Euro NCAP finds European trailer guards fail crash tests

A regulation in place since 2022 that has failed real-world crash tests reveals a dangerous gap between EU trailer safety law and road reality Euro NCAP has found that trailers built to Europe’s mandatory rear underride protection standard have failed to prevent fatal injuries, with Schmitz Cargobull and Krone safety officers both failing crash tests at 56km/h. It calls on EU and UK lawmakers to adopt the voluntary US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) TOUGHGUARD standard. Rear-end crashes cause around 400 deaths in the EU and UK each year. Euro NCAP also found that older advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) were unable to detect fixed trailers, meaning physical guards remained the critical line of defence. Matthew Avery, Director of Strategic Development at Euro NCAP, said in a statement: “This is a serious concern. We have spent decades improving the safety of passenger vehicles, but these structures and restraint systems are inadequate in the event of a trailer crash from behind, which is why we see such a high fatality rate in such crashes. And this is unacceptable. Europe’s legislation behind truck and trailer safety needs to be urgently updated to help prevent such impacts that can be proven. The good news is that the IIHS has adopted the voluntary TOUGHGUARD standard.” The template is already available in the US; the sooner rear impact guards on trucks and trailers in Europe and the UK are updated, the better future lives can be saved.” TOUGHGUARD has been used on 70% of new US trailers since 2017. Euro NCAP also encourages manufacturers to develop retrofit solutions for existing fleets. Why this matters: A mandatory standard that performs worse than a voluntary one is troubling at best. Europe’s R58.03 regulation is mandatory, America’s TOUGHGUARD is not; but the U.S. approach provided passenger protection that European-regulated protections could not; This finding challenges the usual assumption that regulation automatically outperforms market-driven adoption. The 15-year ADAS fleet turnover timeline makes structural fixes a more urgent lever. Even as newer detection systems develop, the slow rate of change of older vehicles means that physical rear underrun protection will remain the primary protection against this type of crash for well over a decade, no matter how quickly software improves. This is a rare case where the solution already exists and the obstacle is purely regulatory inertia. Unlike many vulnerabilities that require new technology, Euro NCAP points to an established, proven standard operating in another market; This means that the main issue is now political will and retrofit cost allocation rather than engineering feasibility.

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