♪ ♪ >> A truck is driving, a car goes underneath it, and the devastation is horrible.

>> NARRATOR: In collaboration with “ProPublica,” correspondent A.C. Thompson investigates deadly truck accidents.

>> I have to wonder if people didn’t die because the trailer manufactures didn’t make stronger guards.

>> Costs unfortunately is a very real factor... >> NARRATOR: And the fight for reform.

>> A few hundred dollars per trailer is going to put these companies out of business?

>> Are you kidding me?

>> NARRATOR: Now on FRONTLINE, “America’s Dangerous Trucks.” ♪ ♪ >> A.C. THOMPSON: On any given day, there are millions of big trucks on America's highways.

They tower over everything on the road.

A single truck can weigh as much as 20 cars.

To get into an accident with one is often fatal.

Around 5,000 deaths a year, and 150,000 injuries.

And those numbers have been rising.

For the past year, I've been investigating one gruesome kind of truck crash and why they keep happening.

(truck horn blows) ♪ ♪ (ringing softly) Can you tell me about this location where we decided to meet?

>> This is a location where we've placed a memorial bench for my son Riley.

This is a meadow adjacent to the Methodist church in the village where he grew up.

A lot of his friends stop by and just sit on the bench and remember him.

>> THOMPSON: And can you tell me about your son?

>> He was sort of the classic 16-year-old that just enjoyed hanging out and having a good time.

Very upbeat always-- always laughing.

He loved to play the piano and the trombone.

And he could play by ear, so he'd come home and go, "I just heard a song on the radio," and he'd sit down the piano and figure out a Coldplay song.

>> THOMPSON: What do you remember about that day?

>> The day that the world tilted.

He left around 6:00, as he normally did.

Would drive himself to high school.

He had to be there by 6:30 for marching band practice.

About 7:15, I received a call.

There was an accident in the canyon.

Why would it be Riley?

So many cars go through the canyon all the time.

Waiting, waiting-- the time was just grinding by.

At 11:00, a sheriff's deputy came up.

He said, "I..." (sniffling) (voice quavering): Sorry.

(hoarsely): He said, "I just want to inform you that, um..." You know, "When was the last time you saw your son?"

And I said, "It was," you know, "last night.

His name's Riley, he was driving to high school."

And he said, "Well, I, I can confirm that he was in an accident this morning and he's passed away."

And I was, like... You know, a 16-year-old kid and it, it's, you know, none of it was his fault.

(sniffs) We hired an accident reconstructionist and they went out and GPSed all the skid marks and reconstructed every part of that half-mile event that occurred.

As Riley was in the right lane, there was a semitruck and trailer next to him that was fully loaded, and as the driver navigated the turn, he faded over into Riley's lane and forced Riley's Honda off the road.

As soon as Riley went off the shoulder of the road, immediately in front of him was a concrete Jersey barrier.

So he jerked the wheel back to get on the road, and his car came back underneath the semitrailer in front of the rear wheels and became pinned.

And Riley's car caught on fire and Riley burned to death.

And the truck driver pulled over when the car was fully engulfed in flames.

He disconnected the trailer and pulled forward and watched it burn.

The coroner confirmed a couple of days later they had to identify him through dental records 'cause he was burned so badly.

>> THOMPSON: After Riley's death, his father learned that every year, hundreds of people die in accidents like this.

They're called "underride crashes."

They occur when a smaller vehicle, a car, S.U.V., or pickup, slides beneath a large truck like an 18-wheeler.

Often with devastating consequences.

♪ ♪ >> Front override, underride rear, front override, front override, underride side, underride side, bicyclist underride, side, side underride, side underride, side underride, side underride, front override, rear underride, front override.

>> THOMPSON: Wow.

>> So let's go look at the shop.

>> THOMPSON: Andy Young is an attorney in Ohio and a former truck driver.

>> And we also rehab old cars, too.

>> THOMPSON: He has represented many families who've lost loved ones in underride accidents.

Young is an expert on truck safety.

He has testified before Congress and advised the Department of Transportation.

Until recently, I hadn't heard this term "underride."

I don't think most Americans have.

Can you explain to me in simple terms what an underride crash is?

>> Most crashes involve bumper-to-bumper crashes with other vehicles.

In a crash where a semitruck runs a stop sign, cutting off the right of way of a trooper vehicle, and the trooper hits the side of the semi, you have this mismatch where the bumpers don't match up.

The bumper of the car literally goes underneath it, and then the front bumper, which as we all know takes the impact, doesn't take the impact.

The crumple zones, the airbags, and seatbelts don't matter to protect the trooper, and the first point of impact is literally the windshield, and then the head and body of the trooper inside the vehicle.

>> THOMPSON: And you see this in your cases, that people take it right to the face.

>> I see it all the time where the vast majority of them die.

