Evaluating the Efficacy of Safety Measures on Truck Bodies for Protection of Pedestrians, Bicyclists, and Personal Vehicles

Recent efforts to lessen the danger of automobile accidents have almost completely ignored trucks. The paper studies improvements of truck bodies in terms of the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, and automobiles, and rates their efficacy and cost.

Tests have shown that certain, previous safety measures incorporated into truck body design have not been effective. Protective devices for the truck's front (for protection against being run over by the truck), sides (similar protection), rear (protection against driving into the rear of the truck's chassis), and further improvements to frontal surfaces (to lessen impact) are presented. These measures may be for the protection of pedestrians, bicyclists, cars, or a combination thereof. Installation costs for these measures are estimated, and efficacy in terms of number of potentially avoided injuries is discussed. On the basis of cost and efficacy, a list of priorities of these safety measures is presented