Latest news with #Stoughton
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Insurance group approves first container chassis crash guard
A container chassis designed by Stoughton Trailers has received the first award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for protection against rear underride crashes. A rear underride guard is a metal frame attached to the back of a semitrailer to prevent passenger cars from sliding beneath the trailer in the event of a rear-end crash. Underride guards that meet IIHS's safety criteria are more likely than others to withstand an impact, reducing the severity of the crash. Wisconsin-based Stoughton had previously earned the award for its dry vans and refrigerated vans. Now the company's 53-foot intermodal chassis – which carry shipping containers directly transferred from ships or railcars – also meets IIHS's 'Toughguard' criteria, the insurance group announced on Thursday. 'We're excited about the commitment that Stoughton has shown to preventing underride crashes,' said IIHS President David Harkey in a statement. 'Improving the safety of commercial vehicles is a key part of our 30×30 strategy, which targets a 30% reduction in road fatalities by 2030.' IIHS pointed out that in 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration updated federal regulations governing rear underride protection on large trucks. However, 'the new rule remains far less stringent than the Toughguard requirements and is not expected to push manufacturers to improve,' IIHS contends. Stoughton was among the earliest trailer manufacturers to earn the group's Toughguard safety award for its dry vans and refrigerated trailers in 2017. To date, nine North American trailer manufacturers, including the eight largest, have earned the awards. NHTSA side underride analysis slammed by safety, insurance advocates Trump's NHTSA nominee raises concerns among truck safety advocates US chassis makers allege foreign dumping again Click for more FreightWaves articles by John Gallagher. The post Insurance group approves first container chassis crash guard appeared first on FreightWaves.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
New trailer type gets strong underride guard
Stoughton extends IIHS-award-winning underride protection to container shipping ARLINGTON, Va., June 12, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A Stoughton chassis designed for container transport is the first of its kind to qualify for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's TOUGHGUARD award for superior underride protection. Wisconsin-based Stoughton, a leading manufacturer of semitrailers, previously earned the award for its dry vans and refrigerated vans. Now the company's 53-foot intermodal chassis also meets the TOUGHGUARD criteria. The award applies to models built after April 2025. An intermodal chassis is a special type of trailer that can carry shipping containers directly transferred from ships or railcars. 'We're excited about the commitment that Stoughton has shown to preventing underride crashes,' IIHS President David Harkey said. 'Improving the safety of commercial vehicles is a key part of our 30x30 strategy, which targets a 30% reduction in road fatalities by 2030.' A rear underride guard is a metal frame attached to the back of a semitrailer to prevent lower-riding vehicles from sliding beneath the trailer in the event of a rear-end crash. All rear underride guards must meet federal safety standards. However, IIHS research and crash tests have shown that many can buckle or break off in a crash. Underride guards that meet the TOUGHGUARD criteria are substantially more likely to withstand an impact, reducing the severity of the crash. Until now, only dry van, refrigerated and flatbed trailers have qualified. But with the growing importance of shipping containers in global trade, more and more freight is being transported using intermodal chassis. Chassis-type trailers present a unique challenge when it comes to underride protection. The frame of a dry van, refrigerated or flatbed trailer extends across its entire wheelbase, supporting the underride guard for its full width. In contrast, an intermodal chassis is a ladder-like structure that lies between the trailer's wheels to support the removable container. For that reason, the underride guard required a completely new design. Instead of a vertical support attached to the trailer deck, the chassis guard features long, diagonal supports running from the guard's outboard ends to the chassis rails. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) updated federal regulations governing rear underride protection on large trucks in June 2022. However, the new rule remains far less stringent than the TOUGHGUARD requirements and is not expected to push manufacturers to improve. 'A major weakness of the federal regulation is that in the required test, the underride guard is bolted to a universal testing rig instead of an actual trailer,' IIHS Senior Test Coordinator Sean O'Malley said. 