The same holds true in a rear underride crash, especially when there's an, the car steers out of the way, so the trooper car would steer out of the way.

Then the first point of impact would be the windshield again.

>> THOMPSON: So even if it doesn't make a complete contact, this kind of corner edge contact can be fatal.

Can be devastating.

>> Could be devastating.

You have death by blunt trauma, open skull fractures, brain damage, quadriplegia, paraplegia, but frequently, I would say, you have fatal crashes.

>> THOMPSON: How long have people been aware of this underride issue?

>> Arguably, goes back to trolley days.

This is an 1896 patent for an underride protection safety guard for a streetcar.

A streetcar trolley.

>> THOMPSON: 1896.

>> So it's been 100 years.

>> THOMPSON Young tells me the first federal regulations meant to prevent underride crashes were made back in the 1950s.

The federal government began requiring rear bumpers or guards on large trucks and semitrailers.

They were usually made of a few pieces of steel attached to the bottom of the trailer.

But there were problems with the regulations.

The guards repeatedly failed.

>> There's no strength-testing requirement.

It just has to be "something substantial," but there's no testing requirement.

What does that mean?

>> THOMPSON: So what I hear you saying is, the federal government said they can... "You can make them out of whatever you want," basically.

>> Yes.

>> THOMPSON: One accident put underrides in the headlines.

The 1967 death of Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield.

>> Six people in it and four dogs are run just dead on into the back of this freight truck.

The three people in the front were crushed.

♪ ♪ >> THOMPSON: Her three children were in the back seat and survived.

The crash attracted attention in Washington, but it would be decades before anything would actually change.

>> There is then some congressional discussion about, "We need to do something more."

And it goes back and forth, back and forth, where they talk about it.

But at the end of the day, nothing happens.

>> THOMPSON: I want to find out why nothing happened back then.

I get ahold of thousands of pages of Department of Transportation documents dating back to the 1960s.

Over and over in the documents, I see how federal regulators proposed new rules to try to prevent underride crashes.

And over and over, they got pushback from the main trucking industry lobbyists.

1967, 1969, 1970, 1977.

In 1981, the D.O.T.

's lead agency on the issue, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, made another attempt.

They proposed that trucks come with stronger rear underride guards.

They estimated the cost would be an additional $50 per guard.

The industry put it at $127.

>> Nice to meet you.

>> THOMPSON: Nice to meet you, thank you so much... Lou Lombardo was a physicist working for NHTSA at the time.

Here's the thing that I've been a little bit confused about.

When I look at the discussion within Department of Transportation back in this time period, '70s and '80s, they're talking about what seems like, like, it's just not that expensive.

Why, why was this such a big deal?

>> It's because the trailer manufacturers and the administration was in a deregulatory mode.

>> THOMPSON: The underride rule had been announced days before Ronald Reagan took office amid a push to deregulate the trucking industry.

Lombardo says that once the new administration came in, the agency's staffing was slashed and everything changed.

>> All rulemaking came to a halt.

I mean, it literally came to a halt.

I was in rulemaking, and we had nothing, nothing, nothing to do.

>> THOMPSON: You weren't allowed to make any regulations?

>> No, no-- all regulation stopped.

>> THOMPSON: Lombardo believes it was a turning point from which the agency has never recovered.

>> What was happening is that the agency was being destroyed and we couldn't continue to improve safety.

>> THOMPSON: Did people die unnecessarily?

>> Oh, heck, yes.

>> THOMPSON: It wasn't until 1998 that NHTSA finally required trucks to have tougher rear guards, more than 30 years after Jayne Mansfield was killed.

Lombardo eventually retired in 2006.

How would you describe your former agency today?

>> It is an extremely captive agency, it really is.

>> THOMPSON: Captive to who?

The auto industry?

>> Auto industry, truck industry.

They're not public servants, they're private servants.

>> THOMPSON: No one from the Department of Transportation or NHTSA would agree to an interview about the efforts to prevent underride crashes and the role of the trucking industry.

NHTSA sent me an email statement saying safety is their top priority, and that they had taken steps over the years to reduce underrides.

But even NHTSA's major effort, the 1998 rear guard rule, turned out to be flawed.

The problem was uncovered at a specialized testing lab in Virginia.

>> This is the underride guard that met the federal regulation, but in crash tests that we were running at 35 miles an hour, they were failing.

We ran tests with the eight largest manufacturers, and only one of the eight could pass all three of these without underride of the Malibu.

And so we... >> THOMPSON: Only one.

>> Only one.

>> THOMPSON: Matt Brumbelow is a senior research engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

In 2010, Brumbelow and his team began testing the NHTSA-approved guards that had been on trucks for more than a decade.

And they were all up to the federal standard.

>> Yeah, all of them met the U.S. standard.

