Key Takeaways: What Every Side Underride Accident Victim Should Know
- Side underride accidents happen when a car, bike, or pedestrian slides under the side of a tractor-trailer, often shearing off the roof of the vehicle and causing catastrophic or fatal injuries.
- No federal law currently requires 18-wheelers to have side underride guards, even though studies show these guards can significantly reduce deaths in side-impact crashes.
- Liability in these cases often centers on a “failure to implement” theory, meaning the trucking company may be at fault for not using a safer, available alternative — regardless of who caused the initial collision.
- Hiring Simmons & Fletcher connects you with a legal team that has fought trucking companies on safety issues since 1979, including a Texas Board Certified Personal Injury Trial Lawyer on your side.
What is a Side Underride Accident?
A side underride accident is a wreck between an 18-wheeler and another vehicle in which the vehicle collides with the side of the 18-wheeler and goes under the trailer. This type of accident often results in the shearing of the top of the other vehicle and can result in serious injury, including the decapitation of the occupants of the smaller vehicle. If you lost a loved one who impacted the side of a tractor-trailer that had no side underride guards, talk to a truck accident lawyer about your rights.
Why Call Simmons and Fletcher?
At Simmons and Fletcher, we have fought trucking companies to make roads safer since 1979. Houston is full of trucks. We live here. This fight is as much ours as anyone else’s, and we take it seriously. We have an attorney (Paul H. Cannon) who is Board Certified in personal injury trial law in Texas— an honor achieved by only 3% of all Texas lawyers. Our goal is to fight for you with compassion and commitment until you recover.
Call us for a free consultation at (713) 932-0777. You pay no attorney’s fee or attorney expenses unless we make a recovery for you.
What Our Clients Say
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What Are Side Underride Guards?
Side underride guards are devices that may be mounted on trucks to prevent vehicles from going underneath an 18-wheeler trailer in a side-impact crash. Side underride guards also protect bicycles and pedestrians. Side underride accidents involving cars typically happen in one of two ways: 1) a car goes head-on into the side of a truck at an intersection, or 2) the truck makes a turn unaware someone is sitting beside the truck. Side underride guards come in several shapes and sizes, but the idea is to place steel to prevent things from going under the trailer in a side-impact crash. They operate the same way as rear underride guards, but only along the sides of the truck. Rear underride guards have been required by law since the 1950s to prevent the same effect in a rear-end impact.
Why Are Side Underride Guards Important?
Side Underride guards prevent motorists from going under the side of a semi and potentially shearing the roof off the vehicle as well as the heads off the drivers. About 300 side underride accidents happen each year. They are commonly fatal accidents. These wrecks may happen because a vehicle does not see a truck turned across a dark roadway due to truck conspicuity issues, or they may result from the truck turning and the side striking a car, bicycle, or pedestrian.
What is the Debate Over Side Underride Guards?
The debate over side underride guards is a cost-benefit argument. Side underride accidents are a small percentage of all accidents involving 18-wheelers. However, they often result in more serious injuries than other types of big-rig collisions. As one might expect, the interstate trucking industry has a powerful lobby that may well have had a lot to do with why no laws or regulations have been implemented in the past on side underride guards. In 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a proposed regulation to upgrade rear-impact guard requirements. However, it never implemented that proposed rule. A bill in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2017, entitled the Stop Underrides Act, was likewise stalled and never implemented. In March 2019, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that more research was needed to develop proposals for rules. They did, however, throw regulation proponents a bone at the end of the report when they indicated: “With additional research on resolving the challenges associated with side underride guards, these guards may be closer to being a feasible solution than automated driver assistance technologies designed to prevent or mitigate side impacts that could lead to an underride crash.” In 2025, lawmakers introduced legislation in both the Senate and the House known as the “Stop Underrides Act.” This act would require motor carriers to implement sideguards capable of withstanding impacts of up to 40 mph.
Trucking Companies Positions
The well-funded trucking lobbyists will put up another fight if this bill comes up for debate. Simply put, trucking companies do not want to spend money to retrofit vehicles or pay the extra cost of adding them to new vehicles.
What Makes Side Underride Accidents Unique?
Two things differentiate side underride accidents from typical truck accidents: the damages and the liability requirements. The damages in a side underride case often involve decapitation or death. This is because when a vehicle goes under a truck’s trailer, it typically does not fit. The roof may be crushed down or even peeled back. Intrusion into the cab is a common cause of occupant death or traumatic brain injury in these kinds of cases.
Second, side underride accidents differ from the typical cases truck accident lawyers see because the accident may occur regardless of who caused the collision. In intersection collisions, either driver may have run a red light and caused the wreck. However, an underride accident does not necessarily depend on the truck driver causing the wreck, since it is a failure to implement the claim.
Are Side Underride Guards Required by Law?
No laws currently require 18-wheelers to install side underride guards. A bill dubbed the Stop Underrides Act was introduced in 2017 and again in 2019 to require commercial motor vehicles to have side underride guards; however, the bills never became law. Although several studies worldwide have shown that side guards can drastically reduce fatalities in side-impact collisions with trucks, the American Trucking Association fought against the Stop Side Underrides Act. Their voice is clearly loud enough to get heard.
Can Failure to Implement Side Underride Guards on 18-Wheelers Be a Basis for Liability?
As of now, no cases have held this. However, failure to use side underride guards could be the basis for liability in the future. In Stanley v. Star Transport, Inc., No. 1:10-CV00010, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90404 (W.D. Va. Sept. 1, 2010), the failure to implement and utilize a crash avoidance system was a basis for liability. Crash avoidance systems are control devices that make noise or give a warning when a vehicle is too close to another vehicle or swerves from its lane without a lane-change signal (which may indicate a drowsy driver). While this is not the same as a side underride guard, the law could be used to establish that the trucking company knew of a safer alternative that may have prevented the damages in a side underride accident.
Talk to a Houston Side Underride Accident Lawyer
Side underride accidents are not typical truck accident cases. They are essentially crash-worthiness cases—the trucking company failed to implement a safer alternative. While no laws require side underride guards on 18-wheelers, trucking companies should note the changing trucking litigation landscape and the potential liability for failing to implement side underride guards, even without a legal requirement. If you were seriously injured because an 18-wheeler lacked a side-underride guard, call (800) 298-0111 for a free consultation. Simmons and Fletcher have helped truck accident victims fight big-rig trucking companies since 1979.
