CalBike Continues Campaign for Safer Vehicles
The path to achieving critical safety improvements on California streets is rarely straightforward. CalBike supports and sponsors legislation, but bills are often amended, sometimes in ways that remove the teeth from a measure, and even those that make it through can be vetoed. But a veto or amendment isn’t the end of the road for CalBike. We continue to find ways to help move the campaigns for good ideas forward.
One example is Senator Scott Wiener’s Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill, SB 961. A provision to require side underride guards on trucks to prevent fatalities during collisions was removed in committee. The remaining provision, the addition of intelligent speed assist (ISA) technology to cars sold in California, passed the legislature but was vetoed by the governor. Neither of these safety campaigns started or ended with this bill, however, and CalBike continues to work with partners to advocate for safer vehicles — and you can join the campaign.
Preventable fatalities in truck crashes
While you may not have heard the term “side underride guard,” you likely know that people on bikes and in cars can be injured or killed if they are pulled under a semitrailer or box-type truck during a collision. The side underride guard is an inexpensive piece of equipment to add to these vehicles that can help prevent serious injuries and fatalities in the event of a crash. CalBike partner Eric Hein, father of Riley Hein, who died in a side underride crash, has detailed the problem of underride crashes and the promise of side underride guards, if you’d like to learn more.
The people who die in these crashes aren’t statistics — an acceptable death rate over a certain number of miles traveled. Riley Hein was driving to high school on I-40 when a semi drifted into his lane on a curve in the road, wedging his car under a trailer that lacked a side guard. The truck dragged Riley for half a mile and caught on fire. Riley died at the scene. He was 16 years old.
Eric Hein has become an advocate for side underride guards on trucks, as have many family members whose loved ones have needlessly died in underride crashes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has recognized that side underride guards are a valuable safety feature for 50 years. Yet, in the face of opposition from the trucking industry, it hasn’t made a rule requiring them.
California has a chance to take a different approach. The California Highway Patrol has the power to require side underride guards in California, and Eric Hein has spearheaded an administrative petition asking them to do so. You can support this effort by sending emails to Sean Duryee, Commissioner of California Highway Patrol, and Kenneth J. Pogue, Director of the Office of Administrative Law, to express your support for side underride guards. You can send both emails with one click using CalBike’s action tool.
Intelligent speed assist at the federal level
ISA is a technology that’s currently available and required on all cars in the EU. It notifies drivers, with a sound or vibration, when they go more than 10 mph over the speed limit. Speed is a factor in many fatal collisions, particularly those involving vulnerable road users. Giving drivers a safety reminder will reduce speeding and provide calmer streets that are safer for people biking and walking.
The Safer Vehicles Save Lives Bill, which would have required ISA in California, got a veto from the governor this year. In his veto message, he said this should be regulated at the federal, not state, level.
NHTSA recognizes the effectiveness of ISA in reducing speeding but has not recommended requiring it on all cars in the U.S. CalBike joined with America Walks and Families for Safe Streets to send a letter to the president and vice president, asking them to require ISA on vehicles in the federal fleet.
Washington, D.C. recently adopted ISA and some cities, including D.C., have ISA on their municipal fleets. Installing speed warnings on fleet vehicles is an excellent way to pilot this technology, and it will have the effect of slowing traffic as other drivers travel behind cars equipped with ISA.
CalBike will continue to join with our partners to advocate for this safety technology.
