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In recent years considerable progress in active and passive safety of road vehicles has been made. The road traffic of today is much safer than in the past. A current vehicle has a lot more safety elements resulting in an improved inner and outer technique. In most European countries the number of fatalities is decreasing despite growing traffic and road usage. Nevertheless, the number of casualties in road traffic accidents is high enough, thus more progress is needed if the number of fatalities is to be reduced by 50%, as postulated by the European Commission for the year 2010. In order to develop countermeasures and further possibilities for injury prevention, it is increasingly important to have accident data available, supplying results quickly and giving the best overview across Europe. In-Depth-Data Sampling Procedures have a huge historical development, starting in the 60ies by the car manufactures, continued during the 70ies mostly by some universities mainly in England, Sweden, France and Germany, today a net of in-depth-investigation teams are working across Europe and around the world.One of the oldest teams is located at the Hannover Medical School, founded in 1973 by the German Government on behalf of the Federal Highway Research Institute Bast. It was the only team worldwide that was equipped with blue light emergency cars, working on scene in time so directly after the event and working continuously during the years, collecting 20 thousand accidents within 30 years period. Since 1999 the order is carried out in cooperation with the German car industry, which is interested and has benefit on the data too. On the basis of the new data collection, so called GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study), that has been run at the Technical University Dresden and the Medical University Hannover), a special tool for In-Depth-Accident Analysis was founded. It is the task of this conference to build a platform for such research based on In-Depth-Investigation. The conference is specially aimed at the area of accident data analysis in order to contribute to the harmonization of different investigation methods and accumulation of different results that does exist for different countries worldwide. Up to now no special conference did exist to deal with accident data only following in the discussion for an improvement in traffic and vehicle safety. ESAR - expert symposium on accident research - should be a step forward. This first international conference is being organized by the Accident Research Unit at the Medical University Hannover jointly with the German Federal Highway Research Institute Bast and the Research Association of German Car Manufacturers FAT. The conference should be a platform for an interdisciplinary exchange of information based on the different presentations from participants around the world.
The second ESAR Conference took place at the Medical University Hannover. This year conference presents the current state of affairs of relevant research activities in the field of in-depth investigations. The first conference on ESAR (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was established in 2004. It is planned to hold ESAR every two years. Hannover seems to be the right place for this conference concerning the fact that the first in-depth research team was found here in the year 1973 and comprehensive studies on accident analysis were spread out from here around the world continuously. This year conference topped all expectations in terms of the numbers of participants, in the variety of papers and the interdisciplinary of presenters from medical, psychological and engineering background. More than 100 delegates from all over the world, that means 13 different countries and from 4 different continents, came to Hannover, presented their results of accident investigation and discussed countermeasures for accident prevention and injury reduction. ESAR should be a platform for exchange of knowledge to find an optimized way for increase of traffic and vehicle safety by in-depth investigation and methodology. ESAR as international conference should be a platform for consideration of all nations round the world. This seems to be very important for the current situation, having high safety in the high industrial countries of Europe, US and Australia, but low safety and high injury risk in Asia and Africa.
Die amtliche Straßenverkehrsunfallstatistik kann nur in begrenztem Umfang Informationen zu Unfallentstehung, Unfallablauf sowie zu den zugrunde liegenden Verletzungsmechanismen bereitstellen. Verbleibende Informationslücken lassen sich durch spezielle Erhebungsteams schließen, die Verkehrsunfälle nach wissenschaftlichen Aspekten dokumentieren. Hierzu unterhalten das Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau- und Wohnungswesen und die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen seit 30 Jahren ein Forschungsprojekt zur Unfalldatenerhebung an der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover. Seit 1999 erfolgt eine Kooperation mit der Forschungsvereinigung Automobiltechnik (FAT), die ein weiteres Erhebungsteam an der Technischen Universität Dresden unterhält. Die Unfalldaten gehen in die gemeinsame GIDAS-Datenbank ein, aus der sich umfassende Informationen zu den breit gefächerten Forschungsfeldern "Passive und aktive Fahrzeugsicherheit", "Verkehrs- und Rettungsmedizin" und "Straßenbezogene Sicherheitsfragen" gewinnen lassen. In der Zukunft werden Unfallvermeidungsstrategien und Unfallursachenprophylaxe im Vordergrund einer prospektiven Unfallforschung stehen. Die Daten werden auch in Zukunft für die weitere Verbesserung der Verkehrssicherheit einen bedeutenden Beitrag leisten.
In September 2004 the first international symposium called ESAR (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was carried out at the University of Hannover (Germany). The idea for such international conference was to bring together experts from the fields of accident investigation teams worldwide to present their results for a common audience of people from government, industry and other universities. The first conference was a really sufficient one and followed by the second symposium also at the Hannover Medical School two years later in 2006. This two year rhythm was now continued with the third conference in Hannover again in 2008. It is planned to carry out ESAR every two years also in the future. ESAR is a scientific colloquium and can be seen as a platform for exchange of information on accident research issues based on methodologies of investigation, injury mechanisms and injury assessment, accident causation and other issues of statistical accident data analysis. Representatives from authorities as well as from medical and technical institutions come together to discuss new research issues and exchange experiences on accident prevention and the complex field of accident reconstruction. Special focus was given to the target the European Union set for itself in 2000 which stipulates that within 10 years the number of person killed in road traffic accidents must be cut in half. To reach this goal, optimized measures, comprehensive research and analysis are necessary. A key hurdle comes from the European Union extension to 27 member states, each featuring different levels of traffic safety standards and different accident scenarios. Existing results from long term research projects in Europe, the USA, Australia and Japan including analyses of infrastructure, population, vehicle fleet and driver behaviour offer an excellent basis for understanding and improving countermeasures and research support needs in underdeveloped countries. ESAR's goal is to bring together researchers from all parts of the world, who will report on their methods and recommendations to improve traffic safety based on "In-Depth-Investigations" of real world accidents. These In-depth-investigations of accidents require thorough documentation and an accident data analysis on multidisciplinary levels which must be carried out immediately after it occurs. ESAR presents scientists the opportunity to present their studies on a common basis of research level.
Im Jahr 2004 fand an der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover die erste ESAR-Konferenz (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) statt. Die Idee einer internationalen Konferenz war aus der Notwendigkeit entstanden, diejenigen Experten zusammen zu bringen, die weltweit tätig sind und Verkehrsunfälle wissenschaftlich analysieren, um ihre Ergebnisse gemeinsam zu diskutieren und einem Zielpublikum von Behördenvertretern, Entwicklungsingenieuren der Automobilindustrie und anderen Wissenschaftlern darzubringen. Die durch Professor Otte initiierte und nun zum vierten Male organisierte Konferenz fand eine breite Akzeptanz und ist mittlerweile Bestandteil einer Konferenzlandschaft mit Zielvorträgen von der Fahrzeugsicherheit bis hin zur Verletzungsanalyse und den Unfallursachen. ESAR kann als wissenschaftliches Kolloquium und Plattform für einen Informationsaustausch der Unfallforscher angesehen werden, die sich speziell mit Methoden der Unfalluntersuchung, mit Verletzungsmechanismen und der Bewertung von Verletzungen, Unfallursachen und anderen Bereichen der statistischen Unfalldatenanalyse befassen. Experten aus den Bereichen der Medizin, der Verkehrspsychologie und der Technik sowie Vertreter zuständiger Behörden kommen hier zusammen, um die Erfahrungen in der Unfallprävention und der Unfallrekonstruktion zu diskutieren und um der Forschung neue Felder zu eröffnen. Neben den Belangen der Europäischen Gemeinschaft werden auch die weltweit zu registrierenden hohen Verletztenzahlen berücksichtigt. Wissenschaftliche Vorträge aus aller Welt tragen dazu bei, geeignete Maßnahmen und Methoden zur Analyse und drastischen Verringerung der Zahl der bei Verkehrsunfällen Getöteten zu entwickeln. Die Zusammensetzung des Teilnehmerkreises dieser wie früherer ESAR-Konferenzen hat längst eine über Europa hinausgreifende Internationalitaet erreicht und bietet daher einen aufschlussreichen Überblick über die verschiedenen Standards bestehender Verkehrssicherheit und unterschiedlichen Unfallszenarien und über die Anforderungen an die Unfallanalysen. Die Ergebnisse langjähriger Forschungsarbeiten in Europa, USA, Australien und asiatischen Ländern beinhalten unterschiedliche infrastrukturelle Zusammenhänge und geben Erkenntnisse über Population, Fahrzeugbestand und Fahrereigenschaften. Derartige Informationen bilden eine exzellente Basis für abzuleitende Empfehlungen und Maßnahmen für die Erhöhung der Verkehrssicherheit international.
In 2012 the fifth ESAR conference (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was held in Hannover. ESAR is an international convention of experts, who analyze traffic accidents all over the world and discuss their results in this context, conducted at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover every 2 years. It connected representatives of public authorities, engineers in automotive development and scientists and offers a forum with particular emphasis on In-Depth-Analyses of accident statistics and accident analyses. Special focus is placed on research on the basis of so-called "In-Depth-Accident-Investigations" [data collections at the sites of the accidents], which are characterized by extensive documentations of the sites of the accidents, of the vehicles as well as of the injuries, encompassing several scientific fields. ESAR aims at a multi-disciplinary compilation of scientific results and at discussing them on an international, scientific level. It is thus a scientific colloquium and a platform for exchanging information for all accident researchers. Experiences in accident prevention as well as in the complex field of accident reconstruction are stated and new research fields are added. Existing results of long-term research work in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan include different infrastructural correlations and give findings on population, vehicle population and driver characteristics, which offer a basis for recommendations to be derived and measures for increasing road safety.
In 2014 the sixth ESAR conference (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was held in Hannover. ESAR is an international convention of experts, who analyze traffic accidents all over the world and discuss their results in this context, conducted at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover every 2 years. It connected representatives of public authorities, engineers in automotive development and scientists and offers a forum with particular emphasis on In-Depth-Analyses of accident statistics and accident analyses. Special focus is placed on research on the basis of so-called "In-Depth-Accident-Investigations" [data collections at the sites of the accidents], which are characterized by extensive documentations of the sites of the accidents, of the vehicles as well as of the injuries, encompassing several scientific fields. ESAR aims at a multi-disciplinary compilation of scientific results and at discussing them on an international, scientific level. It is thus a scientific colloquium and a platform for exchanging information for all accident researchers. Experiences in accident prevention as well as in the complex field of accident reconstruction are stated and new research fields are added. Existing results of long-term research work in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan include different infrastructural correlations and give findings on population, vehicle population and driver characteristics, which offer a basis for recommendations to be derived and measures for increasing road safety.
In 2016 the seventh ESAR conference (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was held in Hannover. ESAR is an international convention of experts, who analyze traffic accidents all over the world and discuss their results in this context, conducted at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover every 2 years. It connected representatives of public authorities, engineers in automotive development and scientists and offers a forum with particular emphasis on In-Depth-Analyses of accident statistics and accident analyses. Special focus is placed on research on the basis of so-called "In-Depth-Accident-Investigations" [data collections at the sites of the accidents], which are characterized by extensive documentations of the sites of the accidents, of the vehicles as well as of the injuries, encompassing several scientific fields. ESAR aims at a multi-disciplinary compilation of scientific results and at discussing them on an international, scientific level. It is thus a scientific colloquium and a platform for exchanging information for all accident researchers. Experiences in accident prevention as well as in the complex field of accident reconstruction are stated and new research fields are added. Existing results of long-term research work in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan include different infrastructural correlations and give findings on population, vehicle population and driver characteristics, which offer a basis for recommendations to be derived and measures for increasing road safety.
Pelvic fracture, cracking or breaking of a portion of the pelvis are extremely common injuries in the side impact collisions of motor vehicles. Due to both its shape and structural architecture, mechanics of the pelvic bone is complicated. There is a lack of knowledge regarding the dynamic behavior of the pelvis and its biomechanical tolerance under impact environment. Hence this study is aimed at the understanding of the mechanical response of the human pelvis with three-dimensional finite element (FE) models, under side impact load, applied through a structure, equivalent to a car door. The door structure was modeled, considering few layers, consisting of foam (Styrodur®, 3035 CS), plastic (UHMWPE), steel, glass and steel, putting them in series. A soft tissue layer (equivalent to fat) was also considered on the greater trochanter location. These FE models (with and without the car door structure) were analyzed with ANSYS-LS-DYNA-® dynamic finite element software to compare the effect of the car door padding system for shock absorption. It was observed that with proper combination of shock absorbing material (foam, etc.) and its thickness, the transmission of impact load to the body part (pelvis, etc.) from the outer surface of the car door could be reduced.
Description of road traffic related knee injuries in published investigations is very heterogeneous. The purpose of this study was to estimate the risk of knee injuries in real world car impacts in Germany focusing vulnerable road users (pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists) and restrained car drivers. The accident research unit analyses technical and medical data collected shortly after the accident at scene. Two different periods (years 1985-1993 and 1995-2003) were compared focusing on knee injuries (Abbreviated Injury Scale (AISKnee) 2/3). In order to determine the influences type of collision, direction and speed as well as the injury pattern and different injury scores (AIS, MAIS, ISS) were examined. 1.794 pedestrians, 742 motorcyclists, 2.728 bicyclists and 1.116 car drivers were extracted. 2% had serious ligamentous or bony injuries in relation to all injured. The risk of injury is higher for twowheelers than for pedestrians, but knee injury severity is higher for the latter group. Overall the current knee injury risk is low and significant reduced comparing both time periods (27%, p<0,0001). Severe injuries (AISKnee 2/3) were below 1%). Improved aerodynamic design of car fronts reduced the risk for severe knee injuries significantly (p=0,0015). Highest risk of injury is for motorcycle followed by pedestrians, respectively. Knee protectors could prevent injuries by reducing local forces. The classically described dashboard injury was rarely identified. The overall injury risk for knee injuries in road traffic is lower than estimated and reduced comparing both periods. The aerodynamic shape of current cars compared to older types reduced the incidence and severity of knee injuries. Further modification and optimization of the interior and exterior design could be a proper measurement. Classic described injury mechanisms were rarely identified. It seems that the AIS is still underestimating extremity injuries and their long term results.
Pedestrians represent about 20% of the overall fatalities in Europe- road traffic accidents. In this paper a methodology is proposed to understand why the numbers are so high, especially in the south of Europe and particularly in Portugal, . First a detailed statistical analysis using Ordinal Logistic Regression model (OLR) was applied to the gathered data from all Portuguese accidents with victims in the period 2010-2012. In a second stage accident reconstruction computational techniques using pedestrian biomechanical models are used to evaluate the accident conditions that lead to the injuries, such as the speed and the impact location. For biomechanical injury criterions, the AIS (Abbreviated Injury Scale), the HIC (Head Injury Criterion) and other injury criterions based on the resulting accelerations in the pedestrian's body are used. The statistical model reported that there were several predictors that significantly influenced the pedestrian injury severity in the event of a road accident, such as Pedestrian's age, Pedestrian's gender, Vehicle Design/Category or Driver's gender. The use of injury scales and biomechanical criterions in in-depth investigation of road accidents, such as AIS, can significantly improve the quality of the reconstruction process.
