SAVING LIVES WITH SIDE GUARDS ON TRACTOR-TRAILERS

Fatalities from slipping under truck trailers aren’t new. It was 50 years ago in 1967 that actress Jayne Mansfield died after her car went under the rear of a trailer, igniting calls for rear and side protection to be installed on trailers. Finally, in 1998, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) made rear guards a requirement on trailers. They are known to this day as Mansfield bars.

But sides are still unprotected.

REDUCING TRAFFIC FATALITIES

The sides of tractor-trailers are high off the ground, with nothing to stop drivers, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians from falling or sliding under the exposed space, thus getting swept under the rear wheels—or worse.

Side-guard encounters are often fatal when it comes to pedestrian and cyclist crashes. More so than with passenger vehicles, these types of accidents are likely to be fatal: almost half of the bicyclists and over one-fourth of pedestrians who are killed in a large truck crash first hit the side of the truck. Through a recent period of five years, 556 bicyclists and pedestrians were killed in the U.S. after side impacts involving large trucks.

When it comes to passenger vehicles, 206 crashes involving them were studied in the Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS), hitting a truck’s side meant that the occupants of the passenger vehicles sustained the most severe injuries in 143 cases out of the 206.

Side guards like AngelWing? would prevent people from becoming victims of the trailer’s design by covering the exposed, open space. The technology exists so that the guards can be retrofitted onto existing trucks without adversely affecting the loss of economic opportunity.

AngelWing? Side Underride Protection Devices by AirFlow Deflector

www.airflowdeflector.com