'When we were developing the TOUGHGUARD program, we found that many underride guards that survived testing attached to NHTSA's rig broke off when attached to the trailer they were built to be used on, either because the attachment points on the trailer failed or the bolts did.' In contrast, IIHS evaluates underride guards on the trailers they are designed for. In the IIHS test, a midsize car crashes into the back of the parked trailer at 35 mph in three configurations, hitting the trailer with its full width, a 50% overlap and a 30% overlap. To earn the IIHS award, the guard must prevent underride in all three configurations. The 30% overlap configuration — which was left out of the new federal requirements — is the most challenging, because only the corner of the underride guard must absorb all the force of the impact. Initially, these tests were conducted in-house. Now IIHS allows trailer manufacturers to submit data and footage from tests conducted at their own facilities or by contractors for IIHS experts to review. The tests of Stoughton's intermodal chassis were conducted by Calspan. Stoughton was also among the earliest trailer manufacturers to earn a TOUGHGUARD award for its dry vans and refrigerated trailers in 2017. To date, nine North American trailer manufacturers, including the eight largest, have earned TOUGHGUARD awards. ### For more information, go to The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is an independent, nonprofit scientific and educational organization dedicated to reducing deaths, injuries and property damage from motor vehicle crashes through research and evaluation and through education of consumers, policymakers and safety professionals. IIHS is wholly supported by auto insurers. CONTACT: Joe Young Insurance Institute for Highway Safety 504-641-0491 jyoung@ in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trax Surgical Receives FDA 510(k) Clearance for Nitinol Staple System
STOUGHTON, Mass., May 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Massachusetts based Trax Surgical, LLC, an orthopedic product development and distribution company principally serving the needs of the orthopedic extremities market, announced today that they received FDA 510(k) clearance to market the LINKT™ Compression Staple System. The staple system offers a range of nitinol staples for fracture repair, joint fusion, and osteotomy procedures. Compression bone staples have a key intraoperative advantage in that they are technically easier and faster to apply as fewer steps are required. This is an important option for surgeons to have when assessing the needs of their patients. Trax Surgical's nitinol staple with inherent compressive properties creates a stable environment that promotes bone healing. "We are incredibly excited about this advancement," said Shane Shankle, President of Trax Surgical. "The approval of our Nitinol Compression Staple enables us to better serve our customers and elevate the standard of care in extremity orthopedics. It reflects our dedication to innovation, quality, and the needs of both surgeons and patients." The LINKT Compression Staple System is an improvement over some outdated designs that lack the ability to adjust the staple prior to implantation. The LINKT System features an adjustable inserter that allows the surgeon to open and close the staple's legs for easy insertion. Multiple staples can be deployed with an appropriately sized inserter, which is also used to properly seat the implant, or to remove and reposition it. The company's nitinol staples have a slightly curved bridge designed to provide more even compression across the fusion site and feature toothed legs for secure fixation. LINKT Staples are available in multiple bridge widths and leg lengths. The LINKT system is comprised of staples sold individually in sterile packaging, and sterile deployment kits comprised of a drill, drill guide, locating pins, and inserter. About Trax Surgical Trax Surgical manufactures innovative medical instrumentation and implant devices for surgical procedures involving the upper and lower extremities. They engineer premium medical products with patient comfort and durability in mind for internal fixation, reconstruction, and more. Bone and fracture repair products from Trax Surgical are quality-assured and certified to industry standards. The Trax Compression Screw System was initially developed by Primo Medical Group. Trax Surgical partners with Primo Medical Group to deliver innovative new products and medical devices certified to industry standards for surgical procedures. About Primo Medical Group Primo Medical Group offers the most comprehensive outsourcing solutions for the medical device market, including OEM product distribution services, engineering services, precision component production, finished goods assembly, medical device refurbishment, reusable surgical kit management and complete supply chain management. Established in 1953, Primo Medical Group is a privately held company with five facilities in Massachusetts. Primo Medical Group is an FDA Registered Contract Manufacturer and is compliant with FDA Quality Systems Regulations. Primo Medical Group is also ISO 13485:2016 certified and is a registered manufacturer with the Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance. Over the past 24 years Primo Medical Group has incubated and co-funded several new technologies including Angiolink, (acquired by Medtronic), Arthrosurface, Spirus Medical, (acquired by Olympus), Cardiosolutions, Saphena Medical (Acquired in 2024), Versago Vascular Access, Trax Surgical, and Solid State Marine. Contact: Andrea PatisteasSenior Executive Vice PresidentTrax Surgical View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Trax Surgical Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trax Surgical Receives FDA 510(k) Clearance for Nitinol Staple System
