Commercial Truck Crash Worthiness: Remembering the “Forgotten Man”
Following the recession of 1975, the heavy truck industry began experiencing an increase of over 55% in truck highway fatalities, particularly large or heavy trucks. As a consequence, safety advocates and researchers began reviewing crashes and accident data for the purpose of recommending safety actions to be undertaken to reduce heavy truck accidents, injuries, and fatalities.[1] Soon thereafter, the Society of Automotive Engineers created a working group to study heavy truck crashworthiness. By 1994, Volvo began putting steering wheel airbags in Class 8 trucks based on its own research, which showed that an average of 800 drivers of heavy trucks were killed in accidents annually between 1980 and 1990 in the U.S. alone. As Volvo described it, the truck driver had become “the forgotten man in traffic accidents.” Volvo took this initiative with the goal and expectation that the rest of the industry would quickly follow suit. As Volvo noted in 1995, when used with safety belts, “we believe airbags will prevent serious injuries among drivers of heavy trucks.” In fact, Volvo estimated that a driver airbag would reduce driver injuries by 20% when combined with a safety belt. Volvo’s conclusions were based on research of 94 real-world crashes involving Volvo trucks.
A crash test of a Volvo truck showing the utility of a frontal airbag can be seen here: Volvo Trucks Safety - Crash test - YouTube. In the crash test, the airbag prevented any driver contact with the steering wheel which can be fatal in even minor impacts. For example, Carl VanWasshnova was killed in a minor impact due to blunt force trauma from the steering column in his Freightliner. This has led Carl’s wife to call for the mandate of airbags in heavy trucks which has gained the backing of the American Trucking Associations and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. Truck Driver's Widow Pushes to Make Truck Air Bags Mandatory - Trucks.com. However, to date, the federal government has not updated the regulations as to heavy trucks in decades, and in fact, has not even mandated a shoulder seatbelt. Fortunately, most manufacturers offer shoulder seatbelts.
Without a government mandate, many Class 8 trucks still do not have airbags and other important safety equipment to protect their drivers. Oddly, Volvo’s subsidiary, Mack, fails to provide an airbag in most of its class 8 trucks. We believe the evidence suggests that manufacturers could put at least frontal airbags in most class 8 trucks for less than $400 per unit, yet continue to put profits over people. Simply put, the drivers of class 8 trucks are still the “forgotten man.” Along with airbags, pretensioning devices in the seatbelt can be added to the seatbelt with the airbag system to tighten the belt during a serious collision. This is especially true for drivers of cab-over-engine class 8 trucks like the Mack LEU, Mack Terra Pro, Mack MRU, and Mack LR. With these trucks, drivers are over the engine and do not have the hood and engine offering additional protection upon impact.
Product liability lawsuits play a vital role in promoting public safety. Simply put, profits drive safe design. Unless and until the class 8 truck manufacturing industry’s bottom line is impacted by their unsafe designs, truck driver’s will continue to be the “forgotten man.”
We’ve begun fighting back by filing a lawsuit against Mack for negligent and defective design for failing to include an airbag in a Mack MRU. If you or a loved one have been seriously injured in a class 8 truck, please give us a call or fill out the form below to determine if the injury was caused or enhanced by the design. Don’t be forgotten.