The standard was designed with the idea that it could prevent underride at that speed, so it was really a disconnect in, in how the standard was actually working.

>> THOMPSON: Was that worrisome to you?

>> Yeah, for sure.

Again, the thing about an underride crash is, you have all of this technology that's gone into the, your personal vehicle to keep you safe-- you know, airbags, seat belts, crush zones.

In an underride crash, all of that is completely useless.

Really... >> THOMPSON: None of it gets triggered.

>> They get-- sometimes the airbags don't even deploy, but sometimes they do, but it doesn't protect you from hitting your head against the back of the trailer when the car slides under it.

>> THOMPSON: And you hit your head on this and it's all bad.

>> It's always bad, yeah.

>> THOMPSON: So this is one of the cars that you crashed into the old-style guards that met the federal standards.

>> Yes.

>> THOMPSON: This is just really devastating.

Brumbelow's discovery prompted most major trailer companies to begin selling new trailers with stronger guards.

NHTSA also acknowledged that the guards needed to be stronger, but they did not change their regulations until 2022.

(sirens blaring) That delay left millions of dangerous trucks on the road.

Marianne Karth crashed into one of them.

The rear guard failed, and her daughters AnnaLeah and Mary were killed.

>> THOMPSON: This is a photo from the crash.

>> Yes, this is at the scene of the crash.

This was taken by the Georgia State Patrol.

>> THOMPSON: And this is your car.

>> Yes, that's, that's the car.

This was the car carrier that hit our car and caused us to collide with the trailer.

I came upon slowed traffic, I slowed down, and a truck driver apparently did not.

He hit us and caused us to spin around, and the back of our car went underneath the truck.

And AnnaLeah and Mary were in the back seat.

AnnaLeah died instantly, and Mary a few days later from her injuries.

I was in that crash.

But the difference was, my part of the car didn't go under the truck.

And I was injured, I was in the hospital.

But I'm fine, I'm, physically, I'm fine now.

And my son, the front seat, he had a minor concussion and was discharged from emergency that night, because our part of the car didn't go under the truck.

>> THOMPSON: And what happened to the rear guard in your crash?

>> It just came off onto the ground.

It totally came off the truck.

>> THOMPSON: So if it had been strong enough to withstand that crash and been properly attached, it's possible that your daughters would be alive.

>> It's possible that my daughters would be alive.

>> THOMPSON: With the truck that your car struck, did the guard on that truck meet federal standards?

>> Yes, as far as we know, the, the guard on the truck did meet the federal standard.

It was a worthless standard, as far as I'm concerned.

>> THOMPSON: Since the accident in 2013, Marianne has become a vocal activist on underride safety issues.

>> I've gotten a practical education that I never would have gotten otherwise about how rulemaking and legislation, you know, developing laws and getting laws passed, and how much lobbying goes on and how much, um, tug of war there is.

So part of the whole problem is the powerful lobby of the trucking industry that has opposed it for decades and the constant shift in who's in control in D.C. That has all affected whether any legislation gets passed to mandate that the administrative agency, NHTSA, issues rules or not.

And so all of these complex factors add to the problem.

>> THOMPSON: Although NHTSA wouldn't talk to me, in the past, agency officials have insisted that their relationship with industry is proper and their decisions are based on data.

But as acting head of NHTSA during the Obama administration, David Friedman says he experienced intense pressure from the trucking industry.

When you were at NHTSA, what was it like working with, with industry?

How did that occur?

>> I mean, all too often there was just a lot of pushback, a lot of doom and gloom.

Industry will often come in and say the sky is falling.

"You're going to put us all out of business!"

A few hundred dollars per trailer is going to put these companies out of business?

Are you kidding me?

That's not what the math shows, but that's how they influence the politics.

Industry must have a voice, but they can't have a disproportionate, unfair voice.

>> THOMPSON: After two years Friedman left NHTSA.

>> NHTSA has been trying for decades to do something about underride deaths, and yet, over and over, they haven't made the progress that we need.

Why?

Well, I think part of it is because industry just keeps pushing back and undermining their efforts.

If you spend three decades developing but not finalizing a rule on underride protection, then you're not actually using the power that you have.

I do think NHTSA staff are there to save lives, but are they empowered to save lives?

Are they getting the signals that support their efforts to save lives?

Or do they go from one administration to the next with basically their mission or the intensity of their mission changing?

It would be hard for any of us if, every four to eight years, under one administration, they said, "Hey, back off industry, let them do what they want," and then in another, they said, "Lean in, do everything you can."

That's really tough.

(truck horn honks) >> THOMPSON: One of the most powerful forces when it comes to challenging NHTSA proposals has been the American Trucking Associations-- the A.T.A.

(mascot horn honks) Last summer, I went to Indianapolis to watch the A.T.A.

