear-end impact. While certain RIG mandates have been established, very little has been done to ensure that big rig underride guards are effective enough to sufficiently protect human life and safety.

What Happens in an Underride Crash?

Most trucking underride crashes are one the following:

• A rear underride collision happens when a passenger vehicle hits the back end of the tractor trailer, forcing the trailer into the passenger compartment, shattering the windshield and often disabling the car’s safety features. Too often, these accidents result in death. Survivors may suffer severe head trauma, permanent brain damage, and terrible bodily injury.
• A side underride accident usually occurs when a smaller vehicle, such as a compact car, motorcycle or bicycle, connects with the side of a trailer, often at an intersection where a truck driver has performed an unsafe turn or lane change.
• An offset crash refers to a vehicle hitting the corner of a tractor trailer, typically when the truck is navigating a wide turn.

Side-impact underride and offset collisions are often caused by truck driver negligence or error. However, many rear underride fatalities and injuries aren’t the fault of the driver, but rather the inadequate safety features on trailers. It has been known for decades by NHTSA and the trucking industry that effective rear underride guards can prevent horrendous injuries and deaths, and yet, rear impact guard safety standards have remained largely inadequate.

What are the Safety Requirements for Semi Trailers?

In compliance with the recent National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, NHTSA updated its safety standards for trailers and semi-trailers for the first time in nearly a decade, to require the installation of rear impact guards designed to help prevent “passenger compartment intrusion.” However, of the estimated two-plus million tractor trailers on the road, too few have guards strong enough to sufficiently reduce the chance of death and critical injury from a rear collision.

While this update acts as a response to the industry’s previous failure to appropriately protect the public, it requires the guards to hold up when impacted by a passenger vehicle traveling at 35 miles per hour. If traveling speeds on streets and highways were limited to 35 miles per hour, this might help control the problem. But most people encounter trailer and semi-trailer trucks on highways and thoroughfares, so how effective is this new requirement, really? Obviously, the “improvements” to the former low standard can hardly be called substantive. Frankly, it seems more like a palliative than a lifesaving measure. And, for people who were severely injured or killed due to an underride crash, it is far too little, too late.

So, why haven’t better safety requirements been established?

The Trucking Industry

Even though NHTSA’s own data estimates that large truck crash fatalities climbed 13% between 2020 to 2021, the US trucking industry has refused to manufacture and implement sufficient safety equipment. Sadly, NHTSA, perhaps bowing to pressure from the formidable trucking lobby, has done little over the years to craft appropriate safety mandates.

A former top NHTSA official recently stated, “NHTSA has been trying, for decades, to do something about underride deaths. And yet…[the trucking] industry just keeps pushing back and undermining their efforts.” While the sentiment is appreciated, the real message is: the Trucking Industry has too much power.

Meanwhile, the devastating costs resulting from underride crash fatalities, bodily injuries and property damage remain on the rise. 

Fighting the Powerful Trucking Companies

For decades, the big rig industry has ignored research proving that upgrading its rear guard technologies would reduce underride accident fatalities, and its powerful lobby has placed pressure on the Department of Transportation (DOT) to reject recommendations for RIG improvements, such as utilizing stronger materials and designs that absorb energy and prevent trailer intrusion into cars.

The projected manufacturing and installation costs related to improved rear impact guards varies, but general estimates range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per truck. As pricey as the upfront costs might be, they can be offset by federal benefits, and dwarfed by the cost of accident injury litigation leading to jury awards for plaintiffs. So, the long-term safety benefits and potential cost savings vastly outweigh the initial economic impact on trucking company operations.

Even so, year after year, the big trucking industry’s concerns about the cost of implementing new safety features has overshadowed its obligation to promote public safety.

So, we must rely on our legal system to enact real change. That’s why court cases against trucking companies resulting in awards of $10 million dollars or more in damages have continued to climb. While the trucking industry complains these “nuclear verdicts” imperil its ability to survive, such awards serve as a resounding and definitive rejection of its ongoing negligence and disregard for human life.

Jury Awards $462M for Fatal Underride Crash

In September of 2024, a Missouri jury awarded a $462 million verdict against Wabash National Corporation, one of the nation’s largest manufacturers of truck bodies, trailers and semi-trailers. The verdict, which included $450M in punitive damages, was for the faulty design of its rear impact collision guard, which tore off upon impact. The 2019 products liability lawsuit claimed that the design of Wabash’s rear impact guard caused the avoidable deaths of two men who were decapitated after hitting a tractor trailer on a major interstate. Wabash sought to blame the driver of the sedan because of the vehicle’s traveling speed, which counsel claimed was close to 55mph; the plaintiff’s experts calculated it to be closer to 45mph. Wabash’s team stated the company’s rear impact guards met federal safety standards, and that no one traveling at the estimated speed would survive such a crash.

However, passenger cars’ bumpers, crumple zones, airbags and other modern technologies are designed to reduce the destructive nature of a direct collision. But, in a rear underride crash, it is usually the passenger vehicle’s windshield, not its body, that takes the full impact, usually rendering its safety features useless. When a trailer’s guard fails, there is little to prevent the trailer from penetrating the passenger area of the car behind it.

The plaintiffs’ legal team argued that in the nearly 30 years Wabash’s rear impact guard had been in use, the company had flat-out ignored decades of research and warnings about its failures. The reason? To save money in the short run. As one attorney stated, “What’s the common theme we’ve seen through all of this? It’s monetizing life…. That’s the decision they made.”

The jurors found Wabash National Corp. to be primarily responsible for the deaths of the two men, both young fathers. The punitive damages were calculated by multiplying 30 years of manufacturer inaction by the annual estimated cost the company would have incurred, $15M a year, had it chosen to value life over its own coffers.

AutoAccident.com: Your Ally Against the Trucking Industry

Congested highways, road construction and unsafe roads can lead to big trucks to brake suddenly, contributing to rear-end collisions. Semi-truckers – under pressure, tired, or poorly trained – may ignore blind spots or fail to use turn signals, cutting off other vehicles without giving them adequate room to avoid impact. And, too often, a passenger vehicle can be rear-ended by another vehicle, propelling it into the trailer of a truck in front of it. In all circumstances, every effort must be made to deter avoidable catastrophes.

If you or someone you love has been impacted by an accident with a commercial truck, tractor trailer, or semi-truck anywhere in California, don’t let the powerful trucking industry deflect its responsibility. You need legal representation with the skill, courtroom experience, and extensive resources to take on the commercial trucking conglomerate.

AutoAccident.com and our team of accident injury attorneys have experience fighting the trucking industry’s gauntlet of lawyers and insurance companies, to win fair compensation for victims of truck underride accidents. Our legal team will seek just compensation for death and/or injury resulting from outdated, insufficient or poorly designed truck rear impact guards and other faulty safety equipment, as well as truck driver negligence or recklessness. We utilize a team of specialists to assess the current and future costs of medical treatment, rehabilitation, lost wages, and other expenses. And we consider what punitive damages may be necessary to send a stark message to trucking manufacturers, companies and industry lobbyists that they must put human lives and livelihoods before profits.

With a 10.0 rating by Avvo and Justia, 5-star ratings on Yelp and Google, and membership in the Million Dollar Forum and the National Association of Distinguished Counsel, AutoAccident.com is a trusted name in accident injury representation throughout California.

Call AutoAccident.com at 916.921.6400 or toll-free at 800.404.5400 for immediate assistance with your case.