You may have noticed a bar hanging below a truck’s cargo area and thought it was some ladder of sorts; no, it is not. That bar is among a truck’s most important safety features and goes by many names, such as the underside bar, the DOT bar, or Jayne Mansfield’s bar.
You could be wondering why Jayne Mansfield’s bar. If you think she designed it, you are wrong. But she has a lot to do with its design, as the design resulted from her death.
There are many cases where tragic happenings have inspired the creation of laws to prevent similar happenings from recurring. One such case is the case of Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield.
Who Was Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was a Hollywood star in the 50s and the 60s. During her heydays, she starred in movies such as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? The Girl Can’t Help It, Too Hot To Handle, and The Wayward Bus. Mansfield was born in Pennsylvania and educated in Texas before moving to Hollywood to pursue her acting career. She is credited as the first actress to feature in a nude scene in the post-silent film era in her 1963 film Promise! Promise!, earning her a sex symbol status in the 60s.
But her sex symbol status did not go well with her husband, who, after being featured as the playmate on the February copy of The Playboy, sued to have full custody of their children, claiming she was not fit as a mother.
By the mid-60s, Mansfield’s popularity dwindled, causing her to slip into alcoholism while resorting to low-paying gigs such as performing in clubs while living with her then-boyfriend Samuel S. Brody, who was also her divorce lawyer.
Her Accident
Shortly after 2:30 a.m. on the night of June 29, 1967, Mansfield, her boyfriend Brody, and her children were riding in a silver Buick Electra driven by a college student, Ron Harrison, behind a truck on Highway 90 in Louisiana.
Unfortunately, the truck driver’s view was obscured by a cloud of insecticide from the city pest control unit, as they sprayed in a swamp to control mosquitoes, forcing him to stop. Tragically, the cloud also prevented Harrison from seeing the stopped truck in time to stop the vehicle, which resulted in the car plowing right under the truck.
The impact force caused half the car’s roof to shear off, killing the front-sitting occupants, Mansfield, her lawyer, and the driver on the spot. Thankfully, her children survived with minor injuries. One of her daughters, Mariska Hargitay, who was three at the time, grew up to follow in her mother’s footsteps and took on the role of Detective Olivia Benson in the TV series, Law and Order.
Her Contribution to Truck Design
After the tragedy, the NHTSA created a law requiring all trailers to have an under-ride bar under the cargo area to prevent a case like this from repeating itself. Because of the bar’s connection with the death of Mansfield, the bar earned the nickname Mansfield’s bar. “There is no data to show the number of lives saved by these bars, but it could be thousands of lives since they became a standard,” says accident lawyer Robert Hammers.
Semi-trucks are still a major threat on American roads. When involved in an accident involving smaller cars, the odds are almost always against the occupants of the small car. If you have been in a semi-truck accident, it is best to have a lawyer helping you with your case.