One main objective of the EU-Project SENIORS is to provide improved methods to assess thoracic injury risk to elderly occupants. In contribution to this task paired simulations with a THOR dummy model and human body model will be used to develop improved thoracic injury risk functions. The simulation results can provide data for injury criteria development in chest loading conditions that are underrepresented in PMHS test data sets that currently proposed risk functions are based on. To support this approach a new simplified generic but representative sled test fixture and CAE model for testing and simulation were developed. The parameter definition and evaluation of this sled test fixture and model is presented in this paper. The justification and definition of requirements for this test set-up was based on experience from earlier studies. Simple test fixtures like the gold standard sled fixture are easy to build and also to model in CAE, but provide too severe belt-only loading. On the other hand a vehicle buck including production components like airbag and seat is more representative, but difficult to model and to be replicated at a different laboratory. Furthermore some components might not be available for physical tests at later stage. The basis of the SENIORS generic sled test set-up is the gold standard fixture with a cable seat back and foot rest. No knee restraint was used. The seat pan design was modified including a seat ramp. The three-point belt system had a generic adjustable load limiter. A pre-inflated driver airbag assembly was developed for the test fixture. Results of THOR test and simulations in different configurations will be presented. The configurations include different deceleration pulses. Further parameter variations are related to the restraint system including belt geometry and load limiter levels. Additionally different settings of the generic airbag were evaluated. The test set-up was evaluated and optimized in tests with the THOR-M dummy in different test configurations. Belt restraint parameters like D-ring position and load limiter setting were modified to provide moderate chest loading to the occupant. This resulted in dummy readings more representative of the loading in a contemporary vehicle than most available PMHS sled tests reported in the literature. However, to achieve a loading configuration that exposes the occupant to even less severe loading comparable to modern vehicle restraints it might be necessary to further modify the test set-up. The new generic sled test set-up and a corresponding CAE model were developed and applied in tests and simulations with THOR. Within the SENIORS project with this test set-up also volunteer and PMHS as well as HBM simulations are performed, which will be reported in other publications. The test environment can contribute in future studies to the assessment of existing and new frontal impact dummies as well as dummy improvements and related instrumentation. The test set-up and model could also serve as a new standard test environment for PMHS and volunteer tests as well as HBM simulations.
Road accidents are typically analyzed to address influences of human, vehicle, and environmental (primarily infrastructure) factors. A new methodology, based on a "Venn diagram" analysis, gives a broader perspective on the probable factors, and combinations of factors, contributing both to the occurrence of a crash and to sustaining injuries in that crash. The methodology was applied to 214 accidents on the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Factors contributing to accidents and injuries were addressed. The major human factors influencing accidents on this roadway were speeding (30%) and falling asleep (29%), while injuries were primarily due to lack of seat belt use (46%). The leading infrastructure factor for injuries was impact with a roadside manmade structure (28%), and the main vehicle factor for injuries was passenger compartment intrusion (73%). This methodology can help identify effective vehicle and infrastructure-related solutions for preventing accidents and mitigating injuries in India.
While many medical studies have dealt with the incidence, nature and treatment of polytrauma the injury-causing accident mechanisms are rarely discussed in detail, mostly due to the lack of documentation of the technical aspects. The present prospective study was started in late 2007 and collects data from traffic accidents with most severely injured in six south- German counties and two larger cities for the duration of one year. It is aimed at identifying and documenting all polytrauma cases (ISS ≥ 16) caused by traffic accidents and their crash circumstances. The data collection is based on an interdisciplinary concept to include both the police, emergency dispatch centers, hospitals and fire departments in the region and is completely anonymous. Potentially relevant cases where an emergency physician was called to the scene of a traffic accident are provided by the dispatch center. All three hospitals in the region suited for the treatment of polytraumatised patients record injuries, major diagnostic and surgery data. Data and images from the accident scene are provided by the police and by fire departments. The latter provide information which is usually not available from the police, like deployed airbags, vehicle extrication measures and detailed views of car interiors. The main objective of the study is to determine the structure of road users who sustain a polytrauma, their crash opponents and the injury patterns found in relation to the collision configuration and the protection by seat belts, air bags and other devices. With detailed documentation of vehicle damage and extrication measures the study is also intended to support the development of injury predictors for pre-hospital treatment and provide field data regarding further improvement of technical rescue.
Thorax injury is one of main causes of serious injury in frontal collisions, especially for elderly car occupants. The anthropometric test device (ATD) THOR‐M provides chest deflection measurements at multiple locations, to assess the risk of thorax injury. For this purpose e, risk functions are needed that relate the potential criteria based on multipoint chest deflection measurement to in jury risk. Different thorax injury criteria and risk functions for THOR have been proposed [2‐3]. The criteria and functions are based on the traditional approach to developing injury risk functions using matched ATD and PMHS tests by relating the injury (number of fractures) to injury criteria. Regarding these studies, some limitations have been identified, in particular concerning the loading conditions of the data used (mainly 3‐point‐belt loading, high loading severity, out‐of‐date ATD versions. To extend the data set and overcome these limitations, a new approach for improved thorax injury criteria was applied within the EC‐funded project SENIORS. The new approach is based on matched frontal impact sled computer simulations with a model representing the latest THOR‐M ATD version, and matching simulations with a human body model (HBM) representing an elderly car occupant.
The objective of the study is to measure the risk of pedestrian and bicyclist in urban traffic through an analysis of real-world accident data. The kinematics and injury mechanisms for both pedestrian and bicyclists are investigated to find the correlation of injury risks with injury related parameters. For this purpose, firstly 338 cases are selected as a sample from an IVAC accident database based on the In-depth Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha of China. A statistic measurement of the fatality and serious injury risks with respect to impact speed was carried out by logistic regression analysis. Secondly, 12 pedestrian and 12 bicyclist accidents were further selected for reconstruction with MADYMO program. A comparative analysis was conducted based on the results from accident analysis and computer reconstructions for the injury risk, head impact conditions and dynamic response of pedestrians and bicyclists. The results indicate that bicyclists suffered lower risks of severe injuries and fatalities compared with pedestrians. The risks of AIS 3+ injury and fatality are 50% for pedestrians at impact speeds of 53.2 km/h and 63.3 km/h, respectively, while that for bicyclists at 62.5 km/h and 71.1 km/h, respectively. The findings could have a contribution to get a better understanding of pedestrians" and bicyclists" exposures in urban traffic in China, and provide background knowledge to generate strategies for pedestrian protection.
This study aimed at prediction of long bone fractures and assessment of lower extremity injury mechanisms in real world passenger car to pedestrian collision. For this purpose, two pedestrian accident cases with detail recorded lower limb injuries were reconstructed via combining MBS (Multi-body system) and FE (Finite element) methods. The code of PC Crash was used to determine the boundary conditions before collision, and then MBS models were used to reproduce the pedestrian kinematics and injuries during crash. Furthermore, a validated lower limb FE model was chosen to conduct reconstruction of injuries and prediction of long bone fracture via physical parameters of von Mises stress and bending moment. The injury outcomes from simulations were compared with hospital recorded injury data and the same long bone fracture patterns and positions can be observed. Moreover, the calculated long bone fracture tolerance corresponded to the outcome from cadaver tests. The result shows that FE model is capable to reproduce the dynamic injury process and is an effective tool to predict the risk of long bone fractures.
The paper aims to study the injury risk and kinematics of pedestrians involved in different passenger vehicle collisions. Furthermore, the difference of pedestrian kinematics in the accidents involved minivan and sedan was analyzed. The 18 sample cases of passenger car to pedestrian collisions were selected from the database of In-depth Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha of China (IVAC),of which the 12 pedestrian accidents involved in a minivan impact for each case, and the 6 accidents in a sedan impact for each. The selected cases were reconstructed by using mathematical models of pedestrians and accident vehicles in a multi-body dynamic code MADYMO environment. The logistic regression models of the risks for pedestrian AIS 3+ injuries and fatalities were developed in terms of vehicle impact speed by analyzing the minivan-pedestrian and sedan-pedestrian accidents. The difference of pedestrian kinematics was identified by comparing the results from reconstructed pedestrian accidents between the minivans and sedans collisions. The result shows that there is a significant correlation among the impact speed and the severity of pedestrian injuries. The minivan poses greater risk to pedestrian than sedan at the same impact speed. The kinematics of pedestrian was greatly influenced by vehicle front shape.
Abschätzung der Gesamtzahl Schwerstverletzter in Folge von Straßenverkehrsunfällen in Deutschland
(2010)
Die Zahlen der im Straßenverkehr Getöteten, Schwer- und Leichtverletzten werden in Deutschland seit Jahren in amtlichen Statistiken geführt. Über die Gruppe der besonders schwer betroffenen Patienten liegen jedoch nur vage Schätzungen vor. Auch werden unterschiedliche Kriterien zur Definition dieser so genannten Schwerstverletzten verwendet, die zumeist auf einer Beschreibung der Art und der Schwere der Verletzungen beruhen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit sollen mit Daten aus dem Trauma-Register der DGU sowohl die unterschiedlichen Definitionen dargestellt werden, als auch über verschiedene Methoden die Gesamtzahl dieser Personen in Deutschland geschätzt werden. Das TraumaRegister DGU (TR-DGU) ist eine freiwillige Dokumentation von Unfallopfern, die lebend eine Klinik erreichen, dort behandelt werden und intensivmedizinisch betreut werden müssen. Das Register besteht seit 1993 und erfasst derzeit etwa 6.000 Fälle pro Jahr aus über 100 Kliniken. Pro Patient werden ca. 100 Angaben einschließlich der Codierung seiner Verletzungen gemäß Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) erfasst. Dieser Codierung erlaubt die Berechnung des Injury Severity Score (ISS) und des New ISS (NISS). Zum Vergleich werden folgende Definitionen eines Schwerstverletzten betrachtet: Maximum AIS ≥ 3; Maximum AIS ≥ 4; ISS ≥ 9; ISS ≥ 16; NISS ≥ 16, Polytrauma sowie die Notwendigkeit der Intensivtherapie. Am Beispiel des Kriteriums "ISS ≥ 16" werden schließlich auf drei verschiedene Arten die Gesamtzahl Schwerstverletzter Verkehrsunfallopfer geschätzt: 1.) in fünf ausgewählten Regionen werden die Schwerstverletzten aus dem TR-DGU mit der Anzahl Schwerverletzter aus der amtlichen Statistik verglichen, um den Anteil der besonders schwer betroffenen Patienten zu bestimmen. 2.) Aus dem TR-DGU wird je nach Versorgungsstufe des Krankenhauses (lokales, regionales oder überregionales Zentrum) die durchschnittliche Anzahl Schwerstverletzter ermittelt und dann über die Anzahl solcher Kliniken in Deutschland hochgerechnet. 3.) Die Zahl der Schwerstverletzten wird aus der Zahl der Getöteten Verkehrsunfallopfer geschätzt. Dazu nutzt man das Verhältnis von in der Klinik verstorbenen zu überlebenden Schwerstverletzten aus dem TR-DGU. Mit Literaturangaben zum Anteil von präklinisch Verstorbenen wird dann auf der Basis der Anzahl der Getöteten aus der amtlichen Statistik die Gesamtzahl Schwerstverletzter geschätzt. Je nach Definition eines Schwerstverletzten konnten zwischen 9.213 und 17.425 Fälle aus dem TR-DGU der letzten 10 Jahre berücksichtigt werden. Von diesen Patienten sind zwischen 12,7% und 20,2% im Krankenhaus verstorben. Die Krankenhaus Liegedauer der Überlebenden liegt zwischen 30 und 35 Tagen. Nimmt man die Definition "ISS -³ 16" als Basis (n=13.467), so reduziert sich die Zahl Schwerstverletzter um 37%, wenn man stattdessen den Begriff des Polytraumas wählt; betrachtet man hingegen die Intensivpflichtigkeit als Kriterium so erhöht sich die Zahl um 22%. Der erste Schätzansatz kommt zum Ergebnis, dass etwa 8-10% der Schwerverletzten zu den besonders schwer Verletzten zählen. Für ganz Deutschland erhält man damit Schätzwerte zwischen 6.300 und 7.900 Fälle pro Jahr. Die zweite Methode ergab, dass die Krankenhäuser der drei unterschiedlichen Versorgungsstufen jeweils 30,2, 11,5 oder 3,3 Fälle pro Jahr behandeln. Bezogen auf die 874 deutschen Kliniken ergeben sich geschätzte Gesamtzahlen von 6.800 bis 10.400 Fälle. Die dritte Methode zeigt, dass pro Patient, der im Krankenhaus verstirbt, 6,3 Schwerstverletzte überleben. Im Krankenhaus versterben jedoch etwa nur 25% bis 40% der insgesamt Getöteten; der Großteil der Getöteten verstirbt unmittelbar an der Unfallstelle. Damit müssen noch 1,5 bis 3 Todesfälle hinzugerechnet werden, was schließlich zu einem Verhältnis von 6,3 Schwerstverletzten zu 2,5 bis 4 Todesfällen führt. Bei einer Gesamtzahl von 5.595 Getöteten (Mittelwert 2002-2008) ergeben sich so Gesamtzahlen von 8.800 bis 14.000 Schwerstverletzte pro Jahr. Die Ergebnisse der angewendeten Schätzmethoden variieren stark und lassen auf eine Gesamtzahl von etwa 10.000 schwerstverletzten Verkehrsunfallopfern pro Jahr in Deutschland schließen. Bei Anwendung der Definition Intensivtherapie ergeben sich sogar etwa 12.500 Fälle. Alle Schätzmethoden sind gewissen Unsicherheiten ausgesetzt, die wenn möglich in Variationsrechnungen berücksichtigt wurden. Eine deutlich verbesserte Schätzung dieser Zahl ist jedoch erst möglich, wenn in wenigen Jahren vollzählige Erfassungen aus den derzeit entstehenden regionalen TraumaNetzwerken der DGU im TraumaRegister vorliegen.
Motorcycle riders are one of the most vulnerable road users. Annually, on estimate 6000 people are killed in motorcycle accidents in the former 15 EU countries. The objective of this research was to investigate and analyze the main aspects and causes of this vulnerability and the accidents in general. For this aim around 70 accidents in The Netherlands were investigated in the framework of an international research program (MAIDS). Also a control group of motorcycles with riders was investigated so that exposure could be taken into account. An important result is that human failure is in 82% of the cases the main cause of the accident, in 52% this is due the other vehicle driver. Perception and decision failures are the most common failures. The most injuries are caused by the environment but they are typically only less severe (AIS1). Injuries caused by the car (front and side) are typically severe injuries (AIS4+). Previous convictions of the MC rider seem to be related to the chance to get involved in an accident. It was shown that the Dutch and the total MAIDS accident sample are comparable.
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.
It is very important for Automotive OEMs to get feedback on their product performance on real roads for continuous improvement. Every OEM has a way of collecting this feedback for various performance parameters. Systematic accident research is a way to generate the information related to safety performance of the vehicle. In India, while there is a large amount of data related to the accidents, it is found this data is aimed at understanding the gross statistics and not directly useful for technology development. This paper explains learnings from a pilot study carried out in collaboration with an Emergency Medical Services provider on one of the expressways (motorways). This pilot study has resulted in development of working model that could now be scaled up at for wider application. The paper also presents some of the important observations based on the data collected.
The following paper presents the nature and mechanism of injuries sustained in frontal impacts, focusing on car to car impacts. It was found that the body regions most frequently sustaining severe to fatal injuries were the legs and the thorax. The nature and mechanism of the injury sustained was investigated only for the thorax injuries, due to their potentially life threatening nature. The analysis revealed that the most frequent cause of the injury recorded was the seatbelt for low severity injuries and the front structure of the vehicle for higher severity injuries. An analysis of the effect of load limiter technology in the restraint system showed that the proportion of occupants who sustained "no thorax injury" did not increase when a load limiter was fitted to the restraint system. However, a decrease in the "organ" and "organ and skeletal" injuries was observed in the load limiter sample. Sample size and variation mean that these findings are not conclusive.
Die Dokumentation befasst sich mit den Vorbereitungsarbeiten für die Initiierung der Verkehrssicherheitsaktion "Minus 10 Prozent". Österreichische Bundes- und Landesbehörden sollten durch eine private Institution, dem Kuratorium für Verkehrssicherheit, motiviert werden, der Durchführung dieser Aktion zuzustimmen bzw. diese zu unterstützen. Möglichst viele österreichische Bezirkskörperschaften sollten gewonnen werden, sich freiwillig an dieser Aktion zu beteiligen. Gegründet werden sollte ein Verkehrssicherheitskomitee, in das auch nichtbeamtete Personen aufgenommen werden sollten. Durch ein verstärktes Engagement über die amtlichen Aktivitäten hinaus sollten Unfälle mit Personenschäden binnen eine Jahres um 10 Prozent reduziert werden. Die Vorgangsweisen des Kuratoriums für Verkehrssicherheit zur Motivierung der Bundes-, Landes- und Bezirksbehörden werden ebenso dargestellt wie die ersten Resultate nach Ablauf von 4 Monaten der Aktion, an der alle Bezirkskörperschaften Österreichs teilnahmen.
