Commercial motor vehicle law enforcement officers in each state will gather information on rear impact guards as they perform routine inspections. The data gathering will be later this month.

The information on rear impact guards will be collected during the week of Aug. 27-31 as part of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s Rear Impact Guard Check safety initiative.

The Stop Underrides Act of 2017 was introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) to reduce the number of preventable deaths and injuries in the previous year. The goal was to improve motor carrier and passenger motor vehicle safety. In February, Senators Gillibrand and Rubio sent a letter to CVSA asking the alliance to consider updating its current North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria.

Once the information is gathered, it will be reported to the CVSA Vehicle Committee at the alliance’s annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri, in September. Based on that data, the committee will make a recommendation to the CVSA Board of Directors on how to proceed on the issue.

“Inspectors will be conducting business as usual and will not do anything different during Rear Impact Guard Check, other than filling out a data collection form that they’ll submit to CVSA,” said CVSA President Capt. Christopher Turner. “Drivers and motor carriers should not be impacted by this initiative.”

Rear Impact Guard Check is a one-time, one-day CVSA enforcement initiative. Data on rear-impact guards may be collected during Level I, II, IV or V Inspections.