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An approach to the standardization of accident and injury registration systems (STAIRS) in Europe
(1998)
STAIRS is a European Commission funded study whose aim is to produce a set of guidelines for a harmonised, crash injury database. The need to evaluate the effectiveness of the forthcoming European Union front and side impact directives has emphasised the need for real world crash injury data-sets that can be representative of the crash population throughout Europe. STAIRS will provide a methodology to achieve this. The ultimate aim of STAIRS is to produce a set of data collection tools which will aid decision making on vehicle crashworthiness as well as providing a means to evaluate the effectiveness of safety regulations. This paper will disseminate the up-to-date findings of the group as they try to harmonise their methods. The stage has been reached where studies into the diverse methods of the UK, French and German systems of crash injury investigation have been undertaken. An assessment has already been made of the relationships between the three current systems in order to define the areas of agreement and divergence. The conclusions reached stated that there were many areas that are already closely related and that the differences were only at the detailed level. With the emphasis on secondary safety and injury causation, core data sets were decided upon, taking into account: vehicle description, collision configuration, structural response of vehicles, restraint and airbag performance, child restraint performance, Euro NCAP, pedestrian and vehicle occupant kinematics, injury description and causation. Each variable was studied objectively, the important elements isolated and developed into a form that all partners were agreeable on. A glossary of terms is being developed as the project progresses which includes ISO standards and other definitions from the associated CAREPLUS project, which addresses the comparability of national data sets. A major consideration of the group was the data collection method to be employed. The strengths and weaknesses of each study were investigated to obtain a clear idea of which aspects offered the best way forward. The quality of this information and transference into a common format, as well as the necessary error checking systems to be employed have just been completed and are described. In tandem with this area of study the problem of the statistical relationship of each sample to the national population is also being investigated. The study proposes a mechanism to use a sample of crash injury data to represent the national and international crash injury problem
A means of assessing the passive safety of automobiles is a desirable instrument for legislative bodies, the automobile industry, and the consumer. As opposed to the dominating motor vehicle assessment criteria, such as engine power, spaciousness, aerodynamics and consumption, there are no clear and generally accepted criteria for assessing the passive safety of cars. The proposed method of assessment combines the results of experimental safety tests, carried out according to existing legally prescribed or currently discussed testing conditions, and a biomechanical validation of the loading values determined in the test. This evaluation is carried out with the aid of risk functions which are specified for individual parts of the body by correlating the results of accident analysis with those obtained by computer simulation. The degree of conformance to the respective protection criterion thus deduced is then weighted with factors which take into account the frequency of occurrence and the severity of the accident on the basis of resulting costs. Each of the test series includes at least two frontal and one lateral crash test against a deformable barrier. The computer-aided analysis and evaluation of the simulation results enables a vehicle-specific overall safety index as well as partial and individual safety values to be determined and plotted graphically. The passive safety provided by the respective vehicle under test can be defined for specific seating positions, special types of accident, or for individual endangered parts of the body.
Despite the steadily declining number of pedestrian fatalities and injuries in most European countries during recent decades, pedestrian protection is still of great importance in the European Union as well as in Germany. This is because they still constitute a large proportion of road user casualties and are more likely to suffer serious and fatal injuries than most other road users. In 1999 only car occupants suffered more fatal injuries than pedestrians in Germany. In December 1998, EEVC WG 17 completed their review and updating of the EEVC WG 10 pedestrian test procedure that made it possible to evaluate the protection afforded to pedestrians by the front of passenger cars in an accident. Within the scope of this procedure, four different impactors are used representing those parts of the body which are injured very often and/or very seriously in vehicle-pedestrian-collisions. In a project executed by IKA and BASt, a small family car was tested according to the EEVC WG 17 test procedure. Afterwards modifications to the car were carried out in order to improve the pedestrian protection provided by the vehicle design. There were certain restrictions placed on the level of modifications undertaken, e.g. only minor modifications to vehicle styling and to the vehicle structures, which provide passenger protection. The redesigned vehicle was tested again using the WG 17 test procedure. The test results of the modified vehicle were compared with those of the standard vehicle and evaluated. The results show that considered measures for pedestrian protection in many areas of the vehicle front structure and the use of innovative techniques can lead to a significant reduction of the loads of pedestrians at an acceptable expense.
Nigeria ranks one of the highest countries in the world with the largest accident, especially when measured by whiplash associated disorders, whereas, traffic safety education rate, data and information been widely known as preventive indicators have been grossly neglected. In Nigeria, traffic safety enlightenment, awareness, political understanding and appreciation of the problem's magnitude are lacking. This study, therefore, seeks to understand and document the fact that accident causation factors in Nigeria relate more to the problem of development, poverty, knowledge and education as evidenced in most other developing countries. Among the primary accident causation factors on Nigerian roads are: - lack of a transportation system or multi-model integration - sub-standard and obsolete vehicles and road furniture - poor road maintenance, investment and engineering management - paucity of road users' and drivers' knowledge, skill, enlightenment and education of the road Use This paper submits that Nigeria being a developing nation requires purely primitive strategies being cost effective (health wise) than curative measures. It is in this light that an enduring, comprehensive and sustainable traffic safety educational programmes information base and data inventory, analysis and implementations form the focus of this study. This effort will provide basic guidelines framework and implementation procedure for a successful prevention of whiplash associated disorder resulting from road traffic crashes in Nigeria and other parts of the world.