's National Truck Driving Championships.

>> So coming up on course B, a five-axle van representing A. Duie Pyle.

>> THOMPSON: Truckers are judged on their driving skills and ability to spot potential safety problems with their rigs.

>> I start with one crash or one fatality or highway injury is one too many.

>> THOMPSON: Dan Horvath is the organization's vice president of safety policy.

>> So if it's something that we can do as a whole, as an industry, to address that and get to, to, you know, eliminating those, those deaths or serious injuries, we're certainly going to do this.

>> THOMPSON: When you look back at the history from 1967 into the 1990s, there was a very long time when A.T.A.

did not support improving rear guards for underrides, and your organization came back to data repeatedly-- "We don't have data"... >> Mm-hmm.

>> THOMPSON: ...or, "It's going to cost too much."

At one point, A.T.A.

wrote to the trailer manufacturers and said, you know, "We don't want you to come out "with your own better rear underride guards because it's going to cost too much."

>> Mm-hmm.

>> THOMPSON: And you can see highlighted there, A.T.A.

said the cost is going to be staggering.

And I have to wonder if people didn't die, you know, because the trailer manufacturers didn't make stronger guards.

>> I can't attest to what the cost of, of rear guard was, you know, at the time in the letter when it was written.

But certainly the data piece is going to be important.

And when we talk about regulations or mandate, cost, unfortunately, is a very real factor in having these discussions about what can and cannot be done.

>> THOMPSON: In a document from the 1980s, the A.T.A.

called NHTSA's stronger rear guard proposal "ill-conceived," "expensive," and "ineffectual."

They estimated it would cost the industry more than $2 billion over the span of 14 years and it would save fewer than 60 lives each year.

The costs they were talking about back in that time period was about $127 per trailer.

It wasn't a lot of money, you know.

>> For the rear underride guards?

>> THOMPSON: For the rear underride guards, you know.

So this is, this is the A.T.A.

document on, from back that time period.

>> Mm-hmm.

I would say to, you know, the, the concept back then and the costs associated with it were, you flagged a cost there.

From my understanding of the discussion that happened back there, there were also the data inconsistencies, the research concerns of, okay, if we mandate, then certainly cost was a factor then, as you highlighted, but what other potential, you know, unintended consequences could exist that we're unaware of now that had led our association to change position over the years of where we're at today supporting that?

>> THOMPSON: Eventually, the A.T.A.

endorsed NHTSA's stronger rear guard regulations.

But they continued to oppose other safety measures over the years.

In our investigation of underride crashes, we saw the industry coming under fire.

We looked at more than 20 lawsuits brought against trailer manufacturers over the past decade.

>> What's the last name?

>> THOMPSON: Hein, H-E-I-N. And this case was filed in 2016 and went to trial.

One of those suits was filed by the family of Riley Hein, the 16-year-old who died in the crash in New Mexico.

After the accident, they learned about safety devices they believed could have saved their son: side guards, a series of vertical beams that hold a horizontal one running along the side of the trailer.

Federal officials had considered mandating side guards back in the 1960s but never did.

And barely anyone in the industry was using them.

>> Had they just had a side underride guard on the trailer, Riley would have bounced off and been fine.

He would've had some damage to his car, but he would have been fine.

>> THOMPSON: Attorney Randi McGinn represented the Heins in their 2016 suit against Utility Trailers, the company that made the semitrailer in the crash.

>> Raise your right hand, please.

Do you solemnly state the testimony you give in this matter shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

>> I do.

>> THOMPSON: In video depositions, McGinn questioned the C.E.O.

of Utility at the time.

>> If the government required side underride guards as a law, as a rule, like they require rear underride guards, could you sell a trailer without one?

>> We might elect to go out of business rather than build an unsafe product.

>> THOMPSON: The company insisted that side guards could pose hazards to truckers and other people on the road.

And they said there hadn't been enough testing or research.

But in the depositions, McGinn reminded Bennett that NHTSA had first discussed the idea of side guards decades earlier.

>> After the government suggested to the industry, uh, 49 years ago that they hoped manufacturers would include side underrides in their design, UTM did not, uh, jump right on developing a side underride guard that would keep people safe.

>> I don't know what we might have done.

>> You don't think you could have come up with an effective side underride guard that you could have improved over the last 49 years?

>> I believe the side underride proposals will be dangerous and cause death and injury.

>> THOMPSON: Long before Riley Hein's death, the company had been preparing to defend itself against such a case.

In discovery, McGinn found a 2004 letter from the Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association, a lobbying group.

>> This letter of, of September 3 of 2004, TMA-funded project "to develop and evaluate possible defense strategies to side underride lawsuits."

Do you see that, sir?

>> I'll have to read it.

>> Okay, that's the first, first sentence.

