- Hundreds of people are killed every year when they find themselves pulled underneath trucks.
- This type of crash could be prevented by a simple piece of equipment called a side underride guard.
Former US diplomat Sarah Debbink Langenkamp and her family moved back to the US from their post in Ukraine over safety concerns following the Russian invasion.
Just weeks later, on August 25, 2022, the 42-year-old mother of two was killed when a 13-ton flatbed truck turned right into the bike lane as Langenkamp was bicycling home from her sons' new elementary school in Bethesda, Maryland.
American roads are increasingly dangerous. Langenkamp was one of an estimated 46,000 road fatalities in the US last year, and one of about 6,000 deaths from truck crashes. Traffic deaths overall rose 13% from 2020 to 2021 and 10% from 2021 to 2022.
Truck crash deaths in particular have soared in recent years, increasing by 66% since 2009 and spiking since the pandemic, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Large trucks — those over 10,000 pounds — are involved in an outsized number of bicyclist, pedestrian, and passenger vehicle deaths.
Road safety advocates say there are straightforward ways to prevent these deaths. One of these solutions is something called underride guards, which hang below the front, back, and sides of trucks to prevent people and cars from sliding under or getting caught beneath trucks in an accident. Side guards can also stop people and cars from being crushed by a truck's rear wheels.
These simple pieces of equipment could save hundreds of lives a year, advocates say, but the trucking industry has fought them and the US Department of Transportation (DOT) has been slow to act.
The truck that hit Langenkamp didn't have a side underride guard. Her husband, Dan Langenkamp, says if it had, his wife would still be alive. Last month, Democrats in the House introduced the Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Active Transportation Act, which would unlock federal funds for biking and pedestrian infrastructure.
'A catch-22'
The US government and road safety experts have known for at least 50 years that underride guards save lives. Rear underride guards have been mandatory for most trucks in the US since the 1950s. In 1969, DOT announced that the requirement would be extended to side guards. But the government never issued the regulation.
Congress recently forced DOT's hand. The bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021 included requirements — drawn from the bipartisan Stop Underrides Act — to study the issue and determine whether the federal government should make rules.
A year ago, more than two dozen members of Congress, led by Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Steve Cohen, urged DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg to follow through on the infrastructure law's underride provisions. But nearly 18 months after the law's passage, an Advisory Committee on Underride Protection that the bill demanded be created still hasn't been set up.
"We don't even really know the scope and scale of the problem we're dealing with. Academics have estimated it's probably two to three times the amount that we think it might be," said Zach Cahalan, the executive director of the Truck Safety Coalition, a victims' rights organization that supports people who've lost a loved one or survived a truck crash. "It's like a catch-22. We haven't attempted to collect the data and when it comes time to estimate if this is a worthwhile safety countermeasure that's not unreasonable, we can't really assess it."
Last week, the League of American Bicyclists and other cycling advocacy groups lobbied members of Congress to sign a letter to the chairman and ranking member of the House appropriations committee's subcommittee on transportation, housing, and urban development. The letter calls on Congress to urge DOT to extend its research on the impact of side guards to bicyclists, pedestrians and other unprotected road users.
"A lower sideguard will push the bicyclists or pedestrians out of the way of the rear wheel," the letter reads. "In many large truck-bicycle collisions, the person does not die from the initial impact but from being crushed by the rear wheel of the truck."
A slew of American cities and at least 47 other countries have implemented side guard mandates, according to the Volpe Center, a federal agency focused on innovation in transportation. Preliminary research has found that side guards are effective, including in crashes with unprotected individuals. In crashes where bicyclists are hit by the side of a truck, side guards reduce fatalities by 55 to 75% and in accidents with pedestrians by 20 to 27%, according to the Volpe Center.
The trucking industry isn't a fan. Industry lobbying groups argue the government lacks evidence to prove the benefits of side guards are worth the costs, which include weighing down trucks.
"Until these devices can be shown to be reliable outside the test track, we believe Congress and regulators should focus on reducing crashes by addressing aggressive and distracted driving and investing in existing, proven safety technologies, including emerging connected vehicle technology," Sean McNally, spokesman for the American Trucking Association, said last year.
Cahalan blames the trucking industry for "delaying and fighting against common sense safety reforms," not just with regard to underride guards.
"They would rather risk knowingly — again, this is not new — putting the lives of pedestrians, cyclists, and all roadway users at risk so they have marginally more ability to move product," he said.