WASHINGTON — Democrats in the House and Senate have reintroduced legislation requiring trucks be outfitted with protection against side-impact crashes – but this time it focuses exclusively on new equipment.
The Stop Underrides Act 2.0, introduced in the Senate by Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.,) and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., and in the House by Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., and Deborah Ross, D-N.C., is aimed at reducing fatalities by boosting protections that prevent cars from sliding underneath trailers, semitrailers, and single-unit trucks.
“With truck underride collisions claiming the lives of at least 300 people per year, the time to act on reforms is now,” DeSaulnier emphasized in a press release. “Small changes will make a big difference, and we cannot leave any room for error.”
Earlier iterations of the legislation sought to force fleets and owner-operators to install guards on their existing fleets within two years. While less restrictive, the most recent version introduced in 2021 contained language regarding maintenance and inspections that led to some industry opposition over potential “forced” upgrades to existing fleets.
But the 2026 bill focuses almost exclusively on newly manufactured equipment. It directs the Secretary of Transportation to finalize regulations for new trailers, semitrailers, and single-unit trucks – mandating the development of side underride guards capable of stopping a passenger vehicle at impact speeds of up to 40 miles per hour – within 18 months of enactment.
In an effort to address long-standing complaints from the trucking industry that underride protection equipment adds weight and increases fuel costs, the bill also includes a performance standard whereby any new side underride guards must “contribute to fuel efficiency through the integration of aerodynamic design or components furthering fuel efficiency.” The provision is aimed at offsetting the operational costs of the guards by essentially requiring them to function as side skirts.
In addition, the latest version of the legislation would:
- Restart the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Advisory Committee on Underride Protection to provide recommendations on reducing underride crashes and severe injuries and fatalities caused by underrides.
- Require the DOT to publish a website making underrides research accessible to researchers, industry, and advocates.
- Instruct the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study on the prevalence of underride incidents, including those involving the fronts of large trucks.
- Instruct the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of the implementation of NHTSA’s 2022 rear underride rule and provide suggestions to better improve the rule.
- Instruct NHTSA to review its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and correct crashes in the database that should have been classified as an underride but were not.
- Instruct NHTSA to create free, on-demand web-based training for state and local law enforcement to better identify and document underride crashes.
Marianne Karth, who lost two daughters in an underride crash 13 years ago, has been on a mission to raise awareness for improved underride safety.
“The provisions in this bill need to become law to bring Americans safely home,” Karth said in a press statement. “I don’t want any more families to lose loved ones while engineering solutions gather dust on a shelf.”
