Harvard University announced Feb. 21 a new initiative to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety by becoming the first higher education institution on the East Coast to install side guards on large trucks in its fleet. The truck safety initiative applies not only to vehicles owned by the university, but will be extended to trucks operated by major vendors as well.

Side guards are installed on large trucks to protect bicyclists and pedestrians from falling underneath, intending to sweep aside a pedestrian or bicyclist in a side-impact crash rather than sweeping them underneath.

Representatives from a variety of Harvard departments, including Strategic Procurement, Fleet Management, and Environmental Health and Safety, and led by the Office for Sustainability, partnered with the U.S. DOT Volpe National Transportation System Center (Volpe) worked over a year to develop a leading truck safety program aligned with the Volpe Side Guard Standard. It includes two major components:

– After a successful pilot installing the sideguards on Mail and Delivery Services box trucks, Harvard fleet technicians have begun installing side guards on all existing, eligible Harvard-owned trucks, including box trucks and solid waste and recycling trucks. When possible, new trucks purchased by Harvard will include side guards.

– Harvard has also started to ask preferred vendors that drive large trucks to campus to install side guards on eligible trucks as quickly as possible. In response to this action, the university’s waste management vendors, Republic Services and Save That Stuff, have installed sideguards on all waste service trucks serving Harvard’s campus. Moving forward, contracts for preferred vendors that bring eligible trucks onto campus will include a requirement to develop and share a plan for meeting the Volpe Side Guard Standard.

To read the full story, visit http://www.wickedlocal.com/news/20180221/harvard-university-now-requires-large-trucks-to-have-side-guards.

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