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When the SUV crashed into the side of the truck trailer at 40 mph, Jonathan Morrison was among the first to move in for a closer look at the car’s crumpled hood.
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Morrison leads the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency in charge of keeping people safe on the country’s roads. The crash, at the N.C. State Highway Patrol test track Tuesday morning, was a demonstration of how steel guards can prevent cars from sliding underneath truck trailers.
Marianne Karth’s teenage daughters, AnnaLeah and Mary, were killed in such an underride crash in 2013. Karth and her organization, AnnaLeah & Mary for Truck Safety, invited Morrison and others from NHTSA to see in person how the guards work, in hopes the federal government will require them on new trucks.
“I hope it will persuade them that they have the power to stop this from happening,” Karth said. “That they understand that truck crashes can be made more survivable.”
Morrison said he was happy to come to Raleigh when Karth invited him.
“I’m a fan of hers, and I really appreciate her advocacy, her passion, everything she’s gone through,” he said. “To see the technology in person is something that’s hard to get the opportunity to do.”
Congress addressed the most common type of underride crashes in 2021 when it required manufacturers to equip trucks and trailers with rear guards strong enough to prevent a car going 35 mph from sliding underneath. Congress also directed NHTSA to study measures to prevent cars from going under the sides of trucks and trailers and, “if warranted, develop performance standards for side underride guards.”
NHTSA published a cost-benefit analysis in 2023 that concluded the costs of equipping and operating trucks with side underride guards was “six to eight times the corresponding safety benefits” of lives saved and injuries prevented. Karth says the NHTSA study was flawed because it under-estimated the number of lives the guards would save by a factor of 10, according to research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Morrison called Tuesday’s crash demonstration “impressive,” but left Raleigh without committing to support side underride guards in Washington.
“We’re here to learn,” he said. “And anytime we see people developing technology that has the potential to save lives like this, we’re really excited to learn more about it.”
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Tuesday’s demonstration was part of a two-day conference on truck safety organized by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Institute for Transportation Safety and Research at N.C. State University. The guards bolted to the truck trailer were designed by Aaron Kiefer, an engineer from Cary who makes a living doing accident reconstructions and has spent years developing underride guards.
The SUV was a Nissan Rogue with a crash dummy in the driver’s seat. The impact bent the hood up and shattered a corner of the windshield, but the dummy was untouched behind the car’s airbag.
An hour later, a second Nissan Rogue was pulled by rope into the side of a truck trailer without an underride guard. This time, the car’s hood went under the trailer, which smashed through the windshield and sheared the top off the passenger compartment to the rear doors.
Morrison, Karth and others were almost silent as they walked up. U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross gave Karth a hug.
Earlier this year, Ross and four Democrats introduced a bill, the Stop Underrides Act 2.0, that would require NHTSA to complete the studies and other steps needed to mandate side underride guards on new trucks. The bill cites an NHTSA advisory committee’s finding that 31,500 people had been killed in underride crashes of all kinds since the agency was created in 1970.
Ross said the bill hasn’t moved, but said it’s hard for anything to get through Congress these days.
“People who give money to the leadership and don’t want to make any change for public safety prevail,” she said. “And so we just need to continue to push, push, push and show in living color what this does to people.”
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This story was originally published August 11, 2026 at 5:53 PM.