Introduction of Stop Underrides Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the Stop Underrides Act, a bipartisan, bicameral bill I introduced earlier today along with my colleague on the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Representative Mark DeSaulnier from California, and in the Senate, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Marco Rubio, to prevent deadly truck underride crashes.

An underride crash is when a car collides with a truck and goes underneath the body of the truck. Modern car safety features are designed to ensure that a passenger can walk away from a crash where the vehicle hits a solid wall at 35 miles per hour. In an underride crash, the first part of a car coming into contact with a truck body is the windshield, and as a result, a car's safety features are rendered useless. When a car collides with a truck, it will keep moving forward, and decapitation is a serious threat at 35 miles per hour.

While large trucks have been federally required to have rear underride guards since 1953, there is no requirement to adequately maintain rear underride guards and they often fail. In addition, underride guards are not federally required to be on the sides or front of trucks. Too many lives have been lost or forever altered by these preventable crashes and the time has come for Congress to act.

The Stop Underrides Act does just that--lays out a path to bring an end to these terrible and all too often fatal accidents by requiring all large truck trailers to have front, side, and rear underride guards.

These guards, if installed, would have likely prevented the death ofMichael Higginbotham, who was killed in an underride crash in Memphis and whose parents, Randy and Laurie Higginbotham, have been urging Congress to take action on this long overdue issue.

This is common sense legislation that will save lives. I urge my colleagues to support the passage of the Stop Underrides Act.

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