The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says new crash tests prove the need for the federal government to require stronger guards on tractor-trailers. Even low-speed crashes can have deadly consequences according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Officials believe that requiring rear guards would reduce deaths and injuries when a passenger vehicle crashes into the back of a tractor trailer. According to a news release issued by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in 2009, 70% of the 3,163 people who died in large truck crashes were occupants of cars or passenger vehicles. “Cars’ front-end structures are designed to manage a tremendous amount of crash energy in a way that minimizes injuries for their occupants,” Adrian Lund, Institute president, said in a news release. “Hitting the back of a large truck is a game changer. You might be riding in a vehicle that earns top marks in frontal crash tests, but if the truck’s underride guard fails — or isn’t there at all — your chances of walking away from even a relatively low-speed crash aren’t good.”

According to estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 423 people in passenger vehicles die every year when their vehicles hit the backs of large trucks. More than 5,000 are injured according to research. New tests used a highly-rated Chevrolet Malibu to investigate accidents involving parked trailers. In three of the crash tests the heads of the dummies made contact with the trailer or the car’s hood. “The aim was to see if some underride guards perform better than others and to identify what crash speeds and configurations produce different types of failure,” Lund said in a news release. “Damage to the cars in some of these tests was so devastating that it’s hard to watch the footage without wincing. If these had been real-world crashes there would be no survivors.”

Chrysler, which owns GEM, the world’s largest producer of low-speed vehicles says the cars are safe as long as they are on the roads they are intended for. “GEM vehicles offer customers an inexpensive, clean solution for low-speed environments and comply with (the NHTSA’s) standards for low-speed vehicles, which limit the maximum speed of the vehicle to 25 mph,” said Chrysler officials in a USA Today report. “It’s a grave generalization to say that all LSVs are simply souped-up golf carts,” says Mike McQuary, CEO of Atlanta-based Wheego Electric Cars, which manufactures the Whip LSV, according to USA Today.