USDOT Agency Nixes Upgraded Rear Impact Guards

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) last month again rejected safety advocates’ insistence that the agency mandate stricter upgrades to rear impact guards on semi-trailers, saying the tougher standard is not feasible for the industry at this time. A cost-benefit analysis of such a stringent standard showed little benefit for the cost of mandating the upgrades.

The agency adopted a final rule from July 2022 that upgraded rear guard standards similar to those of Transport Canada, but safety advocates continue to say that those standards are not stringent enough. In repeating its previous stance, the agency said that setting a safety standard for “all covered vehicles (trailers and semitrailers) to provide rear impact protection in full-frontal, 50 percent overlap, and 30 percent overlap crashes at 56 km/h (35 mph) impact speed would not be reasonable or practicable.”

As part of its review, NHTSA analyzed data for crashes involving 30% overlap between a passenger vehicle and a trailer or semitrailer. If rear guards were required to better withstand those incidents at speeds of 35 mph or less, one or two lives would be saved each year, according to NHTSA estimates.

However, in 2022, NHTSA said that the data collected in their review showed that “most fatal light vehicle crashes into the rear of trailers are at speeds much higher than 56km/h or 35 MPH.

The petitioners are Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Truck Safety Coalition, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, and Parents Against Tired Truckers.