Shocking footage shows UK lorry trailer safety standards 'not fit for purpose'

Unsafe lorry trailer designs are contributing to the deaths of up to 400 people each year in Europe, including 40 people in the UK, according to safety body Euro NCAP.

Rear underrun protection (RUP) devices – crash structures that prevent a car from crashing into the back of a lorry and then sliding underneath – were put to the test by Euro NPCA using two different scenarios. It found that the RUP device standard used by the UK and EU (known as UN regulation R58.03) would not protect the occupants of a car from catastrophic injuries. 

Conversely, a standard that’s already used on a voluntary basis in the United States – known as Toughguard – offered substantially better protection in the same tests. 

Euro NCAP is calling on legislators in the UK and EU to revise RUP designs to better protect drivers in the event of a collision. 

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What Euro NCAP did

Working with National Highways, the government agency, Euro NCAP ran tests at two European labs with trailers commonly found on European roads, and at a third at the laboratories of the US organisation the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. A Tesla Model 3 was used in all the crash tests as it's considered one of the safest cars on the road when it comes to crash protection; as with all crash tests, the car’s automatic emergency braking systems were disabled.

The cars were then crashed into the back of a stationary trailer at 35mph at different angles, including a full-frontal test and an offset test where the car only partially impacts the rear corner of the trailer.

In both European tests, the crash test dummies sustained what would almost certainly be fatal injuries, while in the US test the accident was eminently survivable. 

The solution already exists

Euro NCAP estimates that 70% of the latest trailers on American roads have the voluntary Toughguard standard fitted, showing it's possible for these systems to have widespread adoption.

In addition to urging legislators to improve standards, Euro NCAP has also called for trailer manufacturers to introduce voluntary upgrades for existing trailers. 

Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP, said: 'This is grave cause for concern. We have spent decades improving the safety of passenger vehicles, but those structures and restraint systems are rendered inadequate in the event of a trailer rear underrun, which is why we are seeing such a high fatality rate associated with this type of accident. And that is unacceptable.

'The legislation behind Europe’s truck and trailer safety needs to be updated as a matter of urgency to help prevent this type of impact that can prove potentially fatal.'

Expert view: a tech problem too?

Michael Passingham, Which? Senior researcher

I've personally witnessed Euro NCAP tests and reported on the profound effect they had on me. But the footage from these latest tests is the most devastating I've ever seen.

The visceral images are one thing, but knowing the impact speeds are only 35mph is truly shocking. I would fully expect to survive a 35mph collision in most circumstances, and to know that serious injury, or worse, is possible with truck trailers that are currently deemed to be safe is really worrying. 

Not only has trailer design been found wanting, but so has advanced driver assistance system (Adas) design. Older Adas systems, for example those fitted in the mid- to late 2010s, are likely to be substantially less adept at spotting certain types of truck trailer, according to Euro NCAP. This is because those systems were trained on conventional-looking truck bodies, while a variety of other trailers – such as ‘skeletal’ trailers, which don’t have high sides or rear doors, and impact protection trailers, which are used to protect roadside construction workers – also exist and are detected less frequently by these systems. 

It’s particularly bad in scenarios where a truck trailer is only partially blocking the vehicle’s path and it’s easy to imagine a situation where a truck is attempting to leave a motorway via a jammed-up slip road and ending up partially obstructing the nearside lane. Even with good reaction times, at motorway speeds it’s entirely plausible for a collision to occur. 

While the buck ultimately stops with the driver when avoiding stationary trailers, humans are far from perfect and get distracted and get caught out by bad weather. If humans weren't flawed in this way, there'd be no need for any crash protection at all.

The Department for Transport's response to the research has been fairly cautious so far. The Roads and Buses Minister Simon Lightwood said: "Every death on our roads is a tragedy, which is why I am pleased to see National Highways taking the initiative with this vital research. This will go hand in hand with our Road Safety Strategy – the first in over a decade – as part of our commitment to cut deaths and serious injuries on our roads by 65% by 2035.” Hopefully as this research trickles through the government and automotive industries, we might see some change. 

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