Die Feststellung empirisch belegten Alkoholkonsums bei Kindern und Jugendlichen, aber nur rudimentärer Dokumentation entsprechender Verkehrsunfälle begründete die vorliegende Untersuchung. Qualitative mündliche Befragungen von Experten und Jugendlichen, Feldbeobachtungen und quantitative schriftliche Befragungen von Jugendlichen führten zu folgenden Ergebnissen: Etwa 65 % der schriftlich befragten 12- bis 22-Jährigen waren vor dem 18. Lebensjahr mindestens einmal im Monat übermäßig alkoholisiert mobil. Mit durchschnittlich 15 Jahren findet nicht nur der erste übermäßige Alkoholkonsum statt, sondern auch die ersten Situationen alkoholisierter Mobilität, vorrangig bei männlichen Jugendlichen. Wenngleich nur rd. 5 % der Befragten eine erlebte gefährliche Verkehrssituation als "echten" Verkehrsunfall bezeichneten, verwiesen immerhin etwa 27 % auf mindestens eine gefährliche Verkehrssituation unter Alkoholeinfluss vor dem 18. Lebensjahr. Von den insgesamt 349 berichteten gefährlichen Verkehrssituationen gingen 113 mit leichten und 24 mit schweren Verletzungen einher. Aber auch die Nichtverletzten verwiesen auf zahlreiche erlebte Gefahren bei ihrer Mobilität unter Alkoholeinfluss. Vorrangig männliche Jugendliche erleben solche Situationen mit durchschnittlich 15,7 Jahren. In mehr als der Hälfte der gefährlichen Verkehrssituationen unter Alkoholeinfluss waren die Akteure alleine unterwegs. Die alkoholisierten Kinder und Jugendlichen verunfallten zumeist als Fahrradfahrer und Fußgänger. In rd. 40 % der Fälle erfolgte eine medizinische Versorgung, von nur rd. 20% dieser Alkoholunfälle erlangt die Polizei Kenntnis. Unterstrichen wird die Notwendigkeit weiterer, differenzierender Untersuchungen, um die explorativ gewonnenen Erkenntnisse zu verifizieren und geeignete Präventionsmaßnahmen zu begründen. Inhaltlich und aufwandsökonomisch wird die ressortübergreifende Zusammenarbeit mit der Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung empfohlen.
Although ATV accidents account for numerous deaths in the US and Australia, the role in traffic accidents and hospital admissions in Germany is unknown. At a level I trauma centre, hospital and crash charts were analysed for medical and technical parameters of ATV accidents. ATV drivers were 0.1% of emergency trauma patients. The mean total hospital stayrnwas 15 days; there were 1.5 stays per patients with 2.0 surgical procedures needed. One patient died, only two recovered fully. 14 cases of ATV accidents out of 18990 (0.1%) were documented within 10 years. The mean impact velocity was 35 km/h. Car collisions were predominant. The upper extremity was the predominant injured region (AIS 0.7), Mean maximum AIS was 1.4. ATV accidents in Germany are rare but pose high risk for severe injuries. Possible reasons are low active and passive security, limited experience and risky driving behaviour. Preventive measures are discussed.rn
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
Car occupants have a high level of mortality in road accidents, since passenger cars are the prevalent mode of transport. In 2013, car occupant fatalities accounted for 45% of all road accident fatalities in the EU. The objective of this research is the analysis of basic road safety parameters related to car occupants in the European countries over a period of 10 years (2004-2013), through the exploitation of the EU CARE database with disaggregate data on road accidents. Data from the EU Injury Database for the period 2005 - 2008 are used to identify injury patterns, and additional insight into accident causation for car occupants is offered through the use of in-depth accident data from the EC SafetyNet project Accident Causation System (SNACS). The results of the analysis allow for a better understanding of the car occupants' safety situation in Europe, thus providing useful support to decision makers working for the improvement of road safety level in Europe.
In general the passive safety capability is much greater in newer versus older cars due to the stiff compartment preventing intrusion in severe collisions. However, the stiffer structure which increases the deceleration can lead to a change in injury patterns. In order to analyse possible injury mechanisms for thoracic and lumbar spine injuries, data from the German Inâ€Depth Accident Study (GIDAS) were used in this study. A twoâ€step approach of statistical and caseâ€byâ€case analysis was applied for this investigation. In total 4,289 collisions were selected involving 8,844 vehicles, 5,765 injured persons and 9,468 coded injuries. Thoracic and lumbar spine injuries such as burst, compression or dislocation fractures as well as soft tissue injuries were found to occur in frontal impacts even without intrusion to the passenger compartment. If a MAIS 2+ injury occurred, in 15% of the cases a thoracic and/or lumbar spine injury is included. Considering AIS 2+ thoracic and lumbar spine, most injuries were fractures and occurred in the lumbar spine area. From the case by case analyses it can be concluded that lumbar spine fractures occur in accidents without the engagement of longitudinals, lateral loading to the occupant and/or very severe accidents with MAIS being much higher than the spine AIS.
Analysis of pedestrian leg contacts and distribution of contact points across the vehicle front
(2015)
Determining the risk to pedestrians that are impacted by areas of the front bumper not currently regulated in type-approval testing requires an understanding of the target population and the injury risk posed by the edges of the bumper. National statistics show that approximately 10% of all accident casualties are pedestrians, with 20% to 30% of these pedestrian casualties being killed or seriously injured. However, the contact position across the front of the bumper is not recorded in national statistics and so in-depth accident databases (OTS, UK and GIDAS, Germany) were used to examine injury risk in greater detail. The results showed that some injury types and severities of injuries appear to peak around the bumper edges. Although there are sometimes inconsistencies in the data, generally there is no evidence to suggest that the edges of the bumper are less likely to be contacted or cause injury.
Straßenseitige Fahrzeug-Rückhaltesysteme haben entsprechend der Richtlinie für passiven Schutz an Straßen durch Fahrzeug-Rückhaltesysteme (RPS) die Aufgabe, die Folgen von Verkehrsunfällen so gering wie möglich zu halten. Sie kommen dabei sowohl zum Schutz unbeteiligter Personen, des Gegenverkehrs bei zweibahnigen Straßen sowie schutzbedürftiger Bereiche neben der Straße als auch zum Schutz der Fahrzeuginsassen vor schweren Folgen infolge Abkommens von der Fahrbahn zum Einsatz. Vor dem Einsatz der unterschiedlichen Systeme muss die Wirksamkeit des jeweiligen Systems für den entsprechenden Anwendungsfall nachgewiesen werden. Dabei regeln die RPS, welche Anforderungen an welchen örtlichen Gegebenheiten erfüllt sein müssen. In DIN EN 1317 sind die zugehörigen Prüfverfahren beschrieben. Da ein normiertes Prüfverfahren nicht alle real auftretenden Unfallszenarien abdecken kann, stellte sich die Frage, wie sich Stahlschutzplanken und Betonschutzwände beim großwinkligen Anprall kleiner und leichter Fahrzeuge verhalten und wie es um die Insassensicherheit bestellt ist. Eine im Rahmen des resultierenden Forschungsprojektes durchgeführte Analyse des Unfallgeschehens ergab für das Jahr 2007 die Zahl von 25.038 polizeilich registrierten Unfällen mit Anprall gegen eine Schutzeinrichtung [Statistisches Bundesamt]. Angaben zu Anprallwinkel, Kollisionsgeschwindigkeit und Fahrzeugmasse können dieser Statistik nicht entnommen werden. Für die In-depth-Analyse wurden daher 69 Unfallgutachten zu Kollisionen mit großem Anprallwinkel (≥ 25-°) aus der DEKRA-Unfalldatenbank herangezogen. Der Schwerpunkt wurde dabei auf 39 Unfälle gelegt, die sich auf Bundesautobahnen ereignet hatten. Mit zunehmendem Anprallwinkel nahm die Unfallhäufigkeit ab. Der größte Winkel lag bei 60-°. Die Masse der anprallenden Fahrzeuge lag zwischen 750 kg und 1.935 kg. Auffällig war die Häufung von Schleuderunfällen. In 29 Fällen kam es zu einem prekollisionären Schleudervorgang. Die Analyse des Unfallgeschehens hat so gezeigt, dass Anpralle gegen passive Schutzeinrichtungen auf Bundesautobahnen mit zunehmendem Anprallwinkel seltener werden und dass der in der Norm für die Systemprüfung geforderte Maximalwinkel von 20-° das Gesamtunfallgeschehen sehr gut abdeckt. Auf Basis der gewonnenen Ergebnisse erfolgte die Festlegung einer Crash-Test-Konfiguration zur Erlangung von Erkenntnissen über die Insassensicherheit bei großwinkligen Anprallen. Dabei wurde als Grundlage der Anprallversuch TB 11 verwendet, wobei der Anprallwinkel von 20-° auf 45-° erhöht wurde. Die Kollisionsgeschwindigkeit von 100 km/h sowie die Fahrzeugmasse von 900 kg blieben unverändert. Die Anpralltests erfolgten gegen eine simulierte Ortbetonwand sowie gegen eine Stahlschutzplanke vom Typ Super-Rail-®. Die Versuchsfahrzeuge waren typgleich mit den Modellen, die für die ursprüngliche TB-11-Prüfung der Systeme verwendet wurden. Die Versuche haben gezeigt, dass beide Systeme die Rückhaltung der anprallenden Fahrzeuge sicher gewährleisteten. Für die Fahrer beider Fahrzeuge hätte aber keine Überlebenschance bestanden. Über das Schutzniveau der Fahrzeuginsassen entscheiden bei derartigen Anprallkonstellationen letztendlich das Niveau der passiven Sicherheit der anprallenden Fahrzeuge sowie das Energieabsorptionsvermögen der die Fahrgastzelle umschließenden Strukturen.
Werden die in Deutschland gebräuchlichen Stahlschutzplanken umgestaltet um das Verletzungsrisiko für Motorradfahrer zu verringern, zeigt sich ein Kompatibilitätsproblem: Die Erhöhung der Sicherheit für Motorradfahrer wird mit Einschränkungen der Sicherheit von Pkw-Insassen erkauft. Um dieses Kompatibilitätsproblem zu lösen wurden unter Federführung der Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) neue Nachrüstkomponenten für Stahlschutzplanken entwickelt. Dabei lag der Schwerpunkt auf der Senkung der Verletzungsschwere für Motorradfahrer. Im vorliegenden Projekt sollten die Nachrüstkomponenten des Systems "EuskirchenPlus" ihre Tauglichkeit auch für Pkw-Insassen in Anprallprüfungen (Crashtests) beweisen. Dies gelang zunächst nicht. Daher wurden die Nachrüstkomponenten zu neuen Konstruktionen ("ESP-Motorrad" und "EDSP-Motorrad") weiterentwickelt, und es gelang, die "ESP-Motorrad" erfolgreich zu prüfen. Die Eignung der "EDSP-Motorrad" wurde aus den vorliegenden Forschungsergebnissen und den Erfahrungen der BASt abgeleitet. Das Kompatibilitätsproblem konnte zwar nicht umfassend gelöst, jedoch soweit beseitigt werden, dass keine relevanten Einsatzbeschränkungen mehr aufrecht erhalten werden müssen. Die "ESP-Motorrad" und die "EDSP-Motorrad" sind auf nahezu allen für Motorradunfälle relevanten Strecken grundsätzlich geeignet, die klassischen Stahlschutzplanken ESP beziehungsweise EDSP zu ersetzen.
Die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen hat eine Projektgruppe eingerichtet, deren Aufgabe es ist, die Erkenntnisse über Sachstand und Entwicklungen auf dem Gebiet des Rettungswesens zu systematisieren und zu interpretieren. Auf dieser Grundlage werden Problembereiche beschrieben und Vorschläge für Forschungsaktivitäten erarbeitet, die unter anderem im Rahmen der Forschungsplanung der BASt berücksichtigt werden sollten, beziehungsweise die von anderen Trägern mit Unterstützung durch die BASt durchgeführt werden sollten. Für den Projektgruppenbericht wurden folgende Themenschwerpunkte genannt: 1. Laienhilfe - ein problematischer Bereich des Rettungswesens, 2. Sind Notfallrettung und Krankentransport eine Einheit?, 3. Kommunikation und Kommunikationssysteme im Rettungswesen, 4. Notarztsysteme - Bestandsaufnahme und kritische Wertung, 5. Bewältigung eines Massenanfalls von Verletzten, 6. Die Verbindung von Rettungsdienst und Krankenhaus - eine Schwachstelle?, 7. Leistungsfähigkeit, Wirksamkeit und Effizienz von Rettungssystemen.
Each year the traffic accident research teams in Dresden and Hanover provide an in-depth investigation of approximately two thousand accidents, aggregated in the GIDAS database. To accomplish a comprehensive review of each traffic accident recorded, a sensible and thorough encoding of suffered injuries is indispensable. The Abbreviated Injury Scale by AAAM offers a valuable and handy solution to achieve this goal. However, there were a few difficulties in the use of the AIS that came up in the past, which let to necessary improvements for the utilization of the AIS 2005 for GIDAS.
The European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee wants to promote the use of more biofidelic child dummies and biomechanical based tolerance limits in regulatory and consumer testing. This study has investigated the feasibility and potential impact of Q-dummies and new injury criteria for child restraint system assessment in frontal impact. European accident statistics have been reviewed for all ECE-R44 CRS groups. For frontal impact, injury measures are recommended for the head, neck, chest and abdomen. Priority of body segment protection depends on the ECE-R44 group. The Q-dummy family is able to reflect these injuries, because of its biofidelity performance and measurement capabilities for these body segments. Currently, the Q0, Q1, Q1.5, Q3 and Q6 are available representing children of 0, 1, 1.5, 3 and 6 years old. These Q-dummies cover almost all dummy weight groups as defined in ECE-R44. Q10, representing a 10 year-old child, is under development. New child dummy injury criteria are under discussion in EEVC WG12. Therefore, the ECE-R44 criteria are assessed by comparing the existing P-dummies and new Q-dummies in ECE-R44 frontal impact sled tests. In total 300 tests covering 30 CRSs of almost all existing child seat categories are performed by 11 European organizations. From this benchmark study, it is concluded that the performance of the Q-dummy family is good with respect to repeatability of the measurement signals and the durability of the dummies. Applying ECE-R44 criteria, the first impression is that results for P- and Q-dummy are similar. For child seat evaluation the potential merits of the Q-dummy family lie in the extra measurement possibilities of these dummies and in the more biofidelic response.
Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) systems for pedestrians have been predicted to offer substantial benefit. On this basis, consumer rating programmes, e.g. Euro NCAP, are developing rating schemes to encourage fitment of these systems. One of the questions that needs to be answered to do this fully, is to determine how the assessment of the speed reduction offered by the AEB is integrated with the current assessment of the passive safety for mitigation of pedestrian injury. Ideally, this should be done on a benefit related basis. The objective of this research was to develop a benefit based methodology for assessment of integrated pedestrian protection systems with pre-crash braking and passive safety components. A methodology has been developed which calculates the cost of pedestrian injury expected, assuming all pedestrians in the target population (i.e. pedestrians impacted by the front of a passenger car) are impacted by the car being assessed, taking into account the impact speed reduction offered by the car’s AEB (if fitted) and the passive safety protection offered by the car’s frontal structure. For rating purposes, this cost can be normalised by comparing it to the cost calculated for selected cars. The methodology uses the speed reductions measured in AEB tests to determine the speed at which each casualty in the target population will be impacted. The injury to each casualty is then calculated using the results from standard Euro NCAP pedestrian impactor tests and injury risk curves. This injury is converted into cost using ‘Harm’ type costs for the body regions tested. These costs are weighted and summed. Weighting factors were determined using accident data from Germany and GB and the results of a benefit analysis performed by the EU FP7 AsPeCSS project. This resulted in German and GB versions of the methodology. The methodology was used to assess cars with good, average and poor Euro NCAP pedestrian ratings, with and without a current AEB system fitted. It was found that the decrease in casualty injury cost achieved by fitting an AEB system was approximately equivalent to that achieved by increasing the passive safety rating from poor to average. Also, it was found that the assessment was influenced strongly by the level of head protection offered in the scuttle and windscreen area because this is where head impact occurs for a large proportion of casualties. The major limitation within the methodology is the assumption used implicitly during weighting. This is that the cost of casualty injuries to body areas, such as the thorax, not assessed by the headform and legform impactors, and other casualty injuries such as those caused by ground impact, are related linearly to the cost of casualty injuries assessed by the impactors. A methodology for assessment of integrated pedestrian protection systems was developed. This methodology is of interest to consumer rating programmes which wish to include assessment of these systems. It also raises the interesting issue if the head impact test area should be weighted to reflect better real-world benefit.
