WASHINGTON — Tractor trailer safety advocates hope a landmark court case against one of the nation’s leading trailer manufacturers will lead to safer interstates and highways.
A St. Louis jury awarded a $462 million verdict to the families of two men who died in what’s known as an “underride accident,” holding the company who manufactured the trailer liable for not doing enough to prevent the crash.
Thirty-year-old Taron Tailor and his passenger, 23-year-old Nicholas Perkins, died instantly when their vehicle slammed underneath the rear of a Wabash trailer on a St. Louis interstate in May 2019.
Tailor’s wife was pregnant. Perkins had a 2-year-old daughter.
And now, a St. Louis jury has ruled Wabash was responsible for the men’s deaths. Attorneys argued the company ignored decades of research showing the rear guards used by Wabash at the time of the crash, were not strong enough to withstand an accident at highway speeds. Even though that rear guard did meet federal standards.
"What they needed to make it safe, they could've done it decades ago,” said plaintiffs’ attorney John Simon. “The trailer in our case was consciously designed to prevent underrides on 30 miles per hour impacts. Every one of these trailers is on the highway. The minimum is 40 mph."
It’s a danger WUSA9 has covered since 2017 in an ongoing series of reports Big Rigs, Big Risks. In September 2023, families from across the country who lost loved ones in underride accidents gathered at the U.S. Department of Transportation demanding stricter safety regulations.
Court documents show the DOT has known about the underride problem since the 1960s when actress Jayne Mansfield died in an underride accident.
And while the National Highway Transportation Administration does now require rear guards in semis, it does not mandate those rear guards meet the highest safety standards on the market, which are guards that prevent 100% of underride crashes.
NHTSA also does not require trailer manufacturers to include side guards on their trailers, another source of fatal underride accidents.
In an email, Marianne Karth, an underride safety advocate whose daughters AnnaLeah and Mary both died in an underride accident in 2013, told WUSA9:
“This jury verdict should send a message to NHTSA that they can no longer abdicate their responsibility to require more and stronger underride protection. And manufacturers should understand their liability if they continue to resist installing well-designed underride protection on all of their products.”
“It is my hope that the end result will be a fleet of trailers on the roads of our country with stronger underride protection — making truck crashes more survivable for all road users.”
In a statement posted to its website, Wabash’s General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer Kristin Glazner wrote: “While this was a tragic accident, we respectfully disagree with the jury’s verdict and firmly believe it is not supported by the facts or the law. No rear impact guard or trailer safety technology has ever existed that would have made a difference here.”
The company said “it is evaluating all available legal options in response to the verdict.”
NHTSA told WUSA9 the agency’s work to reduce underride accidents includes improving data collection and more research and establishing a formal underride advisory committee.
But underride safety advocates say another big part of this problem is underreporting. Only 17 states have an “underride” category on crash reports meaning every year, hundreds if not thousands more people die from underride accidents than are reported by law enforcement.