STOUGHTON, Mass., May 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Massachusetts based Trax Surgical, LLC, an orthopedic product development and distribution company principally serving the needs of the orthopedic extremities market, announced today that they received FDA 510(k) clearance to market the LINKT™ Compression Staple System. The staple system offers a range of nitinol staples for fracture repair, joint fusion, and osteotomy procedures. Compression bone staples have a key intraoperative advantage in that they are technically easier and faster to apply as fewer steps are required. This is an important option for surgeons to have when assessing the needs of their patients. Trax Surgical's nitinol staple with inherent compressive properties creates a stable environment that promotes bone healing. "We are incredibly excited about this advancement," said Shane Shankle, President of Trax Surgical. "The approval of our Nitinol Compression Staple enables us to better serve our customers and elevate the standard of care in extremity orthopedics. It reflects our dedication to innovation, quality, and the needs of both surgeons and patients." The LINKT Compression Staple System is an improvement over some outdated designs that lack the ability to adjust the staple prior to implantation. The LINKT System features an adjustable inserter that allows the surgeon to open and close the staple's legs for easy insertion. Multiple staples can be deployed with an appropriately sized inserter, which is also used to properly seat the implant, or to remove and reposition it. The company's nitinol staples have a slightly curved bridge designed to provide more even compression across the fusion site and feature toothed legs for secure fixation. LINKT Staples are available in multiple bridge widths and leg lengths. The LINKT system is comprised of staples sold individually in sterile packaging, and sterile deployment kits comprised of a drill, drill guide, locating pins, and inserter. About Trax Surgical Trax Surgical manufactures innovative medical instrumentation and implant devices for surgical procedures involving the upper and lower extremities. They engineer premium medical products with patient comfort and durability in mind for internal fixation, reconstruction, and more. Bone and fracture repair products from Trax Surgical are quality-assured and certified to industry standards. The Trax Compression Screw System was initially developed by Primo Medical Group. Trax Surgical partners with Primo Medical Group to deliver innovative new products and medical devices certified to industry standards for surgical procedures. About Primo Medical Group Primo Medical Group offers the most comprehensive outsourcing solutions for the medical device market, including OEM product distribution services, engineering services, precision component production, finished goods assembly, medical device refurbishment, reusable surgical kit management and complete supply chain management. Established in 1953, Primo Medical Group is a privately held company with five facilities in Massachusetts. Primo Medical Group is an FDA Registered Contract Manufacturer and is compliant with FDA Quality Systems Regulations. Primo Medical Group is also ISO 13485:2016 certified and is a registered manufacturer with the Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance. Over the past 24 years Primo Medical Group has incubated and co-funded several new technologies including Angiolink, (acquired by Medtronic), Arthrosurface, Spirus Medical, (acquired by Olympus), Cardiosolutions, Saphena Medical (Acquired in 2024), Versago Vascular Access, Trax Surgical, and Solid State Marine. Contact: Andrea PatisteasSenior Executive Vice PresidentTrax Surgical View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Trax Surgical
Fox News
18-05-2025
- Fox News
Karen Read judge blocks Sandra Birchmore mentions; expert says cases should be wake-up call for police
A Massachusetts judge has agreed to bar references to an unrelated, botched murder investigation in Karen Read's second trial on murder and other charges in the 2022 death of her Boston police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe. Police in Canton, a suburb about 20 miles south of Boston, inaccurately determined the Feb. 4, 2021 death of Sandra Birchmore, 24, was a suicide before federal investigators said she had been strangled and charged a Stoughton officer with her murder. The FBI arrested former Stoughton Police Officer Matthew Farwell, 38, in August in Birchmore's murder. He is accused of grooming her since she was a teenager, maintaining a sexual relationship for years and then killing her when she told him she'd become pregnant and staging the murder to look like a suicide. Canton Police were also the first to respond after O'Keefe was reported unresponsive outside another Boston Police officer's house Jan. 29, 2022, during a blizzard. Local police collected bloody snow evidence in red Solo cups and placed them in a Stop and Shop