Underride Accidents.

An underride crash is uniquely brutal. The car does not hit the truck. It goes beneath it, and the trailer meets the passenger compartment.

When a passenger vehicle slides under the rear or side of a trailer, the parts of the car built to protect people, the hood and engine and crumple zones, pass harmlessly underneath. What stops the car is the trailer itself, striking at window and head height. The injuries are catastrophic and often fatal, which is exactly why federal standards require rear underride guards on trailers.

The questions in these cases are whether a required guard was present, whether it met the standard, and whether it was maintained. Rear guards can be corroded, damaged, or poorly designed, and side underride, along much of a trailer's length, is far less protected. When a guard fails to do the one job it exists to do, that failure is central to the case.