>> Yes, I remember this now.

>> Okay, and the stated purpose of this study was "to develop and evaluate possible defense strategies to side underride lawsuits," isn't that right, sir?

>> I don't believe that was the context of it.

>> Isn't that what it says in the very first sentence of the letter?

>> It says that, yes.

>> THOMPSON: Utility and ten of the biggest semitrailer companies would end up joining together to fight lawsuits.

>> All these trailer manufacturers agreed not to band together to fix the problem, but fight lawsuits about side underride guards and rear underride guards.

>> THOMPSON: McGinn says the Hein family refused to settle their case, despite offers from the company during trial.

>> They required that it be a secret settlement.

So none of the industry would know how much they settled the case for.

And the Heins said, "No, we want to make a public statement with the verdict that they should fix these side underrides."

♪ ♪ >> THOMPSON: No one from Utility would respond to my requests to talk about the case.

♪ ♪ In 2019, a jury found Utility negligent in Riley Hein's death and ordered it to pay the family almost $19 million.

The company eventually changed its position and began offering side guards as an upgrade on new trailers.

Around the same time as the verdict, NHTSA was facing criticism in Washington.

A report by the G.A.O., the Government Accountability Office, faulted the agency for failing to properly collect data on underride crashes.

And it said NHTSA should conduct more study on side underride guards.

>> Hi.

>> THOMPSON: Hi.

>> How are you?

>> THOMPSON: I meet with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

She tells me she has spent the past several years trying to rally support for stronger regulations to prevent underride crashes.

>> I met with some constituents who had lost their children to one of these horrific accidents.

And when they described what happened to their family member, it just is so devastating and so heartbreaking, because all of these accidents could have been prevented.

And so I got to work with my colleague Marco Rubio, who had also, uh, met with a constituent from Florida who had lost, uh, a child, as well.

And so we thought, "We should together fix this."

And so we've been working ever since on legislation that changes how, uh, trucks are allowed to be constructed, make sure there are guards in the back, and make sure there are guards on the side, make sure there's regulations to insist upon certain protocols.

>> THOMPSON: Gillibrand, a Democrat, introduced the Stop Underrides Act with Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who declined to be interviewed.

It called for stronger rear guards, and for the first time, would have required side guards.

But the bill repeatedly stalled out in committee.

When we talk to people in the trucking industry, they say, "Those folks on Capitol Hill, "they don't know our business, "they don't understand what's going on the roadways, and they make this legislation that doesn't reflect reality."

What do, what do you say to that?

>> That they're uninformed, and probably their, their bosses and their lawyers and their accountants are saying, "We're not going to spend this kind of money."

So, it's always about money.

If you ever, ever doubt, anytime something common sense that helps people isn't being done, it's always going to be about money.

Our trucking industry is really important to our economies.

But our job in Congress is oversight and accountability over commerce, over, um, business practices, especially for safety, especially to make sure that the appropriate regulatory framework is put in place.

So it's our job, and so regardless of how powerful or important they are for our economy, which is definitely true, they have to recognize that this is our job.

Our job as Congress is to protect people.

>> THOMPSON: Back in the '60s, the Department of Transportation started looking at the potential to put side guards on trucks to stop side underride crashes.

Now it's something that you're pushing forward today, some 50 years later.

Do you think this has the possibility to actually happen in the near future?

>> I do-- I think it's important that we elevate the advocacy of the victims who have suffered so much, make sure their families' voices are being heard, that their stories are being told, and so that no member of Congress can say, "I didn't know."

>> THOMPSON: The trucking industry put up strong resistance to Gillibrand's bill, especially the side guards.

They complained the guards would cost thousands of dollars each and be too heavy.

>> I'm talking 80,000 pounds on these trailers.

You're adding more weight underneath it.

You don't want to be trying to solve a safety problem by creating another one.

♪ ♪ >> There's too many people who know virtually nothing about trucking have an oversized role in shaping trucking policies.

>> THOMPSON: Lewie Pugh represents an association of 150,000 truckers and fleet owners.

He has repeatedly testified against the Stop Underrides Act and other proposals like it.

As a former trucker, he worries that if side guards were required, the cost would fall on small, independent truckers like the ones he represents.

>> Research is key, and don't use the truck drivers and the trucking companies as the guinea pigs.

Let's make sure this stuff is working.

>> THOMPSON: Pugh says that side guards could cause cars to bounce off trucks, triggering deadly chain reactions.

He says they won't fit on some vehicles, and could get stuck when drivers go up and over steep inclines.

>> The problem with the side ones-- speaking as industry, speaking as somebody who has real-world experience of driving a truck-- I believe that there are probably certain instances, there's a certain situations, where side underride guards will work and save lives.

I also believe that there are certain instances where side underride guards will cost lives, and we don't know the unintended consequences.

