WHAT IS A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION

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The goal of the Underride Engineering Subcommittee was to create a Consensus Side Guard Standard which would provide additional insight for the development of a side guard regulation. Lengthy conversation and exchange of information has led this group to submit the following recommendation:

A side underride guard shall be considered to meet the performance standard if it is able to provide vehicle crash compatibility with a midsize car, to prevent intrusion into the occupant survival space, when it is struck at any location, at any angle, and at any speed up to and including 40 mph.

The Task Force went so far as to suggest that the Truck Trailers Manufacturers Association (TTMA) discuss the Consensus Side Guard Standard at their upcoming annual meeting in San Antonio, April 7-10, 2021. We encouraged them to come together in a Joint Agreement to adopt or improve the Consensus Side Guard Standard, as an association, and fast track the manufacturing of side guards by their 80th Anniversary in 2022.

On Aug. 24, 1996, a liquid butane pipeline explosion took the lives of Danielle Dawn Smalley and her friend, Jason Stone. The Kaufman County tragedy inspired Danielle’s father, Danny, to start the Danielle Dawn Smalley Foundation in her honor.

In 2002, the grassroots Foundation dedicated itself to education and training rural volunteer firefighters in pipeline emergency protocol.

The Foundation has since expanded its outreach to more than 40 states to provide safety-and-awareness education to first responders, school systems and the general public.

What began as one man’s dream to honor his daughter has grown into the only non-profit of its kind that teaches safety and awareness for those who live, work and play near the nation’s oil-and-gas sites and pipelines.

Uniquely positioned to be a neutral, unbiased voice, the Foundation empowers people to make safe decisions around oil-and-gas equipment and pipelines.

The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) is a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization developing model programs in motor vehicle administration, law enforcement, and highway safety. The association also serves as an information clearinghouse in these areas and acts as the international spokesperson for these interests.
Founded in 1933, AAMVA represents the state, provincial, and territorial officials in the United States and Canada who administer and enforce motor vehicle laws. AAMVA’s programs encourage uniformity and reciprocity among the states and provinces. The association also serves as a liaison with other levels of government and the private sector. Its development and research activities provide guidelines for more effective public service. AAMVA’s membership includes associations, organizations, and businesses that share an interest in the association’s goals.

Operation Lifesaver is a non-profit organization that provides free public education and awareness programs in states across the U.S. to prevent collisions, injuries and fatalities on and around railroad tracks and highway-rail grade crossings. Injuries and fatalities that occur at highway-rail crossings or on railroad property are a real, but often preventable, problem.  We are committed to providing the educational resources and necessary solutions to help resolve this problem. 

We started in 1972 when the average number of collisions at U.S. highway-rail grade crossings had risen above 12,000 incidents yearly. To address this tragic reality, the Idaho governor's office, along with the Idaho Peace Officers and Union Pacific Railroad launched a six-week public awareness educational campaign called Operation Lifesaver to promote highway-rail grade crossing safety. After Idaho's crossing-related fatalities decreased that year by 43%, the successful program was adopted by Nebraska (1973) and in Kansas and Georgia the following year. Within a decade it had spread across the country. In 1986 a non-profit Operation Lifesaver national office was created to help support the efforts of state OL programs and raise national awareness on highway-rail grade crossing issues.

The mission of PSF is to research, promote, and install safety equipment that directly improves the safety of children around swimming pools.

While this is a simple, and important, mission, it is not an easy objective to achieve. We have worked hard to build the foundation of the Pool Safety Foundation – or PSF – and we have great aspirations for the future. It is our belief that we can have a significant and long-lasting impact on this area of public safety.

Taking on a topic as big as pool safety is not something that can be done lightly. To be sure, plenty of hard work has been invested just to get us to the point of forming this organization. Some of the steps that needed to be taken included understanding the scale of this problem, contacting various companies and other organizations related to the issue, and deciding on an overall mission.

With so much important work in the rear-view mirror, the most exciting times are still to come. The Pool Safety Foundation was officially established as a non-profit organization in November 2017. The website for our organization went live in January 2018. Now that we have established ourselves as part of the pool safety community, we turn our attention toward actually making a difference in the ‘real world’ one pool safety fence at a time.