Whenever a passenger vehicle is involved in an accident with a tractor trailer, there are likely to be serious injuries, extensive property damage, and possibly even one or more fatalities. The size and shape of tractor trailers create many different scenarios for collisions with passenger vehicles. One possible accident scenario is the underride accident, where the front end of a passenger vehicle goes under the trailer portion of a tractor trailer unit from the back or from the side.
Underride accidents can cause serious injuries or death to the occupants of passenger vehicles. As the passenger vehicle goes under the trailer, the top of the vehicle may be torn off. When this happens, safety mechanisms inside the vehicle, like seat belts and air bags, are unable to protect the people in the vehicle. Under these circumstances, drivers and passengers often sustain severe injuries to their heads, necks, and upper bodies if they are not killed during the collision. In fact, approximately three hundred and fifty deaths occur each year in the United States as a result of underride accidents.
Safety regulations which have been promulgated by the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) require the bottom of the rear bumpers of tractor trailers to be no higher than twenty two inches above the ground. You have probably seen these “bumpers”, and you may have wondered what they were because they do not look like the bumpers which are on the front and rear of passenger vehicles. The bumper on a tractor trailer usually has an open design which is comprised of a horizontal metal bar which is suspended from the rear of the trailer box by a couple of vertical metal bars. The bumper should have red and white reflective tape on it, but in some cases the tape may be missing or covered by dirt.
Unfortunately, bumpers which comply with the DOT requirements do not always prevent underride accidents. In some cases, the vehicle can go under the bumper if the force of the crash pushes the bumper forward. Vehicles do not even have to be moving at high speeds for bumpers which meet DOT standards to fail. Crash tests have shown that they can give way after being hit by a car which is traveling at a moderate speed, especially if the vehicle hits the bumper in a location which is not right in the center. DOT-compliant bumpers also do not prevent vehicles from getting underneath the trailer from the side.
Because the current DOT regulations are not very effective at preventing underride accidents, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and other groups have asked the DOT to update the regulations with requirements for larger, stronger bumpers that are less likely to fail upon impact. Some truck manufacturers do make their tractor-trailers with bumpers that exceed DOT regulations. Crash tests on the bumpers which exceed DOT standards have shown them to be quite effective at preventing underride accidents. This industry-led improvement is a step in the right direction, but the newer trucks with the safer bumpers are definitely still far outnumbered by trucks which have bumpers which meet the DOT standards and trucks with bumpers that do not even meet the standards because they are missing, broken, or old enough to be exempt from the regulations.
Underride accidents and other tractor-trailer collisions often cause serious injury or death. If you have been injured or someone that you love has been killed in a tractor-trailer accident, the knowledgeable and dedicated trucking accident attorneys.
If you or a loved one were harmed in an automobile accident, it is essential that you contact one of our personal injury attorneys right away. Call Parker Waichman LLP at 1-800-YOURLAWYER (1-800-968-7529) for your free case review.
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