Rear underride crashes kill thousands of people yearly world-wide. Underride guards did not follow the progress achieved by the automotive safety technology. Searching for solutions to this problem, two new guards have been designed and three crash tests carried out. A new articulated, an energy absorbing conceptual guard and a guard constructed according to the European (ECE-R58) regulation were tested. Both the new guards could avoid underride, the ECE-R58 one could not. The tests showed that the new articulated guard could be used after a few modifications and the conceptual one needs further optimisation to become commercially feasible. (A)
Abstract