Joint Statement on Passage of Infrastructure Bill
Legislation Includes Major Truck Safety Advancements
The Institute for Safer Trucking and Road Safe America commend Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer for their commitment to passing critical, bipartisan legislation—Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the Senate amendment to H.R. 3684), a multi-year surface transportation reauthorization bill that includes the most substantial improvements for truck safety in several decades. We also thank the 13 Republicans and 215 Democrats who voted for this bill. And we urge President Biden to sign the bill into law.
In 2019, more than 5,000 lives were lost in crashes involving a large truck, a 36 percent increase in truck crash deaths since 2010. In other words, truck safety is in decline. The safety improvements included in this bill will help reverse this trend and get America on a path to zero truck crash deaths.
“The Institute for Safer Trucking is proud to have helped strengthen the truck safety measures in the Senate’s Infrastructure Bill that just passed the House of Representatives. We are grateful to all the truck crash survivors and families of victims who shared their stories with Members of Congress throughout this process. Their personal advocacy created a sense of urgency to address large truck crashes and our roads will be safer because of their efforts,” said John Lannen, Principal at the Institute for Safer Trucking. “Requiring automatic emergency braking on class 7 & 8 tractor-trailers is a major win for safety. Not only will this ensure that newly built truck-tractors have this technology, but it will also require motor carriers to use AEB in trucks that have it. We are especially thankful to Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) and his staff, who successfully championed the AEB provision into law.”
“The underride language included in the bill is a great, first step to address the deadly problem of truck underride crashes. Strengthening the standards for rear guards is long overdue and will save lives. I also look forward to the Department of Transportation studying side guards, and hope this will lead to them being required so that other families can avoid what happened to mine,” said Laurie Higginbotham, mother of Michael Higginbotham, who was tragically killed in a truck side underride crash. Since her son’s death, Laurie has been a leading advocate for stronger truck underride protections and is an IST board member.
“Passage of this bipartisan infrastructure bill could not come at a better time as we near one of the most dangerous traveling times, at Thanksgiving. Road Safe America is pleased that both automatic emergency braking and underride provisions are contained in the bill heading to the President’s desk,” said Steve Owings, co-founder and president of Road Safe America. Steve’s son, Cullum, was killed by a speeding truck that collided into the back of his stopped vehicle as he and his brother returned to college the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
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