We need more testing, more real-world research.

Because what's the unintended consequence?

What happens when that truck's doing 70 miles per hour, and the car hits-- and it's probably not going to hit perfectly sideways.

What if it hits at a slight angle?

Will it go on under, or now will it cause the car to bounce into another car, and maybe kill somebody?

>> THOMPSON: I want to find out more about the industry's claims that side guards might not work.

I go to Cary, North Carolina, to meet someone who's been researching and developing a new type of side guard.

♪ ♪ Aaron Kiefer is a mechanical engineer who has spent almost two decades investigating underride crashes for attorneys, insurance firms, and trucking companies.

Do you know what kind of vehicle that was?

>> Well, from looking at it, no, but my involvement in the case, that's a, that's a pickup truck.

That's a Dodge Ram.

>> THOMPSON: Wow.

>> Multiple people died-- might've been even three, I don't remember in that case.

>> THOMPSON: How did you start looking into underride accidents?

>> I started noticing a pattern where a commercial vehicle is so high off the road that a passenger vehicle can fit right underneath.

>> THOMPSON: So when did you start designing technology that you thought could stop side underride crashes?

>> Well, back in about 2015, I did some research.

I started thinking about what would be lightweight and strong, and that could be retrofitted onto trucks and trailers.

And so that's when I started prototyping.

>> THOMPSON: So what is this?

>> This is a, uh, cross member that mounts to the bottom of a semitrailer, and it hangs down and creates crash compatibility to prevent underrides.

(knocks echoing) >> THOMPSON: What is it made out of?

>> Yeah, so this is a thin-wall, lightweight, high-strength steel box tubing design.

>> THOMPSON: Fascinating.

>> This is not rocket science, right?

The trailer manufacturers have the engineers on staff who could create things like this overnight if they wanted to.

And so I hope this, um, this type of design gets picked up and used by, by trucking companies.

>> THOMPSON: You don't care if people steal your idea.

>> There's a thousand ways to prevent a car from going under a trailer, and none of them are that complicated.

♪ ♪ >> THOMPSON: Kiefer invites us to watch him test his side guards at a state police facility.

♪ ♪ >> He's not very flexible.

♪ ♪ There you go.

♪ ♪ Four foot, six-and-a-half.

>> What's next?

>> Well, we're gonna hook up a truck to the car, and then move it on over into position next.

And then we should be good to go.

(man speaks on radio) >> (over radio): We're all good up here.

>> Okay, here we go.

Three... Two... One.

♪ ♪ >> Yes!

Yes!

Yes!

>> He's in good shape.

The system worked as designed, so this is awesome.

A step towards highway safety.

So, very happy.

The frontal area of the car absorbed the energy, and the side of the trailer never got anywhere close to the windshield, doesn't look like.

So we have, you know, plenty of survival space for the occupant.

I was looking for the safety structure of the car to be engaged properly, which it was.

So it's a great success to see that.

So that occupant would be fine.

>> THOMPSON: Kiefer says that despite the promising results he hasn't been able to sell any of his side guards.

He believes the costs would decrease if the industry was required to install them on every truck.

>> There's not been a whole lot of interest from any party in, in upgrading trailers.

I have three kids.

I really hope by the time my kids are driving, which will be in another decade, that trailers won't have this problem.

>> THOMPSON: He says there's still a lack of recognition of how frequently these crashes occur, so there hasn't been any urgency to act-- by government or industry.

>> There's not a lot of knowledge about this type of accident.

Not a lot of money has been spent to really understand it.

>> THOMPSON: Your company deals with 15 to 20 underride crashes a year.

>> That's my estimate, from the counting we've done in years past, yeah.

>> THOMPSON: And how many of those would you say were fatal or catastrophic crashes?

>> As I recall, I want to say two-thirds of the ones that we had, had worked through or counted were fatal.

This was-- we did two or three years of cases back in the 2017, '18, '19 timeframe.

>> THOMPSON: So, your small company in the Southeast, you're handling probably 15 to 20 of these cases every year, which means the problem is much, much larger than that, if that's what you're capturing with your small company.

>> Right, yeah-- no, I agree.

>> THOMPSON: Despite everything I've learned about side guards, when I ask Dan Horvath at the A.T.A.

about them, he isn't convinced.

>> We need the data first, the research first, to address whether underride guards are, are feasible.

And the Government Accountability Office said essentially the exact same thing when they did a report in 2018, 2019 time frame, was, we need more research, more investigation into the issue of side underride guard crashes to determine if a mandate is appropriate.

>> THOMPSON: Horvath says there aren't even reliable numbers for how many underride crashes are happening.

>> I think with the data perspective, what I had highlighted as far as the reporting of data, if you put bad data in, you're going to get bad data out of it as a result.

