USA: NHTSA Final Rule on Rear Impact Guards and Rear Impact Protection

 

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has published a new final rule regarding rear impact guards and rear impact protection.

The final rule upgrades NHTSA’s safety standards addressing rear underride protection in crashes of passenger vehicles into trailers and semitrailers by adopting similar requirements to Transport Canada’s standard for rear impact guards.

Adopting these standards will require rear impact guards to provide sufficient strength and energy absorption to protect occupants of compact and subcompact passenger cars impacting the rear of trailers at 56 kilometers per hour (km/h) (35 miles per hour (mph)). Upgraded protection will be provided in crashes in which the passenger motor vehicle hits: the center of the rear of the trailer or semitrailer; and, in which 50 percent of the width of the passenger motor vehicle overlaps the rear of the trailer or semitrailer.

NHTSA is issuing this final rule pursuant to Department of Transportation January 2022 National Roadway Safety Strategy, which describes the five key objectives of the Department’s Safe System Approach: safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds, and post-crash care. One of the key Departmental actions to enable safer vehicles is to issue a final rule to upgrade existing requirements for rear impact guards on newly manufactured trailers and semitrailers.

The final rule becomes effective on 11 January 2023.  Its text is available HERE.