Females sustain Cervical Spine Distortion injury (CSD) more often than males. Most work dealing with the biomechanics background (e.g. injury mechanism/criteria) as well as the application in seat design/testing, focuses on the occupant model of an average male. Therefore the EU-Project ADSEAT (Adaptive Seat to Reduce Neck Injuries for Female and Male Occupants) is aimed at adding a female model for gender balanced research of CSD and improving seat design. An extensive literature review, searching for risk factors and injury criteria for males and females, was accompanied by the evaluation of different databases containing CSD cases. The database evaluations suggests that an anthropometry quite close to the 50%ile female anthropometry as known from crash test dummy design is appropriate. The results presented here form the basis for the future development of a computational female model and the improvement of seat design for better protection of both males and females in the frame of the ADSEAT-Project.
Die Behandlungskosten von Unfallverletzten werden herkömmlich durch Multiplikation der durchschnittlichen Krankenhaus-Verweildauer mit dem vollpauschalierten und für alle Patienten gleichen Krankenhaus-Tagessatz ermittelt. Zielsetzung der vorliegenden Untersuchung ist es, den tatsächlichen Leistungsaufwand für die Gruppe der Unfallverletzten differenzierter zu erfassen, und zwar durch Addition von Einzelleistungen, die den Input für die stationäre Behandlung darstellen. Eine solche fallbezogene Kostenkalkulation wurde in ausgewählten Krankenhäusern für alle straßenverkehrsunfallverletzen Patienten des Jahres 1989 vorgenommen. Für Unfallverletzte in ambulanter Behandlung ergeben sich durchschnittliche Fallkosten in Höhe von 244 DM. Für die 5 häufigsten Einzeldiagnosen wurden folgende Werte ermittelt. 1. Prellungen der unteren Extremitäten: DM 287 je Patient. 2. Verstauchungen und Zerrungen im Rückenbereich: DM 149 je Patient. 3. Prellungen des Kopfes und des Halses: DM 326 je Patient. 4. Prellungen der oberen Extremitäten: DM 196 je Patient. Für Unfallverletzte in stationärer Behandlung ergeben sich durchschnittliche Fallkosten in Höhe von DM 4.824. Die Kosten liegen bei der Hälfte aller stationär behandelten Patienten unterhalb von DM 2.000. Bei 37 Prozent der Verletzten belaufen sie sich auf einen Betrag zwischen DM 2.000 und DM 7.000, wohingegen 13 Prozent der Fälle eine Behandlung benötigte die mehr als DM 10.000 an Kosten verursachte. Betrachtet man die Kosten der 10 häufigsten Einzeldiagnosen, so lassen sich zwei Gruppen bilden. Gehirnerschütterungen, Prellungen und Verstauchungen verursachten Kosten von weniger als der Hälfte des Durchschnittswertes von DM 4.824, wogegen für Frakturen als zweiter Gruppe weit darüber liegende Beträge errechnet wurden. Die Behandlungskosten von Unfallverletzungen mit Todesfolge liegen aufgrund der Verletzungsschwere bei DM 17.246 im Durchschnitt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die durchschnittlichen Behandlungskosten von Unfallverletzten in Akutkrankenhäusern in etwa den durchschnittlichen Behandlungskosten aller Patienten in Akutkrankenhäusern entsprechen.
The paper presents a methodology for the benefit estimation of several secondary safety systems for pedestrians, using the exceptional data depth of GIDAS. A total of 667 frontal pedestrian accidents up to 40kph and more than 500 AIS2+ injuries have been considered. In addition to the severity, affected body region, exact impact point on the vehicle, and the causing part of every injury, the related Euro NCAP test zone was determined. One results of the study is a detailed impact distribution for AIS2+ injuries across the vehicle front. It can be stated, how often a test zone or vehicle part is hit by pedestrians in frontal accidents and which role the ground impact plays. Basing on that, different secondary safety measures can be evaluated by an injury shift method concerning their real world effectiveness. As an example, measures concerning the Euro NCAP pedestrian rating tests have been evaluated. It was analysed which Euro NCAP test zones are the most effective ones. In addition, real test results have been evaluated. Using the presented methodology, other secondary safety like the active bonnet (pop-up bonnet) or a pedestrian airbag measures can be evaluated.
Bewertung der Fahrzeug-Fußraumintrusionen beim Offset Frontaltest gegen das Verformungselement
(1998)
In den Tests nach dem neuen Frontaltestverfahren (Entwürfe ECE R.94 sowie Richtlinie 96/79/EG und Ergänzung zu RL 70/156/EWG) entstehen hohe Verformungen der Fußräume der Versuchsfahrzeuge. Die Bewertung der Gefährdung der Insassen durch Intrusion, vorwiegend der Spritzwand begleitet von heftigen Bewegungen der Pedale, soll durch am Dummy zu messende Schutzkriterien erfolgen. Es ist vorgesehen, an den Dummies die Verschiebung des Schienbeins gegen das Knie, die Längskraft im Unterschenkel und den sogenannten Tibia Index zu messen. Um dieses zu ermöglichen, mussten an den vorhandenen Dummy-Unterschenkeln konstruktive Änderungen vorgenommen werden. Über die Herleitung der Schutzkriterien, Fragen bei der Anwendung dieser Kriterien sowie die technischen Einzelheiten und die Zertifizierung der neuen Dummy-Unterschenkel, welche die erforderlichen Messungen erlauben, wird berichtet.
Bei Straßenverkehrsunfällen werden volkswirtschaftliche Ressourcen vernichtet und die Leistungsfähigkeit des Wirtschaftssystems entsprechend beeinträchtigt. Die Bewertung der volkswirtschaftlichen Schäden ist unerlässlich, um Maßnahmen zur Verringerung von Straßenverkehrsunfällen beurteilen zu können. Das Bewertungsverfahren zur Ermittlung der volkswirtschaftlichen Kosten durch Straßenverkehrsunfälle wurde in den letzten Jahren sowohl für Personen- als auch für Sachschäden überarbeitet. Mit dem neuen Verfahren wurde das Unfallgeschehen von 1995 bis 1998 bewertet. Die Entwicklung der Unfallkosten zeigt, dass eine erfolgreiche Verkehrssicherheitspolitik zu einer erheblichen Kostenentlastung der Volkswirtschaft und entsprechender Steigerung der Lebensqualität beitragen kann. Allein im betrachteten Zeitraum von 4 Jahren haben Straßenverkehrsunfälle volkswirtschaftliche Kosten in Höhe von fast 280 Milliarden DM verursacht. Diese Kosten sind ein Beleg dafür, dass die Verbesserung der Verkehrssicherheit eine verkehrspolitische Daueraufgabe ersten Ranges bleibt. Gleichzeitig wurden nach Ortslagen differenzierte Unfallkostensätze ermittelt, die als Eingangsdaten für gesamtwirtschaftliche Wirtschaftlichkeitsanalysen von Straßenverkehrsmaßnahmen - zum Beispiel nach den "Empfehlungen für Wirtschaftlichkeitsuntersuchungen von Straßen" (EWS 97) - dienen.
During the past five years, a Euro NCAP technical working group on pedestrian safety has been working on improving test and assessment procedures for enhanced passive pedestrian safety. After harmonizing the tools and procedures as much as possible with legislation, the work was mainly focused on the development of grid procedures for the pedestrian body regions head, upper leg with pelvis and lower leg with knee. Furthermore, the test parameters for the head and the upper leg were revised, a new lower legform impactor was introduced and the injury thresholds were adjusted or, where necessary, the injury criteria were changed. Finally, the assessment limits and colour scheme were refined, widening the range and adding two more colours in order to provide a more detailed description of the pedestrian safety performance. By abstaining from an assessment based on a worst point selection philosophy, the improved test point determination procedures that were introduced during the years 2013 and 2014 give a more homogeneous, high resolution picture of the pedestrian safety performance of the vehicle frontends. By using a uniform grid for each test zone approximately 200 test points, evenly distributed within each area, can now be assessed per vehicle. The introduction of the flexible pedestrian legform impactor in 2014 enables a more realistic injury prediction of the knee and the tibia using a biofidelic test tool. With the new upper legform test that has been launched in 2015 the assessment in that area is now focusing on the injured body region instead of the injury causing vehicle part and thus is aligned with the approach in the remaining body regions head and lower leg. At the same time, a monitoring test with the headform impactor against the bonnet leading edge is closing the possible gap between the test areas to identify injury causing vehicle parts that moved out of focus due to the introduction of the new upper legform test. The paper describes the new test and assessment procedures with their underlying philosophy and gives an outlook in terms of open issues, specifying the needs for further improvement in the future. In parallel to the work of the pedestrian subgroup, a Euro NCAP working group on heavy vehicles introduced a set of protocol changes in 2011 that were related to the assessment of M1 vehicles derived from commercial vehicles, with a gross vehicle weight between 2.5 and 3.5 tons and 8 or 9 seats. The paper also investigates the applicability of the new pedestrian test and assessment procedures to heavy vehicles.
An increased use of bicycles comes along with an increased number of bicycle accidents. Bicycle accidents are more frequent than recorded by the police. To evaluate the real number of bicycle accidents during 12 months in Münster, Germany, injuries were collected by the Police and in each emergency unit anonymously. 2,153 patients had to be treated in a hospital, nearly triple the number of accidents that were registered by the police. Beside fractures of the upper extremities with major surgery, traumatic brain injuries were the leading cause for hospital admission. Bicycle helmet use can reduce traumatic brain injuries and the related number of deaths and hospital admissions. Laws on bicycle helmet might decrease the use of bicycles and therefore the reduction of positive health benefits. Other methods of accident prevention may lead to positive effects as helmet legislation as well, while having no reduction in bicycle use.
The frontal crash is still an important contributor to deaths and serious injured resulting from road accidents in Europe. As the Hybrid-III dummy used in crash tests is over two decades old, the European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee is studying the potential for a new test device. Key is the availability of a well-defined set of requirements that identifies the minimum level of biofidelity required for an advanced frontal dummy. In this paper, a complete set of frontal impact biofidelity requirements, consisting of references , description of test conditions and corridors, is presented.
Still correlated with high mortality rates in traffic accidents traumatic aortic ruptures were frequently detected in unprotected car occupants in the early years. This biomechanical analysis investigates the different kinds of injury mechanisms leading to traumatic aortic injuries in todays traffic accidents and how the way of traffic participation affects the frequency of those injuries over the years. Based on GIDAS reported traffic accidents from 1973 to 2014 are analyzed. Results show that traumatic aortic injuries are mainly observed in high-speed accidents with high body deceleration and direct load force to the chest. Mostly chest compression is responsible for the load direction to the cardiac vessels. The main observed load vector is from caudal-ventral and from ventral solely, but also force impact from left and right side and in roll-over events with chest compression lead to traumatic aortic injuries. Classically, the injury appeares at the junction between the well-fixed aortic arch and the pars decendens following a kind of a scoop mechanism, a few cases with a hyperflexion mechanism are also described. In our analysis the deceleration effect alone never led to an aortic rupture. Comparing the past 40 years aortic injuries shift from unprotected car occupants to today's unprotected vulnerable road users like pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Still the accident characteristics are linked with chest compression force under high speed impact, no seatbelt and direct body impact.
Ruptures and dissections of the thoracic and abdominal aortic vessel caused by traffic accidents are rare but potentially life-threatening injuries. They can occur by blunt trauma via seat belt or dashboard injury. The study aimed at evaluating the overall mortality, morbidity, neurological disorders, and differences in operative procedures of open repair and stenting. It shows that, with a change and improvement in diagnostic tools and surgical approach, mortality and morbidity of blunt aortic injuries were significantly reduced. Still an immediate life-threatening injury early diagnosis via multiple-slice and scans and surgical repair with minimally invasive stents showed excellent short-time results for selected patients.
The purpose of this paper is to review injuries found in real world lateral collisions and determine the mechanisms responsible for certain kinds of biomechanical failure. During the last years the distribution of deaths among the different types of accidents has changed. Lateral collisions now are the most frequent cause of fatal and other serious injuries. Every third accident is an impact from the side, while every second fatality is the result of a lateral accident. Just a few years ago this value was no higher than 30%. This is probably the result of increasing safety standards for frontal collisions (airbags, seatbelt usage, structural improvements of cars, etc.). Although the number of registered vehicles increased, the total amount of fatalities decreased during the same period. Thus it is now necessary to pay greater attention to the lateral accident situation in order to improve road safety and decrease the number of traffic injuries. Several European organisations had decided to launch the project SID2000, which was funded by the European Commission, with the intention of gathering more knowledge on injuries occurring in lateral accidents and the mechanisms that lead to such injuries. This should enable the group to define the requirements for a new side impact dummy (SID) to be designed. Within the same project the existing TNO-EUROSID 1 was enhanced by another group and the experience gained has now enabled allowed to design a better measuring device for side impacts. The data used for this contribution came from sources from all over Europe and had to be gathered in such a manner that as many accident parameters as possible were taken into account.
The national accident statistics demonstrate that the situation of passenger car side impacts is dominated by car to car accidents. Car side to pole impacts are relatively infrequent events. However the importance of car side to pole impacts is significantly increasing with fatal and seriously injured occupants. For the present study the German in-depth database GIDAS (German In-Depth-Accident Study) and the UK based database CCIS (Co-operative Crash Injury Study) were used. Two approaches were undertaken to better understand the scenario of car to pole impacts. The first part is a statistical analysis of passenger car side to pole impacts to describe the characteristics and their importance relevant to other types of impact and to get further knowledge about the main factors influencing the accident outcome. The second part contains a case by case review on passenger cars first registered 1998 onwards to further investigate this type of impact including regression analysis to assess the relationship between injury severity and pole impact relevant factors.
Powered Two Wheelers (PTWs) accidents constitute one of the road safety problems in Europe. PTWs fatalities represent 22% at EU level in 2006, having increased during last years, representing an opposite trend compared to other road users" figures. In order to reduce these figures it is necessary to investigate the accident causation mechanisms from different points of view (e.g.: human factor, vehicle characteristics, influence of the environment, type of accident). SAFERIDER project ("Advanced telematics for enhancing the SAFEty and comfort of motorcycle RIDERs", under the European Commission "7th Framework Program") has investigated PTW accident mechanisms through literature review and statistical analyses of National and In-depth accident databases; detecting and describing all the possible PTW's accident configurations where the implementation of ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and IVIS (In-Vehicle Information Systems) could contribute to avoid an accident or mitigate its severity. DIANA, the Spanish in-depth database developed by CIDAUT, has been analyzed for that purpose. DIANA comprises of accident investigation teams, in close cooperation with police forces, medical services, forensic surgeons, garages and scrap yards. An important innovation is the fact that before injured people arrive to hospitals, photographs and explanations about the possible accident injury mechanisms are sent to the respective hospitals (via 3G GPRS technology). By this, additional information to medical staff can be provided in order to predict in advance possible internal injuries and select the best medical treatment. This methodology is presented in this paper. On the other hand, the main results (corresponding to road, rider and PTW characteristics; pre and post-accident manoeuvres; road layout; rider behaviour; impact points; accident causations;...) from the analyses of the PTW accidents used for SAFERIDER are shown. Only accident types relevant to ADAS and IVIS devices have been considered.
One goal of the assessment of the crashworthiness of passenger cars is to characterize the potential of injury outcome to occupants of cars involved in an accident. This can be achieved by the help of an index that puts the number of injured occupants of passenger cars in relation to the number of cars involved in an accident. As a consequence, this index decreases with a lower potential of injury and rises with a higher number of injuries while assuming a fixed number of accidents. Another index is introduced that uses an economical weighting of each injury level. The consequential injury costs are calculated using the average economical costs for lightly, severely and fatally injured persons. The calculation of the safety indices is based on an anonymized sample of accident data provided by the Federal Statistical Office. An index of Mercedes passenger car drivers depending on the year of registration between 1991 and 2006 is compared to the index of drivers of cars of other makes within the same range of registration years.