So, certainly, I think that we can better our processes at the front end to make sure that we have accurate data to look at and make these informed decisions on the back end.

♪ ♪ >> THOMPSON: During my reporting, I hear a lot about the lack of reliable data on underride crashes.

It's one of the only things both the industry and the safety advocates agree on.

I find numerous reports and studies about the lack of data, misclassified crashes, and widespread undercounting.

The 2019 G.A.O.

report also found that underride fatalities "are likely underreported," and it said NHTSA needed to improve its counting procedures.

♪ ♪ The official tally of underride crashes comes from a NHTSA database of tens of thousands of motor vehicle fatalities.

The most recent numbers, from 2021, show there were more than 400 deaths that year.

>> Hey, man, good to see you.

>> THOMPSON: When we look at the data, we find discrepancies.

So that's, like, what I'm hoping you can help me with, is actually figure out what a real number is.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> THOMPSON: With my colleague Jeff Ernsthausen, we examine NHTSA crash records and check how they're being categorized in the main database.

I want to show you what I'm seeing.

This one happens in September of 2019, at 12:09 on a Friday.

It's a Toyota Camry and a Freightliner truck.

It says the back of the cargo area of the truck was hit and the front of the Camry had the damage.

>> I mean, it looks like a can opener to the top of the car.

>> THOMPSON: What I want to know is, did they categorize this as an underride crash in the main federal database, the one they actually make policy from?

September 2019, Toyota Camry, Freightliner truck... >> Mm-hmm.

>> THOMPSON: Hold on, hold on.

>> Then... >> THOMPSON: That's it, 2010, that's it.

>> 2010, with... >> THOMPSON: That's it.

Yeah, that's the right VIN.

Look.

Look at the pictures.

Can we see how it was coded?

Was it coded as an underride?

>> It was not.

>> THOMPSON: It was not coded as an underride.

>> ...as no underride, yeah.

>> THOMPSON: So in the official federal database, no underride.

But when we look here, you can tell from the diagram, from the photos, from the report, that this was definitely an underride crash.

>> Yeah, definitely.

>> THOMPSON: Wow.

>> Yeah, I mean, clearly this field is not being collected systematically and correctly in the federal database on fatal crashes.

♪ ♪ >> THOMPSON: In a review of 27 underride crashes, we find that only three of them were actually classified as underrides in the main NHTSA database.

>> So, I served as the acting administrator for the Federal Motor Carrier Administration... >> THOMPSON: Meera Joshi has first-hand experience with government crash data.

She ran a D.O.T.

division that oversees America's interstate trucking fleets.

As a reporter looking at the, the federal data around traffic fatalities, it's not perfect.

It's deeply flawed.

And I think it's hard to, to even understand fully what the, where the problems are without having good data.

>> And I think part of the disconnect can be the way we track, track data about traffic injuries and fatalities is, we're reliant on states.

There's not necessarily uniformity in the way each state records.

And there's also, needs to be more training on what is an underride, because oftentimes, those fatalities would get mischaracterized as something else, not out of any ill intent.

So I think there's work to be done on making sure that the reporting around this is more uniform across the nation and training with individual highway officers and their, their supervision about what an underride is and how to make sure to accurately report it, and the importance of accurately reporting it, because we can only respond to what we know about.

That's the disconcerting part about not having a solid database, because anything outside of that is just a guess.

And we don't want to be operating on guesswork.

♪ ♪ >> ...the issues, as well as some solutions about how we can make trucking safer.

>> THOMPSON: I meet with a safety advocate in Washington, D.C., who tracks the underride numbers closely.

>> We know that in any given year, there are several hundreds of fatal truck crashes that are recorded as including underride.

We also know that there is a severe undercounting of the number of underride crashes in this country.

We know this, one, from a recent report from the G.A.O., which showed that there was undercounting of underride crashes.

But we also know that, you know, from other basic facts, like that out of 50 states, only 17 states have a field on their police accident report to indicate if an underride crash occurred.

>> THOMPSON: It's just a fraction of when it's actually happening.

Is that right?

>> Yes.

It's an undercount, and a difference of several hundred people could be the difference of what makes a regulation happen or not.

>> THOMPSON: Adler tells me that NHTSA regulations follow an economic formula: if a new safety regulation costs industry more than $12.5 million for each life saved, it probably won't be adopted.

>> So, when you start to consider if it's undercounted by a magnitude of, say, 200 or 300 people per year, you can start to see how that makes a big difference in terms of the calculated benefit of a regulation like, you know, requiring side guards on large trucks, or increasing the effectiveness of rear guards on large trucks.

>> THOMPSON: In other words, if NHTSA's cost estimates were lower or their count of the deaths more accurate, there would be a stronger case for side guards.

♪ ♪ For months, I try to talk to the secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg.