This paper set out to examine the possibilities for injury avoidance implications for older drivers in crashes, based on crash and injury patterns among older drivers and current trends in ageing in most western societies. A number of safety technologies were identified and discussed which have potential for improving vehicle older driver crash avoidance and crashworthiness. While there were some promising estimates available of the likely benefits of this technology for improving safety, it is evident that they need to be confirmed for older drivers, given their age-related disabilities and sensory limitations. Further research is urgently required to ensure that these technologies yield safety benefits without any disbenefits for older drivers.rn
Because of actual developments and the continuous increase in the field of drive assistant systems, representative and detailed investigations of accident databases are necessary. This lecture describes the possibility to estimate the potential of primary and secondary safety measures by means of a computerized case by case analysis. Single primary or secondary safety measures as well as a combination of both are presented. The method is exemplarily shown for the primary safety measure "Brake Assist" in pedestrian accidents. Regarding accident prevention only the primary safety measure is determined.
This report gives an overview of pedestrian accidents on Japanese roads. Database used for the analysis is national traffic accident data based on police reports. Relevant measures and background information ranging from vehicle safety, engineering and education are briefly reviewed, and area for further improvement is discussed.rn
The use of proper child restraint systems (CRS) is mandatory for children travelling in cars in most countries of the world. The analysis of the quantity of restrained children shows that more than 90% of the children in Germany are restrained. Looking at the quality of the protection, a large discrepancy between restrained and well protected children can be seen. Two out of three children in Germany are not properly restrained. In addition, considerable difference exists with respect to the technical performance of CRS. For that reason investigations and optimisations on two different topics are necessary: The technical improvement of CRS and the ease of use of CRS. Consideration of the knowledge gained by the comparison of different CRS in crash tests would lead to some improvements of the CRS. But improvement of child safety is not only a technical issue. People should use CRS in the correct way. Misuse and incorrect handling could lead to less safety than correct usage of a poor CRS. For that reason new technical issues are necessary to improve the child safety AND the ease of use. Only the combination of both parts can significantly increase child safety. For the assessment of the safety level of common CRS, frontal and lateral sled tests simulating different severity levels were conducted comparing pairs of CRS which were felt to be good and CRS which were felt to be poor. The safety of some CRS is currently at a high level. All well known products were not damaged in the performed tests. The performance of non-branded CRS was mostly worse than that of the well known products. Although the branded child restraint systems already show a high safety level it is still possible to further improve their technical performance as demonstrated with a baby shell and a harness type CRS.
There is a need for detecting characteristics of pedestrian movement before car-pedestrian collisions to trigger a fully reversible pedestrian protection system. For this purpose, a pedestrian sensor system has been developed. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the sensor system, the in-depth knowledge of car-pedestrian impact scenarios is needed. This study aims at the evaluation of the sensor system. The accident data are selected from the STRADA database. The accident scenarios available in this database were evaluated and the knowledge of the most common scenarios was developed in terms of the pedestrian trajectory, the pedestrian speed, the car trajectory, the car velocity, etc. A mathematical model was then established to evaluate the sensor system with different detective angles. It was found that in order to detect all the pedestrians in the most common scenarios on time the sensor detective angle must be kept larger than 60 degrees.
The National Roads Authority in Ireland is responsible for planning and supervision of construction and maintenance works on the National Road network. Its primary function is "to secure the provision of a safe and efficient network of national roads". The population of Ireland has grown rapidly from 3.5 million to 4 million within the past 10 years, and vehicle ownership has also risen rapidly to 2 million vehicles, with 2.2 million drivers. Collisions rates in Ireland are at approximately 1.5 collisions per 1,000 population (in 2002), and 8.4 deaths per 1,000,000 population (in 2003). This ranked 8th out of the 15 countries in the European Union at the time. Ireland- current Road Safety Strategy includes Engineering Targets. These are to complete construction of certain lengths of new motorway, dual carriageway and 2+1 highway, to implement a certain number of accident remedial and traffic calming schemes, and to implement road safety audit on all new schemes. The accident remedial schemes, traffic calming schemes, and road safety audit are all the responsibility of the Road Safety section of NRA. The road safety programme of the NRA is divided into four main areas; a) accident remedial measures at individual sites, b) accident remedial treatment of entire routes, c) traffic calming of towns and villages on main roads, d) road safety audit. Examples of these measures are described. Evaluation of past programmes of single site accident remedial measures show a reduction in collision occurrence at these sites, but the effectiveness and the economic rate of return is decreasing over successive programmes. A similar programme has now been adopted on the rest of the country- road network, on regional and local roads. The programme of remedial treatment of entire routes has only recently started and has not been evaluated. Evaluation of the first programme of traffic calming of towns and villages shows an overall decrease in collisions and their severity, and a small reduction in speed. Road Safety Audit, examining new schemes a number of times during design and after construction, has been standard procedure on the national road network for nearly 6 years. An evaluation is currently underway.