Cycle helmets have continued to increase in popularity since their introduction half a century ago. Many studies indicate that overall, head injury can be significantly reduced by wearing them. This study was conducted using two distinct sets of real-world cycling collision data from Ireland, namely cases involving police collision reports and cases involving admission to a hospital emergency department. The analyses sought to simulate and analyse the protective performance of cycle helmets in such collision scenarios, by comparing the Head Injury Criterion score and peak head accelerations, both linear and angular. Cycle collisions were simulated using the specialised commercial software MADYMO. From the simulation results, these key metrics were compared between the same-scenario helmeted and unhelmeted cyclist models. Results showed that the inclusion of bicycle helmets reduced linear accelerations very significantly, but also increased angular accelerations significantly compared to unhelmeted situations. Given the modest protective performance of cycle helmets against angular accelerations, it is recommended that cycle helmet manufacturers and international test standards need to pay more attention to head angular accelerations.
A series of drop tests and vehicle tests with the adult head impactor according to Regulation (EC) 631/2009 and drop tests with the phantom head impactor according to UN Regulation No. 43 have been carried out by the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development (BMVBS). Aim of the test series was to study the injury risk for vulnerable road users, especially pedestrians, in case of being impacted by a motor vehicle in a way described within the European Regulations (EC) 78/2009 and (EC) 631/2009. Furthermore, the applicability of the phantom head drop test described in UN Regulation No. 43 for plastic glazing should be investigated. In total, 30 drop tests, thereof 18 with the adult head impactor and 12 with the phantom head impactor, and 49 vehicle tests with the adult head impactor were carried out on panes of laminated safety glass (VSG), polycarbonate (PC) and laminated polycarbonate (L-PC). The influence of parameters such as the particular material properties, test point locations, fixations, ambient conditions (temperature and impact angle) was investigated in detail. In general, higher values of the Head Injury Criterion (HIC) were observed in tests on polycarbonate glazing. As the HIC is the current criterion for the assessment of head injury risk, polycarbonate glazing has to be seen as more injurious in terms of vulnerable road user protection. In addition, the significantly higher rebound of the head observed in tests with polycarbonate glazing is suspected to lead to higher neck loads and may also cause higher injury risks in secondary impacts of vulnerable road users. However, as in all tests with PC glazing no damage of the panes was observed, the risk of skin cut injuries may be expected to be reduced significantly. The performed test series give no indication for the test procedure prescribed in UN Regulation No. 43 as a methodology to approve glass windscreen not being feasible for polycarbonate glazing, as all PC panes tested fulfilled the UN R 43 requirements. The performance of the windscreen area will not be relevant for vehicle type approval according to the upcoming UN Regulation for pedestrian protection. However, it is recommended that pedestrian protection being considered for plastic windscreens to ensure at least the same level of protection as glass windscreens.
The aim of this study is to investigate the differences in car occupant injury severity recorded in AIS 2005 compared to AIS 1990 and to outline the likely effects on future data analysis findings. Occupant injury data in the UK Cooperative Crash Injury Study Database (CCIS) were coded for the period February 2006 to November 2007 using both AIS 1990 and AIS 2005. Data for 1,994 occupants with over 6000 coded injuries were reviewed at the AIS and MAIS level of severities and body regions to determine changes between the two coding methodologies. Overall there was an apparent general trend for fewer injuries to be coded at the AIS 4+ severity and more injuries to be coded at the AIS 2 severity. When these injury trends were reviewed in more detail it was found that the body regions which contributed the most to these changes in severity were the head, thorax and extremities. This is one of the first studies to examine the implications for large databases when changing to an updated method for coding injuries.
In this study, we compared the injury severity of occupants according to the seating position and the crashing direction in motor vehicle accidents. In the driver's point of view, it was separated the seating position as "Near-side" and "Far-side". The study subjects were targeted by people who visited 4 regional emergency centers following motor vehicle accidents. Real-world investigation was performed by direct and indirect methods after patient- consent. The information of the damaged vehicle was informed by Collision Deformation Classification (CDC) code and the information of the injury of patients was informed by using the Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) and Injury Severity Score (ISS). When the column 3 in CDC code was P, damaged at the middle part of lateral side, the average point of AIS 3 was 1.91-±1.72 in near-side and 1.02-±1.31 in far-side (p<0.01). The average point of maximum AIS (MAIS) was 2.78-±1.39 in near-side and 2.02-±1.11 in far-side (p<0.01). The average point of ISS was 15.74-±14.71 in near-side and 8.11-±8.39 in far-side (p<0.01). Also, when the column 3 in CDC code was D, damaged at the whole part of lateral side, it was significant that the average point of AIS 3 and MAIS in near-side was bigger than in far-side (p=0.02).
The fact that ADAC Air Rescue handles approximately 4,000 road accident missions every year gave rise to set up an accident research programme for which ADAC Air Rescue provides its data. This data is of initial informational quality and will be supplemented by data from the police, experts, fire brigades as well as hospitals and forensic institutes. Although the number of cases is still rather low, certain tendencies can be identified. The causes for most accidents occur when joining or intersecting traffic, followed by speeding in road bends and tailgating. Many accidents involve HGV rear end collisions, often causing serious injuries, considerable damage and technical problems for the rescue operations. With regard to the various impact types, it has become obvious that most of the extremely serious injuries are inflicted during a passenger car side impact. In addition, access to and removal of trapped passengers is becoming more and more complicated, partly due to the increasing use of high-strength materials, and rescue operations tend to be more time consuming.
The incidence of side impacts was investigated from GIDAS data. Both vehicle-fixed object and vehicle-vehicle collisions were analysed as these are enclosed within the consumer testing program. Vehicle-fixed object collisions were stratified according to ESC availability. Results indicated that vehicles equipped with ESC rarely have pure-lateral impacts. An increase in oblique collisions was seen for the vehicles with ESC whereby most vehicle were driving in left curves. The analysis of vehicle-vehicle collisions developed injury risk curves were developed at the AIS3+ injury severity for the vehicle-vehicle side impacts. Results suggested that greatest injury risk occurred when a Pre Euro NCAP vehicle was struck by a Post Euro-NCAP vehicle. The remaining curves did not show different behaviour, indicating that stiffness increased have been equally combated. This was attributable to the few Post Euro-NCAP vehicles that had a deployed curtain airbag available in the sample. The integration of Euro NCAP testing has shown to improve vehicle crashworthiness for pole collisions, as those vehicles with ESC rarely incur lateral impacts.
Although the statistics show a decreasing rate of child injuries and fatalities in German road accidents more efforts can be made to protect children in cars e.g. by developing appropriate child restraint systems. An important part in of this work can be achieved with the help of crash tests using child dummies. However these crash tests cannot completely reflect the situation of real world crashes as factors like children moving out of the optimal position or children incorrectly fastened by their parents are difficult to predict. Therefore this study gives an overview over the current accident and injury situation of child occupants in cars in German road accidents.
In der Europäischen Gemeinschaft werden derzeit jährlich ca. 50.000 Menschen bei Verkehrsunfällen getötet, ca. 10.000 davon als Fußgänger. Von den 10.600 (1992) in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bei Straßenverkehrsunfällen Getöteten waren 1.800 Fußgänger (etwa 17 Prozent). Problemgruppen bei Fußgängerunfällen bilden die Kinder wegen ihrer hohen Unfallhäufigkeit und alte Personen wegen ihrer hohen Unfallschwere. Kopfverletzungen sind die häufigste Todesursache bei Fußgängerunfällen. Eine Verringerung der Unfallschwere kann - außer durch Verminderung von Fahr- beziehungsweise Aufprallgeschwindigkeiten der Fahrzeuge - nur durch konstruktive Eingriffe an der vorderen Fahrzeugaußenkontur oder dem Unterbau von Pkw erfolgen. Dazu ist es notwendig, einheitliche Prüfverfahren für die Beurteilung der "Fahrzeugaggressivität" gegenüber Fußgängern bereitzustellen. Die Ableitung eines Prüfvorschlages zur Simulation des Kopfaufpralls auf Fronthauben von Pkw beim Fußgängerunfall, unterteilt in Kopfaufpralltests für Erwachsene und Kinder, ist Gegenstand dieser Arbeit. Es werden, ausgehend von einer Analyse der Unfallstatistik, der Entstehungsmechanismus von Kopfverletzungen erklärt, die für ein Prüfverfahren notwendigen Eingangsparameter (Masse, Geschwindigkeit, Aufprallstellen am Fahrzeug etc.) abgeleitet und die Ergebnisse der gewählten Prüfkörpertestmethode mit Ergebnissen von Leichenversuchen verglichen. Eine Kosten-/Nutzen-Betrachtung am Schluss der Arbeit zeigt, dass sich bei nur geringen Kosten ein volkswirtschaftlicher Nutzen durch eine allgemeine Anwendung des Prüfverfahrens mit ca. 270 Millionen DM allein in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland pro Jahr erzielen ließe.
Test and assessment procedures for passive pedestrian protection of passenger cars are in place for many years within world-wide regulations as well as consumer test programmes. Nevertheless, recent accident investigations show a stagnation of pedestrian fatality numbers on European roads alongside increasing injury severities for older road users. The EU-funded SENIORS (Safety ENhancing Innovations for Older Road userS) project developed and evaluated a thorax injury prediction tool (TIPT) for later incorporation within test and assessment procedures. Accident data indicates an increasing portion of AIS2 and AIS3+ thoracic injuries of older pedestrians and cyclists which are currently not assessed in any test procedure for vulnerable road users. Therefore, SENIORS focused on the development of a test tool predicting the risk of rib fractures of vulnerable road users (VRU). While injury risk functions were reanalyzed, human body model (HBM) simulations against categorized generic vehicle frontends served as input for the definition of test setups and corresponding impact parameters. TIPT component tests against a generic frontend and an actual vehicle were used for the evaluation of the technical feasibility. The TIPT component tests shows the general feasibility of a test procedure for the assessment of thoracic injuries, with good repeatability and reproducibility of kinematics and results. Impact parameters such as the inclination angles of the thorax, angles of the velocity vector and impact speeds well replicate the parameters gained from the HBM simulations. The proposed markup and assessment scheme offers the possibility of a homogeneous evaluation of the protection potential of vehicle frontends while maintaining justifiable testing efforts. During evaluation testing, the proposed requirements were entirely met. The developed prototype of TIPT and launching system offer impact angles and speeds as suggested by HBM simulations. However, since thorax impacts during pedestrian accidents do not occur perpendicularly to the vehicle surface in most cases, the TIPT built-in linear potentiometers do not acquire the true resultant intrusions on the ribcage and thus, TIPT rib deflections do not reflect the actual human injury risk. However; for the impact forward to the bonnet leading edge, the TIPT seems applicable without further modifications. The test and assessment procedures using the TIPT offer for the first time the possibility of replicating the kinematics of a pedestrian thorax with a component test. The developed assessment scheme gives a first indication on how the risk for thoracic injuries could be implemented within the Euro NCAP Box 3 assessment. Future development of the TIPT may focus on implementing a rib cage that can deflect in all axes in a humanlike way.
Trauma management (TM) covers two types of medical treatment: the initial one provided by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and a further one provided by permanent medical facilities. There is a consensus in the professional literature that to reduce the severity and the number of road crash victims, the TM system should provide rapid and adequate initial care of injury, combined with sufficient further treatment at a hospital or trauma centre. Recognizing the important role of TM for reducing road crash injury outcome, it was decided, within the EU funded SafetyNet project, to develop road safety performance indicators (SPIs) which would characterize the level of TM systems" performance in European countries and enable country comparisons. The concept of TM SPIs was developed based on a literature study of performance indicators in TM, a survey of available practices in Europe and data availability examinations. A set of TM SPIs was introduced including 14 indicators which characterize five issues such as: availability of EMS stations; availability and composition of EMS medical staff; availability and composition of EMS transportation units; characteristics of the EMS response time, and availability of trauma beds in permanent medical facilities. Basic information on the TM systems was collected in close cooperation with the national expert group. A dataset with TM SPIs for 21 countries was created. It was demonstrated that the countries can be compared using selected TM SPIs. Moreover, a more general comparison of the TM systems' performance in the countries is possible, using multiple ranking and statistical weighting techniques. By both methods, final estimates were received enabling the recognition of groups of countries with similar levels of the TM system's performance. The results of various trials were consistent as to the recognition of countries with high or low level of the TM systems" performance, where in grouping countries with intermediate levels of the TM system's performance some differences were observed. The SafetyNet project's practice demonstrated that data collection for estimating TM SPIs is not an easy task but is realizable for the majority of countries. The TM SPIs" message is currently limited to the availability of trauma care services. Further development of the TM SPIs should focus on characteristics of actual treatment supplied, based on combined police and medical road crash related databases.
Verkehrsunfallopfer, die beim Unfall überrollt werden, erleiden fast immer tödliche Verletzungen. Im innerstädtischen Bereich ereignen sich diese Unfälle mehrheitlich im niedrigen Geschwindigkeitsbereich. Die Frage der Vermeidbarkeit des Unfalls wird daher sehr oft seitens der Ermittlungsbehörde an die Sachverständigen gestellt. Im Rahmen der Unfallrekonstruktion spielt der Reifenprofilabdruck am Leichnam eine wichtige Rolle. Er belegt nicht nur den Überrollungsvorgang selbst, sondern erlaubt auch die Identifikation der Überrollungsrichtung und -region, aber auch des in Frage kommenden Reifens. Bei der retrospektiven Analyse von 120 Überrollungsfällen in Berlin (Fußgänger, Radfahrer und Kraftradfahrer) aus den letzten 23 Jahren wurde untersucht, wie verlässlich dieses Merkmal ist, wie oft und wo man es findet und von welchen Faktoren seine Entstehung beeinflusst wird.
Motorradfahrer sind im Straßenverkehr besonders gefährdet, nahezu kein Unfall endet ohne Verletzungen der Motorradaufsassen. Wenn ein Unfall unabwendbar ist (das Unfallgeschehen der Motorräder zeigt seit Jahren stetige Besserungen), verbleibt dem Fahrer als Schutz nur seine eigene Bekleidung. Der im Rahmen diese Projekts angestellte Vergleich verschiedener Feldstudien zeigt, dass hauptsächlich die Extremitäten mit Schwerpunkt bei den Beinen verletzt werden. Ähnlich wie hohe Helmtragequoten zum Rückgang der Kopfverletzungen geführt haben, könnte zweckdienliche Schutzkleidung nahezu vollständig Hautabschürfungen und damit verbunden Wundinfektionen vermeiden. Gleichzeitig werden die Schwellwerte für den Eintritt anderer Verletzungen (zum Beispiel Brüche, Bänderrisse, innere Verletzungen) zu höheren Kollisionsgeschwindigkeiten verschoben. Die im Projektverlauf erarbeiteten Anforderungen an Motorradfahrerschutzkleidung sind so spezifisch und vielfältig, dass sie mit keiner anderen, zum Beispiel berufsspezifischen Kleidung vergleichbar sind. Mit Analysen wurde gezeigt, dass einige Anforderungen nur unter Zielkonflikten mit anderen verwirklichbar sind. Die dadurch nötige Mehrfachfunktion mancher Bauteile führt dazu, dass die Prüfung von Eigenschaften kaum mit den Methoden aus üblichen Normenwerken durchgeführt werden kann. Vor diesem Hintergrund begann die Entwicklung speziell angepasster Versuche. In der Regel bilden sie realistisch die Belastungen bei einem Sturz auf die Fahrbahnoberfläche und in der anschließenden Rutschphase nach. Durch die Verlegung der Versuche in das Labor wird die Reproduzierbarkeit erhöht, die Kosten bleiben vergleichsweise gering. Als wichtigste Prüfkriterien wurden Abriebverhalten, Reibwärmeisolation, Reibbeiwert, Stossdämpfung, Widerstand gegen Stich- und Schnittbeschädigung, Formschluss und Bauteilsteifigkeit erarbeitet. Vorgestellt und bewertet wurden verschiedene bereits existierende Prüfverfahren. Wenn sie ungeeignet schienen oder wenn für ein wichtiges Kriterium kein Verfahren zu finden war, wurden eigene neue Vorschläge gemacht. Unter Abwägung von Prüfaufwand und Aussagekraft der Ergebnisse wurde ein Vorschlag für ein normungsfähiges Prüfverfahren erarbeitet. Im Vorschlag berücksichtigt sind nur bereits existierende oder einfach verwirklichbare Prüfverfahren, die für Motorradfahrerschutzkleidung als geeignet angesehen werden.