>> The fact that every one of us can think of multiple people we know who lost their lives in car crashes makes us a bit like a society that has been going through a war.

>> THOMPSON: But after first agreeing to an interview, his office cancels.

I find someone inside D.O.T.

who will talk to me.

A safety researcher, but only if he can remain anonymous.

Here's a thing that blows my mind, and, and maybe you can explain it to me.

The government is using a traffic fatality database that it knows is wrong.

It knows that it is undercounting underride deaths.

What is going on there?

>> (distorted): The Fatality Analysis Reporting System is, is held up as, as a gold standard, because it is the only complete count of any type of crash in the United States.

But as you said, there are systemic flaws, and decisions are made based on a flawed system.

It's become clear to me that there are relationships between the regulators and the industry that is regulated that are not beneficial for the public good.

And I wish to shine light on some of those problematic relationships.

>> THOMPSON: He points to a D.O.T.

study from a few years ago.

It was about a kind of guard meant to protect pedestrians and bicyclists from being pulled under trucks.

>> A study was undertaken by D.O.T.

to look at how to protect pedestrians, bicyclists, other vulnerable road users, in collisions with the sides of trucks.

A multipart analysis was done.

What came out was, uh, ultimately stripped, and the results were changed.

Most of the report was never published.

>> THOMPSON: One of my colleagues at ProPublica obtains emails and meeting notes showing A.T.A.

lobbyists were allowed to review a draft of the report before publication.

After the input, researchers were told to remove any use of the word "regulation."

>> It seems like every part of the process is contested by industry.

>> THOMPSON: The final report didn't reflect the researchers' findings that the guards would save enough lives to justify their cost.

In a statement, the DOT said it thoroughly reviewed the researcher's work and found the data didn't support new regulations.

The DOT said the trucking industry did not influence the report.

>> There is a deferential relationship between the Department of Transportation, and, in particular, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the trucking industry when it comes to regulating the safety of their vehicles and their operations.

The agency is unwilling to confront industry pushback.

Fierce, fierce industry pushback.

>> THOMPSON: Last year, NHTSA finally updated its standards for rear guards and began taking steps to improve data collection.

It was directed to do so as part of Congress's big infrastructure legislation.

Then, in April, NHTSA comes out with a new study on side guards.

They contend mounting the devices on every new semitrailer would be prohibitively expensive, costing upwards of $778 million annually and preventing only 17.2 deaths a year.

They set up a committee to further study the issue.

Many of the people I've been talking to are on it: Marianne Karth, Harry Adler, Aaron Kiefer, the A.T.A.

's Dan Horvath.

Matt Brumbelow.

After hearing the news, I check in with Brumbelow and he tells me NHTSA is getting it wrong.

>> Because they're saying there is no benefit to introducing side underride guard regulation, it doesn't really change the status quo.

And so, unfortunately, I'm not terribly surprised that we are where we are now.

For us to really improve the problem of side underride is going to take a different approach.

>> THOMPSON: Brumbelow says his own estimate is that side guards could save as many as 217 lives a year, much higher than what NHTSA found, which could flip the cost-benefit equation in favor of requiring trucks to have side guards.

>> There are hundreds of lives that are being lost every year in side underride crashes.

The system that would be needed on a trailer to prevent so many of those fatalities from occurring is not overly complex.

>> THOMPSON: One person not on the NHTSA committee is the father of Riley Hein, whose death helped bring attention to the issue of side guards.

Eric Hein now lives in Oregon.

>> It's the same methodology.

>> THOMPSON: He's skeptical of the latest news.

>> You know, Riley was killed in 2015.

We're seven-and-a-half years into this fight.

It's, it's hard to just sit and watch and wait and hope that NHTSA will do the right thing.

It's really frustrating.

It's very hard to get this agency to actually adhere to their mission to save lives.

I mean, I'm an optimistic person, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

I still think that the industry, um, has a lot of power and a lot of undue influence with NHTSA.

And it is incumbent, I think, upon all of us advocates and people that are very concerned about how many people are dying from side underride crashes to keep the pressure on NHTSA.

>> THOMPSON: How does this story end?

>> I hope with guards being put on eventually, on semitrailers.

But I, I fear that it's not going to be quick or easy.

♪ ♪ >> Go to pbs.org/frontline for more reporting with our partners at ProPublica about underride crashes.

>> It’s a Toyota Camry and a freightliner truck.

>> And learn more about the debate over government regulations.

>> Industry must have a voice, but they can’t have a disproportionate unfair voice.

>> Connect with FRONTLINE on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and stream anytime on the PBS App, YouTube or pbs.org/frontline.

Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org.

>> For more on this and other Frontline programs visit our website at pbs.org/frontline.

♪ ♪ Frontline's "America's Dangerous Trucks" is available on Amazon Prime Video.