Hundreds of deaths on European roads each year are caused by rear bumpers of trucks and trailers, which do not provide adequate protection in collisions. According to the latest research by the Euro NCAP organization and partner institutions, ineffective safety systems at the back of heavy goods vehicles directly endanger the lives of drivers and passengers in passenger cars. It is estimated that this type of accident, in which a car falls under the back of a truck, takes around 400 lives a year in the European Union and the United Kingdom.
Double security breach
Comprehensive testing has revealed a worrying double road safety failure spanning technology and mechanics. On the one hand, the sensors of older autonomous emergency braking systems often do not detect the rear of trailers on the road at all. On the other hand, even when a crash occurs, physical anti-rollover systems on trucks fail to stop the car, leading to severe and fatal injuries.
When testing the ability to recognize obstacles, cars with built-in cameras and radars reacted without problems in standard laboratory crash tests. However, in real conditions and in encounters with real truck trailers, the detection rate of older generations of systems was significantly lower.
With the average age of the vehicle fleet increasing, experts estimate it will be more than 15 years before most cars on the road have the technology to reliably avoid stationary trailers, making improvements in physical protection critical.
Crash test failure
In order to check the strength of the bumpers themselves, experts conducted crash tests with the driving assistance systems deactivated. The passenger car with the maximum five stars for safety was tested at a speed of 56 km/h on trailers built according to the latest mandatory European standard from 2022. The results were extremely bad.
In a partial head-on collision, the Schmitz Cargobull bumper offered minimal resistance, and the undercarriage of the trailer penetrated straight into the vehicle’s cabin, causing fatal injuries to the mannequin in the passenger seat. In another test, conducted by Germany’s ADAC, the bumper on a trailer manufactured by Krone gave way completely, destroying the passenger compartment of the car. Although Euro NCAP does not explicitly state which cars were tested, the accompanying photo they published shows that it is at least one Tesla Model 3.
The solution already exists in the US
In contrast to European regulatory failures, there is already a proven and effective engineering solution in North America. When the same car model was subjected to an identical crash test with a trailer, which meets the US voluntary IIHS TOUGHGUARD standard, the bumper withstood the impact. This allowed the car’s safety structure to properly deform and protect the occupants in the cabin as intended by design. Today, about 70% of the newest trailers on American roads are equipped with this system.
Due to all of the above, Euro NCAP made a strong appeal to the regulatory authorities in the European Union and the United Kingdom, demanding an urgent upgrade of the legal standards to bring them in line with American good practice. This organization is also calling on trailer manufacturers to voluntarily offer upgrades and truck fleet managers to proactively replace the thousands of inadequate and outdated rear bumpers that ply European roads every day in order to increase the level of road safety.