The European Enhanced Vehicle-safety Committee (EEVC) Working Group 13 for Side Impact Protection has been developing an Interior Headform Test Procedure to complement the full-scale Side Impact Test Procedure for Europe and for the proposed IHRA test procedures. In real world accidents interior head contacts with severe head injuries still occur, which are not always observed in standard side impact tests with dummies. Thus a means is needed to encourage further progress in head protection. At the 2003 ESV-Conference EEVC Working Group 13 reported the results on Interior Headform Testing. Further research has been performed since and the test procedure has been improved. This paper gives an overview of its latest status. The paper presents new aspects which are included in the latest test procedure and the research work leading to these enhancements. One topic of improvement is the definition of the Free Motion Headform (FMH) impactor alignment procedure to provide guidelines to minimize excessive headform chin contact and to minimize potential variability. Research activities have also been carried out on the definition of reasonable approach head angles to avoid unrealistic test conditions. Further considerations have been given to the evaluation of head airbags, their potential benefits and a means of ensuring protection for occupants regardless of seating position and sitting height. The paper presents the research activities that have been made since the last ESV Conference in 2003 and the final proposal of the EEVC Headform Test Procedure.
Es ist zu beobachten, dass trotz einer Abnahme der Zahl der Verletzungen und der Verletzungsschwere der Insassen bei Pkw-Unfällen Halswirbelsäulen (HWS)-Distorsionen, speziell im unteren Geschwindigkeitsbereich häufiger auftreten. Neben anderen Faktoren werden auch veränderte Beschleunigungs- und Verzögerungsimpulse, die im Crashfall auf die Insassen wirken, als möglicherweise ursächlich für die Entstehung von HWS-Distorsionen angesehen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird untersucht, welchen Einfluss konstruktive Veränderungen, die durch Versicherungseinstufungstests bedingt werden, auf die Beschleunigungs- und Verzögerungsimpulse im Fahrzeuginnenraum haben. Versuche zum Fußgängerschutz wurden einvernehmlich nicht durchgeführt, da die Fahrzeuge noch nicht konsequent nach Fußgängerschutzkriterien konzipiert werden. Die Untersuchungsmethode lässt sich gliedern in: - Analyse von internationalen Versicherungssystemen und Analyse der aus den Versicherungseinstufungstests resultierenden Veränderungen von Fahrzeugstrukturen; - Durchführung und Analyse von eigenen Aufprallversuchen mit Fahrzeugteilstrukturen und vergleichende Analyse von Vollfahrzeugversuchen der Versicherungswirtschaft; Zusammenführen der getätigten Schritte. Bei der Ersteinstufung eines Pkw in die Vollversicherung dient der Versicherungseinstufungstest des RCAR/AZT (Prüfgeschwindigkeit 15 km/h) zur Bestimmung der Schadenshöhe und damit zur Einstufung in eine Typklasse. In vielen weiteren Staaten dienen dieser oder ähnliche Tests zur Bewertung der Reparaturfreundlichkeit von Pkw. Um bei einem Versicherungseinstufungstest den Schaden möglichst gering zu halten, haben nahezu alle Neufahrzeuge Querträgersysteme mit kostenarm wechselbaren Absorptionselementen, die die Crashenergie gezielt auf kurzem Weg aufnehmen. Durch die neu EG-Richtlinie 2003/102/EG zum Fußgängerschutz müssen zukünftig hinter der Stoßfängeraußenhaut und vor dem massiven Querträger weiche Schäume untergebracht werden. Der Bauraum für Querträger und Energieabsorptionselemente wird dadurch weiter eingeschränkt. Diese Anforderungen veranlassen die Hersteller dazu, die Energieabsorptionselemente steifer zu gestalten, um einen effektiven Energieabbau bei kurzen Stopplängen zu gewährleisten. Durch diese Maßnahmen wird zwar der Insassenschutz bei Frontalaufprallen im Hochgeschwindigkeitsbereich verbessert, es werden aber zugleich höhere Innenraumverzögerungen (schnellerer Anstieg, höhere mittlere Verzögerung) bei Crashs im gesamten Geschwindigkeitsbereich erzeugt. Eine durchgeführte Korrelation zwischen konstruktiven Veränderungen am Fahrzeug und empirisch bestimmten Verzögerungsverläufen zeigte, dass eine günstigere Einstufung in der Fahrzeugvollversicherung nicht zwangsläufig höhere Verzögerungsimpulse für den Innenraum bedingen muss. Bei der Analyse von 172 Crashversuchen des Allianz Zentrums für Technik mit Neufahrzeugen aus den Jahren 1992 bis 2003 zeichnen sich aber statistisch bedeutsame ßnderungen in den Verzögerungsverläufen über die Prüfjahre ab: - Anstieg der Verzögerung wird steiler; - Mittelwert der Verzögerung wird grösser; - Zeitdauer bis zum Auftreten der maximalen Verzögerung wird kürzer; - dynamische Gesamtdeformation wird kleiner. Die steife Auslegung der für den Versicherungseinstufungstest relevanten Crashteile verbessert den Insassenschutz bei Hochgeschwindigkeitscrashs. Wenn es sich aber durch weitere Untersuchungen bestätigt, dass höhere Verzögerungs- beziehungsweise Beschleunigungsimpulse die Auftretenswahrscheinlichkeit von HWS-Verletzungen im Niedriggeschwindigkeitsbereich vergrößern, so sollten gezielt Maßnahmen zur Verringerung dieser Verletzungsrisiken ergriffen werden. Dazu gehören die weitere Optimierung der Sitzstrukturen einschließlich der Kopfstützen und die Entwicklung adaptiver Crashstrukturen, die dem Crashfall angepasste Kraft-Weg-Kennlinien ermöglichen.
Sowohl die Zahl der im Straßenverkehr Getöteten wie auch die der Schwerverletzten sind nach Angaben der amtlichen Statistiken in Deutschland seit Jahren rückläufig. Die Gruppe der Schwerverletzten ist allerdings sehr heterogen und umfasst alle Unfallopfer, die für mindestens 24 Stunden in einem Krankenhaus behandelt wurden. Die vorliegende Untersuchung versucht, mit Hilfe von Daten des Traumaregisters der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Unfallchirurgie (DGU) die Frage zu beantworten, ob auch bei den besonders schwer verletzten Verkehrsunfallopfern ein Rückgang der Zahlen zu beobachten ist. Dazu wurden "schwerstverletzte" Patienten definiert als solche, die im Injury Severity Score (ISS) mindestens 9 Punkte erreicht haben und zudem intensivmedizinisch behandelt werden mussten. Der Zeitraum der Untersuchung umfasst zehn Jahre von 1997 bis 2006, der für einige Fragestellungen zusätzlich in zwei je 5-jährige Phasen unterteilt wurde. Ab 2002 (Phase 2) ist auch eine separate Auswertung für Fahrrad- und Motorradfahrer möglich. Die erste Fragestellung richtete sich auf die Veränderung der Anzahl schwerstverletzter Verkehrsunfallopfer über die Zeit. Dafür wurden die Daten von über 11.000 Patienten aus 67 verschiedenen Kliniken betrachtet. Pro Klinik wurde ein Durchschnittswert für die Anzahl von Verkehrsunfallopfern bestimmt, der dann mit der tatsächlich beobachteten Zahl verglichen wurde. Im Ergebnis zeigte sich, dass die relativen Abweichungen vom Durchschnitt insgesamt nur etwa -±10% betragen und dass kein deutlicher Trend einer Abnahme oder Zunahme der Schwerstverletztenzahlen in den vergangenen 10 Jahren erkennbar ist. In der zweiten Fragestellung wurde untersucht, ob und wie stark ein Rückgang der Letalität zu einem Anstieg der Schwerstverletztenzahlen geführt haben könnte. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass in den letzten beiden Jahren deutlich weniger Patienten im Krankenhaus verstorben sind, als dies nach ihrer Prognose zu erwarten gewesen wäre. Dieser Rückgang der Letalitätsrate von absolut bis zu 5 (in 2006: Prognose 18% versus beobachtet 13%) trägt damit auch zu einer Zunahme bei der Zahl der Schwerstverletzten bei. Zur Abschätzung der Prognose wurde ein im Traumaregister entwickeltes und validiertes Scoresystem (RISC) eingesetzt. In der letzten Fragestellung sollte geklärt werden, ob sich das Verletzungsmuster bei den Schwerstverletzten in den vergangenen zehn Jahren und abhängig von der Art der Verkehrsteilnahme verändert hat. Insgesamt konnte gezeigt werden, dass der relative Anteil der Autofahrer rückläufig war, von 60% auf 50%. Bei den verletzten Körperregionen zeigt das Schädel-Hirn-Trauma den deutlichsten Rückgang von 69 % auf 60% insgesamt. Dieser Trend ist bei allen Verkehrsbeteiligten erkennbar. Lediglich Verletzungen der Wirbelsäule werden häufiger gesehen, was aber auch ein Effekt der verbesserten CT-Diagnostik sein kann, zum Beispiel beim Ganzkörper-CT. Je nach Art der Verkehrsbeteiligung zeigen sich sehr unterschiedliche Verletzungsmuster. Verletzungen des Kopfes sind bei Radfahrern und Fußgängern dominierend (über 70%), während Motorradfahrer hier die günstigsten Raten zeigen (45%). Motorrad- und Autofahrer haben die höchsten Raten für Verletzungen des Brustkorbs und im Bauchraum, bedingt durch die im Mittel höheren einwirkenden Kräfte auf den Körper. Insgesamt lassen sich die Daten des DGU-Traumaregisters gut nutzen, um typische Verletzungsmuster zu beschreiben und um relative Veränderungen bei der Zahl der Schwerstverletzten über die Zeit nachzuweisen. Beobachtungszeiträume von zehn Jahren und mehr, wie im vorliegenden Fall, ermöglichen auch aktuelle Trendaussagen. Epidemiologische Aussagen wie in den amtlichen Statistiken sind aber nur sehr eingeschränkt möglich, da das Traumaregister bisher nur auf freiwilliger Basis Daten sammelt.
Die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen ermittelt jährlich die Kosten, die infolge von Straßenverkehrsunfällen entstanden sind. Dabei werden alle Unfallfolgen berücksichtigt, die zu Kosten oder Wertschöpfungsverlusten führen. Insgesamt beliefen sich die Personen- und Sachschäden bei Straßenverkehrsunfällen im Jahr 2000 auf 35,6 Milliarden DM. Obwohl die Anzahl der Getöteten und schwer Verletzten seit Jahren zurückgeht, folgen die Unfallkosten dieser Entwicklung nicht. Den Rückgängen bei den Kosten durch Personenschäden steht ein deutlicher Anstieg der Sachschadenskosten gegenüber. Im Beitrag wird zusätzlich auf die Entwicklung der Reproduktions- und Ressourcenausfallkosten bei den Personenschäden sowie auf die Altersstruktur der Unfallopfer eingegangen. Die gestiegenen Sachschadenskosten schlagen sich in den Aufwendungen der Versicherungen für Kraftfahrzeug-Schadensfälle nieder. Abschließend werden die Kostensätze für Personenschäden und Sachschäden aufgeführt, die der Berechnung durch die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen zugrunde liegen.
Erhebungen am Unfallort
(1983)
Der Bericht einer Projektgruppe bei der Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen beschreibt einleitend das Projekt "Unfallerhebung Hannover (uh)". Weitere Spezialerhebungen aus dem Bereich der empirischen Unfallforschung werden beispielhaft dargestellt und mit der Unfallerhebung Hannover verglichen. Der Vergleich dient der Herausarbeitung spezieller Eigenschaften und Möglichkeiten dieses Projektes und der Beurteilung der Aussagefähigkeit des gewonnenen Datenmaterials. Unter Berücksichtigung bereits vorhandener Daten aus anderen Erhebungen und des Datenbedarfs der Unfallforschung wird die Notwendigkeit von Erhebungen am Unfallort erörtert und alternative Konzepte hierfür entwickelt. Abschließend wird eine neue nutzungsorientierte Konzeption für ein zukünftiges Projekt zur Datengewinnung durch Erhebung am Unfallort vorgeschlagen.
Estimation of the benefits for the UK for potential options to modify UNECE Regulation No. 95
(2010)
The side impact problem in Europe remains substantial. UK data shows that between 22% and 26% of car occupant casualties are involved in a side impact, but this rises to between 29% and 38% for those who are fatally injured. This indicates the more injurious nature of side impacts compared with frontal impacts. The European Enhanced Vehicle safety Committee (EEVC) has performed work to address the side impact issue since 1979. As part of its continuing work, it has recently investigated potential options for regulatory changes to improve side impact protection in cars further. To support this work the UK undertook an analysis to estimate the benefit for potential options to modify UNECE Regulation 95. The analysis used the UK national STATS19 and detailed Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) accident databases. Of the potential options reviewed, it was found that the addition of a pole test offered the greatest benefit.
In line with the new definition introduced by the European Commission (EC), the number of seriously injured road casualties in Germany for 2014 is assessed in this study. The number of MAIS3+ casualties is estimated by two different methodological approaches. The first approach is based on data from the German Inâ€Depth Accident Study (GIDAS), which is closely related to the German Road Traffic Accident Statistics. The second approach is based on data from the German TraumaRegister DGU-® (TRâ€DGU), which includes many more hospitals but not all MAIS3+ injuries.
The primary goal of this investigation was to determine the relative risk of traffic accidents in students. In a two year period, a survey amongst 2,325 students was carried out, and 3,645 injuries sustained by students treated at our hospital were analyzed. Moped-riding in adolescents were associated with a 23.75-fold increased risk for injury as compared to biking. Children who ride bicycles have a 2.2-fold increased risk for an injury sustained by traffic accidents compared to pedestrians. None of 50 injured bicycle riders with helmet had an AIS for head injuries of more than 2. 24 of 233 injured bicycle drivers without helmet had an AIS for head injuries of more than 2. The use of a protective helmet significantly reduced the severity of head injuries. The level of awareness towards danger and a history of previous accidents correlate with the likelihood of future accidents. Due to the severity of traffic accidents, more adequate prevention measures (wearing of bicycle helmets and better education for moped riders) are urgently needed.
Aim of the study was to evaluate the protective effect of bicycle helmets particularly considering injuries to the head and to the face. Accidents with the participation of bicyclists which occurred from 2000 to 2007 were chosen from GIDAS. We observed that injuries to the head and face were more severe in the group of non-helmeted riders. There seems to be no significant difference in injuries with AIS 3-6. Altogether 26 cyclists were killed. 2 of them wore a helmet (1% of helmeted cyclists), 24 did not (1% of non-helmeted cyclists). Only one killed rider (without helmet) did not suffer from polytrauma (only head injuries recorded). The findings seem to support the thesis of a preventive effect of the bicycle helmet, however the two groups are different in their characteristics related to riding speed. Necessarily we need a multivariate model to evaluate the effect of helmets.
The paper gives an overview of the recent (mostly 2012) figures of killed bus/coach occupants (drivers and passengers) in 27 Member States of the European Union as reported by CARE. The Evolution of the figures of bus/coach occupants killed in road accidents urban, rural without motorway and on motorways from 1991 to 2010 in 15 Member States of the EU supplements this information. More detailed are the figures reported for Germany by the Federal Statistics. The paper displays long-term evaluations (1957 to 2012) for killed, seriously and slightly injured occupants in all kinds of buses/coaches. Midterm evaluations (1995 to 2012) of the figures of fatalities and casualties are displayed for different busses according to their identification of road using as coaches, urban buses, school buses, trolley buses and "other buses". To be able to compare the evolutions of the safety of vehicle occupants it is customary to use different risk indicators. Calculations and illustrations for three often used indicators with their development over time are given: fatalities, seriously injured and slightly injured per 100,000 vehicles registered, per 1 billion (109) vehicle-kilometres travelled and per 1 billion (109) person-kilometres. These indicators are shown for occupants of cars, goods vehicles and buses/coaches. For the period from 1957 until 2012 it is obvious, that for all three vehicle categories analysed there was a clear long-term trend towards more occupant safety in terms of casualties per vehicles registered and per vehicle mileage. This was most significant for car occupants but it can be seen for bus/coach occupants and goodsvehicle occupants as well. Figures of killed occupants and of casualties related to person-kilometres are calculated and displayed for the shorter period 1995 to 2012. Here it becomes obvious that the bus/coach is still the safest mode of transport for the occupants of road vehicles. Graphs for the casualty risk indices still show significantly higher risks for car occupants despite the corresponding curve moved sustainable downwards. It is remarkable, that the risks of being killed or injured for the occupants of urban buses is growing whereas the corresponding risk for the occupants of coaches in line traffic tends downwards. The article ends with a short comparison and discussion of the risk indicators which are actually published for the occupants (driver and passengers) of cars and the passengers of buses/coaches, railroads, trams and airplanes. The interpretation of such information depends on the perception and it seems that for a complete view not only one indicator should be used and the evolutions of the indicator values during longer periods (as displayed with examples in the paper) should also be taken into account.
