Car vs Semi Truck – Trailer underride crash testing – Video

 

This isn’t rocket science. Cars are built to mitigate crashes among themselves and certain stationary objects (like the pole test, for example), and to do that they have crumple zones, seatbelts, and airbags. But for these measures to be efficient, the impact needs to happen at one end of the car. If the nose gets under the obstacle and it’s the windshield that comes crashing into whatever it is it’s hitting, the chances of survival for those inside are virtually null.

You’d think this is common sense and that somebody would enforce stricter rules for a type of vehicles that are so ubiquitous on American roads: the semi trucks and, more precisely, their trailers. And yet not all of them are equipped with these underride guards. Most have them at the back, but the sides are wide open, and even though a collision from the left or right is less likely to happen, we’ve just been proven they’re not impossible.