Feds to Test Rollover Alert System
"You can't tell when you lift a wheel off," said Scott Stevens, a researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "The only thing you can tell is when you set it back down and you recover, or when the thing flips."
A new warning system soon to undergo a yearlong test on truck-heavy Interstate 75 between Ohio and Florida could help reduce the 15,000 yearly rollovers on the nation's roadways by 4,000, Stevens said Monday.
The tests, to be coordinated between the Oak Ridge lab and the Federal Highway Administration, will use sensors and cab computer readouts on three 18-wheelers to help alert the drivers about rollover dangers.
As the center of gravity on their rig shifts, the early alarms will allow truckers to take corrective action, Stevens said. A computer screen in the cab will graphically display the impending turnover.
"It doesn't do any good to wave alarms at him when he is turning over," he said. "You want to tell him a few seconds ahead so he can slow down."
In addition, the Tennessee Department of Transportation will install radio transponders along dangerous curves on I-75 that will warn the truckers of trouble.
"If the truck knows how tippy it is, where it is with respect to the curve and how fast the curve is, then the driver can slow down in time to keep it up right," Stevens said.
Truck rollovers are statistically rare and seldom deadly, but cost an estimated $3 billion in annual property damage, injuries and lost productivity, Stevens said.
U.S. Xpress trucks are already equipped with forward-searching sensors that spot cars and pedestrians that come dangerously close, said Russ Moore, the line's vice president of safety. In 1998, 30 of the company's 6,000 drivers experienced rollovers while traveling a total of 500 million miles, he said.
Marilyn Cochrane, a trucker educator with the American Trucking Association, said the sensors could make a big difference for drivers.
"There are more trucks and more cars on the road today than there ever have been," she said. "This kind of equipment... is going to make our lives that much easier."
