OTA Dispatch Issue 2, 2021

8 Oregon Trucking Associations, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch Truck Safety The Hollywood Connection By Christa Wendland, OTA Communications Consultant MANY OF YOU may already know this, but it’s still an interesting tidbit to bring up at a dinner party or backyard BBQ. While today’s truck safety is oftentimes developed inside four walls by a committee, in the earlier years, lessons learned from real life inspired new safety features. Case in point, the horizontal bar beneath the rear of a tractor-trailer isn’t just for looks. This steel underride bar prevents vehicles from becoming wedged beneath larger vehicles in the event of a rear-end collision; however, did you know that these “underride guards” have a Hollywood connection and are also known as Mansfield bars? Trucks in the 1960s did not have underride guards and, to be fair, the rules and regulations of the road—for drivers in vehicles of any size—were much more open to interpretation than now. In June 1967, Hollywood starlet Jayne Mansfield, her children (including Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay) and two other adults hit the road in a 1966 Buick Electra for a trip that would end in New York. Heading for New Orleans early in the morning of June 29, the Buick crashed at high speed into the rear of a tractor-trailer shrouded in insecticide fog, wedging under the trailer. The truck had slowed behind a truck spraying mosquito fogger. The three adults in the front seat, including Mansfield, died instantly. The children asleep in the rear seat survived with minor injuries. The accident grabbed headlines, with speculation around the cause of the accident ranging from limited visibility, high speed, a young (20-year-old) driver and even a curse placed on Mansfield and her traveling companion. It is Hollywood, after all! Almost immediately, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed new standards calling for the addition of underride prevention guards on large trucks; however, it wasn’t until 1998 that the requirement was fully implemented and “Mansfield bars” became standard safety equipment for the trucking industry. At the time, the NHTSA said that up to 300 deaths occurred each year due to underride crashes, which is why NHTSA has fully backed both side and front underride guards. Jayne Mansfield, Hollywood starlet and Playboy pinup often courted scandal before her death in 1967. Mansfield Bar The aftermath of the car wreck that killed Jayne Mansfield and two other adults outside of New Orleans in June 1967.