Euro NCAP: trailer rear underrun guards fail in crash tests
On 14 September 2026 Euro NCAP called on truck and trailer manufacturers to improve rear underrun protection voluntarily rather than wait for regulatory change. The call rests on tests in which guards built to UN ECE Regulation No 58.03 failed to stop a car at 56 km/h.
- In 56 km/h crashes into trailers meeting Regulation No 58.03 (in force since 2022), the guards buckled and a car with a five-star Euro NCAP rating slid underneath; a guard built to the voluntary US IIHS TOUGHGUARD benchmark withstood the same impact.
- Driver assistance systems detected the standard laboratory target (Global Vehicle Target) every time, but with real trailers — curtainside and skeletal trailers and roadworks impact protection vehicles — detection rates fell in several cases.
- Euro NCAP estimates that rear underrun collisions with trucks and trailers may cause around 400 deaths a year across the EU and UK; testing was carried out in laboratories in the UK, Germany and the US with ADAC, Sweden’s Trafikverket and IIHS.
- Euro NCAP said it would present the findings at the 132nd session of the UNECE Working Party on General Safety Provisions (GRSG), starting on 28 September 2026 in Geneva.