{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://cohen.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-cohen-joins-senators-gillibrand-and-rubio-and-congressman", "Congressman Cohen Joins Senators Gillibrand and Rubio and Congressman DeSaulnier Introducing Truck Underride Bills", "2017-12-12", "2017", "2017-12", "Democrat", "House", "TN", "Steve Cohen", "C001068", "cohen.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) joined Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Congressman Mark DeSaulnier of California and families of truck underride accident victims Tuesday in introducing bipartisan legislation to prevent such unnecessary tragedies.\n\u201cThis is the type of legislation that does not have deep-pocket support; it doesn\u2019t have interest groups with money to push it and to support it. But it has the interests of the people and the safety of the people. It\u2019s the right kind of legislation that should be advocated in Congress more often,\u201d Cohen said at a news conference.\n\u201cI want to recognize the families who have suffered and lost loved ones, particularly my constituent, Mrs. Higginbotham -- Laurie Higginbotham \u2013 who is here. Each of these people have lost chiledren or parents they wouldn\u2019t have if this legislation had been in effect\u2026It is time we passed such an act to save lives.\u201d\nLaurie and Randy Higginbotham of Memphis lost their son Michael in 2014 when he ran into the side of a tractor trailer making an illegal U-turn, Mrs. Higginbotham told reporters Tuesday.\nGillibrand said that while there have been improvements to traffic safety, there is a \u201cmassive design flaw\u201d rendering virtually all car-safety features useless when colliding with a truck trailer.\n\u201cWith so many unpredictable accidents on the road, underride guards are an easy solution for protecting people and preventing them from dying when a car collides with a truck,\u201d said Senator Gillibrand. \u201cThis bipartisan legislation would save lives, and we should pass it as quickly as possible to keep Americans safe while they\u2019re driving, whether they\u2019re heading to see family and friends for the holidays or driving to work on their morning commute. I urge all of my colleagues to join me and Senator Rubio on this bipartisan bill.\u201d\n\u201cFlorida is one of the states with the highest number of reported fatalities due to underride collisions. With hundreds of Americans losing their lives due to these crashes every year, the Stop Underrides Act seeks to prevent these kind of deaths, make our roads safer, and spare more families the grief of losing a loved one by implementing underride guards on trucks across the nation,\u201d said Senator Rubio. \u201cI ask my colleagues in Congress to join me in advancing efforts to save hundreds of lives across the country.\u201d\nStudies and pilot programs show that a simple barrier attached to the lower area of a truck, called an \u201cunderride guard,\u201d would help prevent a car from sliding underneath a truck in an accident. Under current federal law, underride guards are not required to be on the sides or front of trucks. Underride guards are already required for the back of a truck, but the standards are outdated.\nThe bills introduced in the House and Senate Tuesday would require underride guards on the sides and front of a truck and update the outdated standards for underride guards on the back of trucks. It would also ensure that the annual inspection for all large trucks includes underride guards as part of the inspection and would require the Department of Transportation to review underride standards every five years to evaluate the need for changes in response to advancements in technology.\u00a0  \n\t\u00a0\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://cohen.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/congressman-cohen-joins-senators-gillibrand-and-rubio-and-congressman"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4873859472572803, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}