Data concerning accidents involving personal injury which have been collected in the context of in-depth investigations on scene in the Hannover area since 1973 and in the Dresden area since 1999 represent an important basis for empirical traffic safety research. At national and international level various analyses and comparisons are carried out on the basis of "in-depth data" from the above mentioned investigations. In-depth data play a decisive role e.g. within the validation of EuroNCAP results on secondary safety (crashworthiness) of individual passenger car models. Thus, statistically sound methods of data analysis and population parameter estimation are of high importance. Since the 1st of August 1984 the "in-depth investigations on scene" in the Hannover area have been carried out according to a sampling plan developed by HAUTZINGER in the context of a research project on behalf of BASt. In the meantime a second region of in-depth investigation on scene was added with surveys in Dresden and the surrounding area. Internationally, the acronym GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) is commonly used for the two above mentioned surveys. The objective of a current research project (topic of this contribution) is, among other things, to examine and adjust the previous weighting and expansion method for the two regional accident investigations to the current general conditions.
Falltests zur Untersuchung der Belastungen von Dummys beim Aufprall auf den Boden, Teil 1 und 2
(2010)
Beim Zusammenprall eines Motorrads mit einem Pkw unterscheidet man in der Unfallforschung sowohl den Erstanprall des Motorradfahrers an den Pkw als auch den Sekundäraufprall des Motorradfahrers auf dem Boden. So genannte Full-Scale-Crashtests mit Dummys haben beim Erstanprall gezeigt, dass Motorradfahrer durch Airbags potenziell geschützt werden können. Bei den entsprechenden Unfallsimulationen wurde jedoch im weiteren Bewegungsablauf beim nachfolgenden Sekundäraufprall auf dem Boden festgestellt, dass relativ hohe Belastungen auf den Dummy einwirken. Es stellt sich hierbei jedoch die Frage, ob die üblicherweise für Lasteinwirkungen im Falle eines Erstanpralls entwickelten und validierten Dummys die bei einem Sekundäraufprall auf einen Motorradfahrer einwirkenden Belastungen hinreichend genau wiedergeben können. Dazu wurden die Belastungen eines Dummys beim Aufprall auf den Boden untersucht, um das Verletzungsrisiko eines menschlichen Motorradfahrers einschätzen zu können. Im Dekra-Crash-Test-Center wurden vier verschiedene Aufprallsituationen mit einem Hybrid III Dummy durchgeführt, wobei diese Tests an eine andere Testreihe angelehnt sind, die bereits am US-amerikanischen Institut "Dynamic Research International" (DRI) durchgeführt worden waren. Nach der Erläuterung des Testaufbaus und seiner Durchführung wird detailliert auf die gemessenen Verzögerungsbelastungen des Dummys eingegangen. Hierbei geben zum einen Tabellen eine Übersicht über charakteristische Messwerte zur Quantifizierung der maximalen Belastung des Dummys, zum anderen veranschaulichen Bilder die zugehörigen zeitlichen Verzögerungsverläufe in Becken, Brust und Kopf des Dummys. Der Artikel schließt mit einer Interpretation der Versuchsergebnisse und gibt einen Ausblick auf den weiteren Untersuchungsbedarf.
Mit der flächendeckenden Einführung des Beifahrerairbags ergab sich das Problem der nachträglich festgestellten Inkompatibilität mit rückwärts gerichten Kindersitzen. Zahlreiche tödliche Unfälle mit Babyschalen, insbesondere in den USA, führten unter anderem dazu, dass in den Mitgliedsstaaten der Europäischen Union die Beförderung von Kindern in einem rückwärtsgerichteten Kinderschutzsystem auf einem mit Frontairbag geschützten Autositz untersagt wurde, sofern der Airbag nicht deaktiviert wurde. Heute gibt es eine Vielzahl an Möglichkeiten, die dem Nutzer zur Abschaltung des Airbags zur Verfügung stehen. Mit der Notwendigkeit der Abschaltung ergibt sich die Gefahr zweier Arten der Fehlbenutzung: die Beförderung eines Kindes in einer Babyschale trotz aktivierten Airbags beziehungsweise die Mitfahrt eines erwachsenen Insassen trotz deaktivierten Airbags. Im Rahmen dieser Studie wurden zu den beiden Fehlbenutzungsarten Beobachtungs- und Befragungsstudien durchgeführt, Unfalldaten in Hinblick auf die Problematik der Fehlbenutzung der Airbagabschaltung analysiert und Versuche zur erneuten Bewertung des Risikos, das durch heutige und zukünftige Airbagsysteme ausgeht, durchgeführt. In den Umfragen ließen sich nur schwer Daten zum Missbrauch bei der Beförderung von Kindern mit Airbag auf dem Beifahrersitz erfassen. Es kommt insgesamt zu nur wenigen Fällen des Transports eines Kindes auf dem Beifahrersitz mit aktivem Airbag, was zum einen an der hohen Abschaltquote des Beifahrerairbags liegt, zum anderen an der Präferenz der Eltern, die Kinder auf dem Rücksitz zu transportieren. Der Großteil dieser Fehlbenutzungsfälle entsteht in älteren Pkw, die einen Werkstattaufenthalt für die Deaktivierung/Aktivierung erfordern. Keine Missbräuche beziehungsweise technische Fehler fanden sich bei den Systemen mit automatischer Sitzerkennung. Der überwiegende Anteil der Missbrauchsfälle bei den Modellen mit manueller Umschaltmöglichkeit geht offenbar auf Vergessen zurück. Der Missbrauch zweiter Art wird ebenfalls wirkungsvoll durch automatische Systeme verhindert. Bei dieser Beförderungskonstellation ergibt sich jedoch praktisch immer ein Problem, wenn der Beifahrerairbag in einer Werkstatt deaktiviert wurde. Die dadurch für einen erwachsenen Mitfahrer entstehende Gefährdung wird als weniger gravierend eingeschätzt. Bei der manuellen Umschaltung im Fahrzeug verbleibt ebenfalls ein Vergessensproblem wie beim Missbrauch erster Art. Auch die Unfallanalyse deutet auf eine geringe Fehlbenutzungsquote hin. Von den untersuchten GIDAS-Frontalaufprallunfällen mit über 300 betroffenen Kindern nutzten lediglich 24 Kinder den Beifahrerplatz in einem Auto, das mit einem Beifahrerairbag ausgestattet war. In den meisten Fällen war der Airbag vorschriftsmäßig deaktiviert. In den nachgewiesenen Fehlbenutzungsfällen waren die Unfallfolgen für die betroffenen Babys gering. Die untersuchten Einzelfälle zeigen jedoch die tödliche Gefahr, die vom Beifahrerairbag ausgehen kann. Auf der technischen Seite gab es im Lauf der letzten Jahre grundsätzliche Veränderungen im Bereich der Gestaltung des Beifahrerairbags. Während bei der früheren Einbauposition des Airbags die Schale direkt angeschossen wurde, entfaltet sich dieser heutzutage eher nach oben, stützt sich an der Windschutzscheibe ab und kommt danach erst mit der Schale in Kontakt. Da er in diesem Zustand aber schon weitestgehend voll entfaltet ist, besitzt er zu diesem Zeitpunkt kaum noch die Aggressivität, die bei den Beifahrerairbags der ersten Generation beobachtet werden konnte, und stellt somit wahrscheinlich eine geringere Gefahr für das Kleinkind in der Babyschale dar. Damit lässt sich ein deutlicher Trend in Richtung weniger gefährlicher Airbags erkennen. Der Originalbericht enthält als Anhänge den Abdruck des Expertenfragebogen, die Zusammenfassung der Expertenbefragung, den Umdruck der Online-Befragung sowie den Fragebogen der Feldbefragung "Kindersitze und Airbag auf dem Beifahrersitz". Auf die Widergabe dieser Anhänge wurde in der vorliegenden Veröffentlichung verzichtet. Sie liegen bei der Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen vor und sind dort einsehbar. Verweise auf die Anhänge im Berichtstext wurden zur Information des Lesers beibehalten.
The improvement of passive car security devices led to a reduction of injuries, especially of the head, the neck and the torso mainly due to the airbag function. The passenger's foot and ankle could not profit from this development. Some investigators even reported a progression of leg injuries (1). In this study, we investigated a current collective of patients with foot and ankle fractures or severe soft tissue injuries in relation with defined crash parameters. Special interest was paid to the car's footwell.
At the end of each year, the German Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) publishes the road safety balance of the closing year. They describe the development of accident and casualty numbers disaggregated by road user types, age groups, type of road and the consequences of the accidents. However, at the time of publishing, these series are only available for the first eight or nine months of the year. To make the balance for the whole year, the last three or four months are forecasted. The objective of this study was to improve the accuracy of these forecasts through structural time-series models that include effects of meteorological conditions. The results show that, compared to the earlier heuristic approach, root mean squared errors are reduced by up to 55% and only two out of the 27 different data series yield a modest rise of prediction errors. With the exception of four data series, prediction accuracies also clearly improve incorporating meteorological data in the analysis. We conclude that our approach provides a valid alternative to provide input to policy makers in Germany.
In North America, frontal crash tests in both the regulatory environment and consumer-based safety rating schemes have historically been based on full-width and moderate-overlap (40%) vehicle to barrier impacts. The combination of improved seat-belt technologies, notably belt tensioning and load limiting systems, together with advanced airbags, has proven very effective in providing occupant protection in these crash modes. Recently, however, concern has been raised over the contribution of narrower frontal impacts, involving primarily the vehicle corners, to the incidence of fatality and serious injury as a result of the potential for increased occupant compartment intrusion and performance limitations of current restraint systems. Drawing on data documented in the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS)/ Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) for calendar years 1999 to 2012, the present study examines the characteristics of existing and proposed corner crash test configurations, and the nature of real-world collisions that approximate the test environments. In this analysis, particular emphasis is placed on crash pulse information extracted from vehicle-based event data recorders (EDR's).
[Introduction:] A large number of road users involved in road traffic crashes recover from their injuries, but some of them never recover fully and suffer from some kind of permanent disability. In addition to loss of life or reduced quality of life, road accidents carry many and diverse consequences to the survivors such as legal implications, economic burden, job absences, need of care from a third person, home and vehicle adaptations as well as psychological consequences. Within an EU funded project MOVE/C4/SUB/2011-294/SI2.628846 (REHABIL AID) these consequences were analyzed more detailed.
The misuse of CRS (child restraint system) is one of the most urgent problems in connection of child safety in cars. Numerous field studies show that more than two thirds of all CRS are used in a wrong way. This misuse could lead to serious injuries for the children. Surprisingly the quality of CRS use is coded much better in accident data (e.g. GIDAS) than the results of observatory field studies show. It is expected that misuse of CRS was not detected by the accident teams in a large number of the cases. An essential part in improving child seats and their usability is the knowledge of the relation between misuse and resulting injuries. For that the analysis and experimental reconstruction of accidents is an important part. For allowing an exact experimental accident reconstruction, it is necessary to have detailed information about the securing situation of the child and about the installation of the CRS in the car.
To assess occupant safety in a crash test, criteria associating the measurements made with a crash test dummy to injury risk are necessary. To enable better protection of elderly car occupants the objective of this study was to develop improved thoracic injury criteria for the THOR average male dummy. The development of these criteria is usually based on matched dummy and Post Mortem Human Surrogate (PMHS) tests by relating the obtained PMHS injuries to dummy measurements. This approach is limited, since only a few tests in relevant loading conditions are available and any new test series requires high efforts to be performed due to their complexity and costs. To overcome these limitations and to extend the dataset for the development of THOR dummy chest injury risk functions a simulation-based approach was applied within the EC funded project SENIORS (Safety Enhanced Innovations For older Road Users - www.seniors-project.eu). Within this study frontal impact sled simulations with an FE model representing a THOR average male dummy and matched simulations with a human body model (HBM) representing an elderly car occupant were carried out. The HBM used for this study was the THUMS TUC with modified rib cage, which was developed in SENIORS. The modifications included material and geometry changes aiming to represent an elderly car occupant. The rib fracture risk was predicted with a deterministic approach whereby a rib was considered broken when the strain exceeded an age-dependent threshold. Furthermore, a probabilistic method was applied to predict the probability of sustaining a certain number of fractured ribs by comparing local strain values to the distribution of cortical rib ultimate strain. By relating the output from the HBM simulations to a multi-point dummy injury criterion, injury risk curves were calculated by statistical methods. The wide range of loading conditions resulted in the desired range of injuries and THOR ATD output. The number of fractured ribs predicted by the HBM based on the deterministic prediction method was between 0 and 15. Furthermore, the probabilistic risk for the number of rib fractures equal or greater than two, three or four was calculated for each load case. The THOR rib deflection criterion Rmax was between 18 and 56 mm, while the PC Score was in the range of 2.5 to 7.2. Based on these outputs new risk curves for the predicted deterministic (AIS2+/3+) and probabilistic injury risk were calculated. The new curves show reasonable shapes and significance that provide trust in their application. The new risk curves are compared to risk curves obtained by traditional methods. The results were found similar to previous injury risk functions based on physical tests, which gives a high level of confidence in the chosen approach. The simulation-based approach of matched ATD model vs. HBM simulation was successfully applied. Rmax curves show a slightly better quality than the injury criterion PC Score.
The NHTSA-sponsored Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) has collected and analyzed crash, vehicle damage, and detailed injury data from over 4000 case occupants who were patients admitted to Level-I trauma centers following involvement in motor vehicle crashes. Since 2005, CIREN has used a methodology known as "BioTab" to analyze and document the causes of injuries resulting from passenger vehicle crashes. BioTab was developed to provide a complete evidenced-based method to describe and document injury causation from in-depth crash investigations with confidence levels assigned to the causes of injury based on the available evidence. This paper describes how the BioTab method is being used in CIREN to leverage the data collected from in-depth crash investigations, and particularly the detailed injury data available in CIREN, to develop evidence-based assessments of injury causation. CIREN case examples are provided to demonstrate the ability of the BioTab method to improve real-world crash/injury data assessment.
This study analyses no.39 cases in which n.41 motorcyclists were fatally injured, or 36% of total motorcycle fatalities in Northern Ireland between 2004 and 2010 (n.114). There were n.17 cases (43.6%) where the actions of another vehicle driver caused the collision, in thirteen of these cases the motorcycles had their lights switched on. The remaining n.22 collisions (56.4%) were due to the actions of the motorcyclist. In the approach to the collision scene, there were n.13 cases (31.7%) in which the approach was a right hand bend and in n.8 (19.5%) cases, the approach was a left hand bend. In the remaining n.18 (43.9%) cases, the approach was a straight road. Of the n.17 (41.4%) motorcycles that slid after falling, n.10 (24.4%) fell onto their right side and the remaining n.7 (17.1%) fell onto their left side. The information from this study identifies primary and contributory causes of motorcycle collisions.
