Impact Project: Four Years Working to Overcome the Underride Tragedy

The Impact Project is a cooperative work between UNICAMP, General Motors do Brazil and Mercedes -Benz do Brazil, whose main goals are to design, construct and test reliable underride guards for trucks, trailers and semitrailers, and to present solutions to government authorities. To attain these aims two underride guards were designed and three crash tests carried out. The results were used as reference to elaborate a new Brazilian standard.

This paper highlights the underride question from a technical point of view, reviews the activities already carried out by the Impact Project and discusses the new Brazilian standard regulating underride guards.