This week, lawmakers introduced a bill that seeks to prevent fatalities during crashes by requiring side underride guards on new semi trailers.
On February 4, 2026, the “Stop Underrides Act 2.0” was introduced by U.S. Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN-9), Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA-10), and Deborah Ross (D-NC-2) and U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM).
Lawmakers say that they are pursuing side underride guards in an effort to reduce motorist head injuries and fatalities in crashes involving commercial vehicles.
While current law requires only rear underride guards, the Stop Underrides Act 2.0 would update rulemaking to mandate side underride guards on all new trailers.
Specifically, the bill would:
- Require the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to finalize rulemaking requiring side underride guards on commercial trucks.
- Restart the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Advisory Committee on Underride Protection, to provide recommendations for how to reduce underride crashes and severe injuries and fatalities caused by underrides.
- Require the DOT to publish a website making underrides research accessible to researchers, industry, and advocates.
- Instruct the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study on the prevalence of underride incidents, including those involving the fronts of large trucks.
- Instruct the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study of the implementation of NHTSA’s 2022 rear underride rule and provide suggestions to better improve the rule.
- Instruct NHTSA to review its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and correct crashes in the database that should have been classified as an underride but were not.
- Instruct NHTSA to create free, on-demand web-based training for state and local law enforcement to better identify and document underride crashes.
The NHTSA published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) “to consider requirements for side underride guards” in 2023.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has opposed previous pushes for side underride guards, calling them “impractical and costly.”
“The Stop Underrides Act 2.0 would help prevent these terrible and too-often fatal truck-trailer accidents by ensuring that cars can no longer slide underneath trucks,” said Rep. Cohen. “In introducing this legislation, I’m reminded of my constituents Randy and Laurie Higginbotham who lost their son in an underride crash in Memphis in 2014. The Stop Underrides Act 2.0 builds on important progress made in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and will save lives by helping to end these fatal crashes.”
“With truck underride collisions claiming the lives of at least 300 people per year, the time to act on reforms is now. Small changes will make a big difference, and we cannot leave any room for error,” said Congressman DeSaulnier. “I am proud to join my colleagues in advancing this bill to put an end to these avoidable tragedies.”
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