Euro NCAP’s latest research, supported by National Highways, Trafikverket, ADAC, and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety / Highway Loss Data Institute, reveals serious gaps in the rear impact protection fitted to trucks and trailers in Europe and the UK.

In some crashes, passenger cars can slide beneath the rear of a trailer, with devastating and sometimes fatal consequences for drivers and passengers. Around 400 deaths every year across the EU and UK are potentially linked to rear underrun impacts with trucks. ?

The testing also exposes a double safety challenge: some older ADAS and AEB systems struggle to detect the rear of trucks and trailers, particularly when stationary or slow-moving on motorways, in roadworks, or in difficult weather and visibility conditions. If AEB does not activate in time, current rear underrun guards may fail to prevent severe intrusion into the car’s occupant compartment. Both crash avoidance and crash protection need urgent attention, while ADAS systems must be developed to reliably recognise real trailer rear-ends in all situations. ?￯ﾸﾏ

Euro NCAP is calling on European and UK regulators to strengthen rear underrun protection standards to match the proven US IIHS voluntary TOUGHGUARD benchmark. Euro NCAP also urges manufacturers, industry, and fleets to support voluntary retrofit solutions for trailers currently on the road. ⚙️

“This goes to show we must not stop working on improving the development of ADAS systems to work in all situations. The current legislation behind Europe’s truck and trailer rear underrun protection needs to be updated urgently to prevent this type of impact that can prove fatal for drivers and their passengers. The good news is that the solution is already available in the US with the IIHS voluntary TOUGHGUARD standard; the sooner the rear impact guards on Europe’s and UK’s trucks and trailers are updated, the better, so we can do our job and save lives,” says Matthew Avery, Director of Strategic Development, Euro NCAP.

Read the full press release here ? https://lnkd.in/evZxjEKt ?