In 1993, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration required that all new heavy and semi-trailers be equipped with reflective tape along their rear perimeter and sides in order to increase their visibility. However, the NHTSA did not mandate the additional safety requirement for trailers made before 1993.
While rental companies that do not affix reflective tape to pre-1993-manufactured trailers are not in violation of the law, it makes sound financial sense to retrofit all trailers inyour rental fleet.
The cost of purchasing and applying reflective tape strips is usually between $75 and $150 per unit, depending on the size of the trailer. While attaching tape to a sizable fleet can add up, several factors justify the expense, including:
* The large number of deliveries that rental companies make during dawn and dusk hours, when motorists' visibility is significantly impaired.
* Rental center delivery trucks are often forced to make turns onto and off unlighted two-lane roads and highways. Turns that place the trailer fully or partly across the roadway significantly increase the risk of motorists' misjudging the distance between themselves and the trailer.
* When a car or pickup truck strikes the side or rear of a trailer, "underriding" can occur. In an underride collision, the passenger compartment of the car strikes the trailer, often resulting in catastrophic, sometimes deadly injury. In such accidents, the truck driver almost always bears much, if not all, of the responsibility for the crash.
For the above reasons, retrofitting reflector tape on trailers can often result in significant dollar savings in lawsuits and in lower insurance premiums.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of rear and perimeter reflective tape in decreasing underride accidents. A study conducted by the NHTSA found that increased "conspicuity" from reflective tape helped reduce underriding by 16 percent in daytime accidents and more than 21 percent in nighttime crashes.
"Conspicuity" is a word accident investigators use to describe how well something can or cannot be seen. In other words, how well could your trailer be seen by the oncoming motorist in the moments before impact?
Rental centers that apply reflective tape around the perimeter of pre-1993 trailers increase the units' "conspicuity." That not only positions a rental business to fare better in a lawsuit resulting from an accident, but can save lives as well.
