“IIHS crash testing has shown it’s possible to design guards that can withstand crashes with a narrow overlap, but the new rule does not require such testing,” said IIHS President David Harkey.
“The final rule issued by NHTSA on June 30 falls well short of addressing most of the concerns raised in our petition. While the new standard is an improvement over the old one, nearly all newly manufactured guards on trailers already meet this new standard, which is similar to a longstanding Canadian requirement. Meanwhile, IIHS crash testing and the TOUGHGUARD award we inaugurated in 2017 have pushed the largest trailer manufacturers to strengthen their underride guards well beyond this level, demonstrating that further improvements are feasible.