grocery bag. A Canton lieutenant used a leaf blower to move snow from where O'Keefe's body had been found. Witnesses were interviewed informally, off camera and not at the police station. O'Keefe was found dead on Brian Albert's front lawn. Albert's brother is a Canton Police detective. State police took over the investigation later that day. But their involvement wasn't without controversy. The lead detective was fired earlier this year after an internal investigation into unprofessional text messages revealed in court during Read's first trial, which ended in a mistrial. Read the motion: "Gov. [Maura] Healey should have ordered the revamping of police training in the state after the debacle in Karen Read 1.0," said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley. "Everything from response to the scene by patrol officers to securing the scene to identifying evidence, the proper collection of evidence, the proper containers for that evidence and so on." The two cases prompted town residents to demand an audit into their own police department, and the town board hired a firm called 5 Stones Intelligence, or 5Si. The firm released its findings in a 206-page report April 1, the same day jury selection began in Read's retrial. It found no evidence that Canton Police had conspired to frame Read, but the auditors recommended that all death cases be reviewed by supervisors in the future. In the report, 5Si recommended that Canton detectives undergo "advanced training" on crime scene investigations and that all patrol vehicles be equipped with crime scene kits and evidence collection bags. They called for an increase in the police department's budget. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB There was also a federal investigation into the handling of O'Keefe's death. Read remains the only person charged. She faces charges of second-degree murder, drunken driving manslaughter and fleeing a deadly accident for allegedly striking O'Keefe with her Lexus SUV during an argument and leaving him for dead around 12:30 a.m. She and two friends returned at 6 a.m. and found O'Keefe on the ground, covered in snow that had intensified throughout the day. An autopsy found his cause of death was trauma to the head and hypothermia. The manner was undetermined. Read has denied striking O'Keefe at all, pleaded not guilty and suggested she is being framed by local police and their allies. She was first tried on the charges last year, but jurors deadlocked, and Judge Beverly Cannone declared a mistrial. So far in the retrial, at least one evidence bag appears to have been mislabeled, and another had more pieces of broken taillight than expected. Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Yuri Bukhenik was also grilled about a lack of photographs for some evidence and a delay of hundreds of days for some reports in the investigation. "If nothing else, they should be taught documentation, documentation and documentation," Giacalone told Fox News Digital. "These aren't small mistakes. These are errors that will cost you cases, will cause lawsuits in the state of Massachusetts and it just makes everybody in the criminal justice system look bad." "If Massachusetts has this problem, what about other states?" Giacalone said. "Now's the time to nip them in the bud before we find out another Karen Reed trial disaster." Special prosecutor Hank Brennan, a high-profile defense attorney whose clients have included mobster Whitey Bulger, was brought in to lead the second trial. He asked Cannone last week to block the defense from bringing up the Birchmore case as Read's lawyers look to paint the investigation as unreliable and corrupt. She agreed, unless the "door is opened" by prosecutors. "They're not gonna open that door," said Linda Kenney Baden, a high-profile defense attorney who squared off against Read lawyer Alan Jackson, a prosecutor during the first trial of record producer Phil Spector in 2007. Like Read's, it ended in a mistrial. WATCH: Zoomed-in clip appears to show Karen Read backing into parked SUV Still, she said, she believes there is plenty of room for jurors to find reasonable doubt. "They gotta prove she hit him," she said. "It's really as simple as that. It's a drunk-driving hit-and-run." Read's SUV has a broken taillight, and police witnesses described finding matching pieces on Albert's front lawn. But the defense also played surveillance video from O'Keefe's garage that appears to show her backing her SUV into his parked vehicle shortly before she found his remains along with two other women, Kerry Roberts and Jennifer McCabe. Still, the veteran trial attorney praised Brennan's handling of the case and how he's left out key witnesses who may have tanked the prosecution in the first trial and gave the defense less room to maneuver. "The way Brennan has tried this case is that he's not letting any of the bad stuff in, so whenever Alan Jackson goes to the stuff that really hurts them, he doesn't have a place to go there," she said. For one, he left former Massachusetts State Tpr. Michael Proctor off the prosecution's witness list. Proctor sent a series of rude, lewd and unprofessional text messages about Read and the investigation, which led to his firing. He is still on the defense's witness list and could be called to the stand later.