The main objective of EC CASPER research project is to reduce fatalities and injuries of children travelling in cars. Accidents involving children were investigated, modelling of human being and tools for dummies were advanced, a survey for the diagnosis of child safety was carried out and demands and applications were analysed. From the many research tasks of the CASPER project, the intention of this paper is to address the following: • In-depth investigation of accidents and accident reconstruction. These will provide important points for the injury risk curve, in order to improve it. Different accident investigation teams collected data from real road accidents, involving child car passengers, in five different European countries. Then, a selection of the most appropriate cases for the injury risk curve and the purposes of the project was made for an in-depth analysis. The final stage of this analysis was to conduct an accident reconstruction to validate the results obtained. The in-depth analysis included on-scene accident investigation, creating virtual simulations of the accident/possible reconstruction, and conducting the reconstruction. In the cases of successful reconstructions, new points were introduced to the injury risk curves. Accident reconstructions of selected cases were carried out in test laboratories as the next step following in-depth road accident investigation. These cases were reconstructed using similar child restraint systems (CRS) and the same type make and model as in the real accidents. Reconstructing real cases has several limitations, such as crash angle, cars" approximation paths and crash speed. However, a few changes and applications on the testing conditions were applied to reduce the limitations and improved the representations of the real accidents. After conducting the reconstructions, a comparison between the deformations of the cars on the real accident and the vehicles from the reconstructions was made. Additionally, a correlation between the data captured from the dummies and the injury data from the real accident was sought. This finalises an in-depth analysis of the accident, which will provide new relevant points to the injury risk curve. The CASPER project conducted a large research programme on child safety. On technical points, a promising research area is the developing injury risk curves as a result of in-depth accident investigations and reconstructions. This abstract was written whilst the project was not yet finished and final results are not yet known, but they will be available by the time of the conference. All the works and findings will not necessarily be integrated in the industrial versions of evaluation tools as the CASPER project is a research program.
This study aimed to identify the occurrence, type and mechanisms of the traumatic injuries of the vulnerable road users in vehicle collisions, and to determine the effects of human, engineering, and environment factors on traffic accidents and injuries. The pedestrian accident cases were collected in the years 2000 to 2005 from Changsha Wujing hospital China and Accident Research Unit at Medical University Hannover in Germany. A statistic analysis was carried out using the collected accident data. The results from analysis of Changsha data were compared with results from analysis of GIDAS data Hannover. The injury severities were determined using AIS code and ISS values. The results were presented in terms of cause of injuries, injury distributions, injury patterns, injury severity. The factors influenced the injury outcomes were proposed and discussed for the vehicle transport environment and road users. The results were discussed with regard to accident data collection, accident sampling and injury distributions etc. In the urban area of Changsha, motorcycles and passenger cars are most frequently involved in vehicle pedestrian accidents. Head and lower extremities injuries are the predominant types of pedestrian injuries. The pedestrian accidents were identified as vital issue in urban traffic safety and therefore a high priority should be given to this road user group in research of safe urban transportation. In Hannover area, cars are most frequently involved in traffic accidents, injured pedestrians are involved in road traffic of Germany in 13% of all causalities only in 2005 and have nearly the same number as motorcyclists, but the half of bicyclists.
Sedan type vehicles in which adult rear seat passengers were present and which were involved in frontal collisions were investigated, and the influence of unbelted rear seat passengers on the injuries of front seat occupants was studied. Unbelted rear seat passengers move forward during impact. It was observed that there were not only cases in which front seat occupants sustained injuries caused by direct contact with rear seat passengers, but also cases where front seat occupants received severe injuries due to additional force from rear seat passengers, either impacting directly or indirectly as a result of deformation of the front seat. Severe injuries of front seat occupants were observed in the latter cases. This research validates the importance of seat-belt use for rear seat passengers, not only to protect themselves but also to mitigate injuries of front seat occupants.
The share of high-tensile steel in car bodies has increased over the last years. While occupant safety has generally benefited from this measure, there is a potential risk that, as a result, rescue time may increase considerably. In more than 60% of all car occupant fatalities a technical rescue has been necessary. These are in particular those cases where occupants die immediately at the accident scene. Therefore, in these cases "rescue time" is a very sensitive parameter. In addition to the general analysis of the need of technical rescue and the actual rescue time depending on model years, the injury pattern of occupants requiring technical rescue will be analysed to provide advice for rescue teams. Furthermore, a detailed analysis of rescue measures for the most popular car models depending on the safety cell design is given.
Injuries in motorbike accidents in correlation with protective clothes and mechanism of the accident
(2013)
This study deals with a possible connection between safety clothing / accident mechanism and injury severity in a state-wide traffic accident investigation with focus on light and small motorbike-involvement for accidents in the area of the Saarland in which the persons riding the bike have been injured or killed. An interdisciplinary team of medical scientists and engineers collected the medical and technical data as well as all the relevant traces of the accident on scene and in time. During twenty months of data collection a total of 401 cases could be gathered. Grave injuries were more common for the group of heavier motorcycles (>125 ccm). Motorcyclists had been polytraumatized only in the group where the accident was connected with a collision. Significant correlation between protective clothes and injury severity could only be found for protective gloves and protective trousers. The knowledge about mechanism of the accident, protective clothes and severity of injuries can be helpful for the improvement of road and motorcyclists' safety.
The accident research of Hanover and (from 1999 on) Dresden registered 736 leg injuries (AIS ≥ 2) from 1983 to March 2007. 174 of these injuries (23.6 %) were fractures or dislocations of foot and ankle. 149 feet of 141 front seat car occupants in 140 cars were affected. Of these 117 were drivers, 24 were front seat passengers. The mean age of occupants was 38.5 -± 16.8 years. Ankle fractures were the most frequent injury (n = 82; 80 malleolar fractures, 2 pilon fractures). 34 fractures and dislocations affected the hindfoot (5 talus and 26 calcaneal fractures, 2 subtalar dislocations and 1 subtotal amputation) , 16 to midfoot (4 navicular fractures, 5 cuboid fractures, 3 fractures of cuneiformia, 2 dislocations of chopart joint, 1 subtotal amputation, and one severe decollement) and 39 the forefoot (metatarsal fractures). Open fractures were seldom seen (2 malleolar fractures, 1 metatarsal fracture). Both feet were injured in 10 cases. 33 occupants (23.4 %) were polytaumatic had a polytrauma, 17 of them died. 81 percent of the occupants were belted. The cars were divided in pre EuroNCAP (year of manufacture 1997 and older) and post EuroNCAP cars (year of manufacture 1998 and newer). Most of the foot injuries were seen in pre EuroNCAP cars. Most of the occupants sat in compact cars (40 drivers and 9 front seat passengers) and large family cars (27 drivers and 7 co-drivers). 49 of 140 accidents occurred on country roads, 26 on main roads and 13 on motorways. The crash direction was mostly frontal. Generally were found no differences of delta v- and EES-level between the injured foot regions, but divided into pre- and post-EuroNCAP cars there was a tendency to higher delta v- and EES-levels in newer cars. The frequency of foot injuries increased linearly with increasing delta v-level; but above delta v-level of 55 km/h the linear increase only was seen in pre-EuroNCAP cars, post-EuroNCAP cars showed no further increase of injuries. The footwell intrusion showed no difference between the injured foot regions but pre-EuroNCAP cars had a tendency to higher footwell intrusion. There were no differences in footwell intrusion between the car types. Only 29 of 174 fractures or dislocations of foot were seen in post-EuroNCAP cars, the predominate number of these injuries (n = 145) were noticed in pre-EuroNCAP cars. A lower probability of long-term impairment was found in post-EuroNCAP cars for equal delta v levels, using the AIS2008 associated Functional Capacity Index (FCI) for the foot region.
The number of injuries sustained by car occupants involving the head, thorax, spine, pelvis and the upper limbs have been reduced significantly during recent years. This is probably due to better safety features in the cars, especially the availability and usage of safety belts, airbags etc. Therefore one can notice clinically a relative increase in survivors of severe frontal crashes, but many of them have injuries to the lower extremities. To verify this, we analyzed the foot and ankle injuries of front seat passengers.
This study examines the severity and types of injuries sustained by child pedestrians aged 18 years and below in order to identify the body regions at greatest risk for injury in a pedestrian accident. Detailed medical diagnoses were reviewed retrospectively for 572 child pedestrians admitted to an urban pediatric trauma center with injuries during the time period from January 2001 to December 2005. Eighty percent of these children sustained AIS 2 or greater injuries, most commonly to the lower extremity (41%) and head (34%). Fortyfour percent of admitted children had more significant AIS 3 or greater injuries primarily to the head (58%), thorax (17%) and lower extremities (14%). Testing procedures to assess the child- interaction with the motor vehicle should include injury assessment for the pediatric head, thorax and lower extremities. This understanding of how child pedestrians interact with motor vehicles may provide insight into effective countermeasures with potential for implementation in vehicle designs world-wide.
The number of road accidents in Portugal has decreased significantly in the last decades, however, this tendency is not similar in all types of transportation. In the most recent years and by European standards, Portugal is still one of the leading countries concerning the number of fatalities in Powered Two Wheelers (PTW) accidents. To this effect, the in-depth investigation of PTW accidents is crucial and so, a thorough statistical analysis concerning the main factors influencing PTW riders injury severity accidents was undertaken regarding the 2007-2010 period in the National Road Safety Authority (ANSR) injured riders database using the software SPSS. In addition, to determine the importance of absent factors in the database analysis, such as velocity, a set of 53 real accidents involving PTW were also investigated and computationally reconstructed using the software PC-Crash. Lateral collisions between a motorcycle, its rider and the side of three different passenger cars were also simulated, varying the motorcycle impact angle and velocity in order to estimate the PTW deformation energy and the rider- injuries, as this accident configuration stands out in terms of frequency and even severity. The results of this detailed study are presented.
This study aimed at developing an injury estimation algorithm for AACN technologies for Germany and compared them to findings based on Japanese data. The data to build and to verify the algorithm was obtained from the German in-depth Accident Database (GIDAS) and split into a training and a validation dataset. Significant input variables and the generalized linear regression model to predict severe injuries (ISS>15) were selected to maximize area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Probit regression with the input parameter multiple impact, delta v, seatbelt use and impact direction gave the largest AUC of 0.91. Sensitivity of the algorithm was validated at 90% and specificity at 76% for an injury risk threshold of 2%. It appears that no major differences between Japan and Germany exist for injury estimation based on delta v and impact direction. However, far side impact and multiple crash events appear to be associated with a larger risk increase in the German data.
Recently, EuroNCAP updated the upper legform test protocols. The main objective of this study is to establish the upper legform test in KIDAS (Korean In-depth Accident Study) taking into account domestic pedestrian accident data as well as anthropometric data to protect elderly pedestrians whose average height and weight is much smaller and lighter than other age groups, especially compared to Europeans. Therefore 230 cases of pedestrian accidents from KIDAS were investigated to explore the injury severity of body regions as well as age related injury patterns. Injuries of all body regions were examined, with a special focus on injuries of abdomen and pelvic area. On the other hand, in order to explore Korea's pedestrian accident environment, national police data and KIDAS (Korean In-depth Accident Study) data were compared. The results should be taken into account in future analyses and possible improvements, such as regulations and KNCAP test protocols, of the pedestrian safety policy in Korea.
Europe has benefited from a decreasing number of road traffic fatalities. However, the proportion of older road users increases steadily. In an ageing society, the SENIORS project aims to improve the safe mobility of older road users by determining appropriate requirements towards passive vehicle safety systems. Therefore, the characteristics of road traffic crashes involving the elderly people need to be understood. This paper focuses on car occupants and pedestrians or cyclists in crashes with modern passenger cars. Ten crash databases and four hospital statistics from Europe have been analysed to answer the questions on which body regions are most frequently and severely injured in the elderly, and specific injuries sustained by always comparing older (65 years and above) with midâ€aged road users (25â€64 years). It was found that the body region thorax is of particularly high importance for the older car occupant with injury severities of AIS2 or AIS3+, where as the lower extremities, head and the thorax need to be considered for older pedestrians and cyclists. Further, injury risk functions were provided. The hospital data analysis showed less difference between the age groups. The linkage between crash and hospital data could only be made on a general level as their inclusion criteria were quite different.
The purpose of this work is to investigate the association between the injuries in motorcycle accident and the main accident configurations. The data were provided by a multicentric case-control study MAIDS regarding the risk of crash and injuries of motorcyclists. Chi-square test was used to evaluate the relationship between the variables and a logistic regression was performed to evaluate the association of injury severity with some variables supposed to be predictive factors. Lesive patterns characterized by internal haemorrhages are mainly associated with fronto-lateral crashes, above all in urban areas. Lacerations or abrasions, mainly reported in torso and lower extremities, are mostly associated with single crashes or accidents in queue also for crashes occurred to low speed (< 50 km/h). The severity of injuries is highly associated with impact speed, regardless of the crash configuration. Fractures and haemorrhages play an important role in determining the severity of injuries. The upper extremities are the most frequently traumatised anatomic areas.
Injury probability functions for pedestrians and bicyclists based on real-world accident data
(2017)
The paper is focusing on the modelling of injury severity probabilities, often called as Injury Risk Functions (IRF). These are mathematical functions describing the probability for a defined population and for possible explanatory factors (variables) to sustain a certain injury severity. Injury risk functions are becoming more and more important as basis for the assessment of automotive safety systems. They contribute to the understanding of injury mechanisms, (prospective) evaluation of safety systems and definition of protection criteria or are used within regulation and/or consumer ratings. In all cases, knowledge about the correlation between mechanical behavior and injury severity is needed. IRFs are often based on biomechanical data. This paper is focusing on the derivation of injury probability models from real world accident data of the GIDAS database (German In-depth Accident Study). In contrast to most academic terms there is no explicit term definition or definition of creation processes existing for injury probability models based on empirical data. Different approaches are existing for such kind of models in the field of accident research. There is a need for harmonization in terms of the used methods and data as well as the handling with the existing challenges. These are preparation of the dataset, model assumptions, censored/unknown data, evaluation of model accuracy, definition of dependent and independent variable, and others. In the presented study, several empirical, statistical and phenomenological approaches were analyzed regarding their advantages and disadvantages and also their applicability. Furthermore, the identification of appropriate prediction parameters for the injury severity of pedestrians has been considered. Due to its main effect on injuries of pedestrians and bicyclists, the importance of the secondary impact has also been analyzed. Finally, the model accuracy, evaluated by several criteria, is the rating factor that gives the quality and reliability for application of the resulting models. After the investigation and evaluation of statistical approaches one method was chosen and appropriate prediction variables were examined. Finally, all findings were summarized and injury risk functions for pedestrians in real world accidents were created. Additionally, the paper gives instructions for the interpretation and usage of such functions. The presented results include IRFs for several injury severity levels and age groups. The presented models are based on a high amount of real world accidents and describe very well the injury severity probability of pedestrians and bicyclists in frontal collisions with current vehicles. The functions can serve as basis for the evaluation of effectiveness of systems like Pedestrian-AEB or Bicycle-AEB.
Injury severity of e.g. pedestrians or bikers after crashes with cars that are reversing is almost unknown. However, crash victims of these injuries can frequently be seen in emergency departments and account for a large amount of patients every year. The objective of this study is to analyze injury severity of patients that were crashed into by reversing cars. The Hannover Medical School local accident research unit prospectively documented 43,000 road traffic accidents including 234 crashes involving reversing cars. Injury severity including the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) and the maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) was analyzed as well as the location of the accident. As a result 234 accidents were included into this study. Pedestrians were injured in 141 crashes followed by 70 accidents involving bikers. The mean age of all crash victims was 57 -± 23 years. Most injuries took place on straight stretches (n = 81) as well as parking areas (n = 59), entries (n = 36) or crossroads (n = 24). The AIS of the lower extremities was highest followed by the upper extremities. The AIS of the neck was lowest. The mean MAIS was 1.3 -± 0.6. The paper concludes that the lower extremities show the highest risk to become injured during accidents with reversing cars. However, the risk of severe injuries is likely low.
Novice drivers are at high risk for crash involvement. We performed an analysis of causations, injury patterns and distributions of novice drivers in cars and on motorcycles in road traffic as a basis for proper measurements. Method Data of accident and hospital records of novice drivers (licence < 2 years) were analysed focusing the following parameters: injury type, localisation and mechanism, Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS), maximum AIS (MAIS), delta-v, collision speed and other technical parameters and have been compared to those of experienced drivers. In 18352 accidents in the area of Hannover (years1985"2004), 2602 novice drivers and 18214 experienced drivers were recorded having an accident. Novice car drivers were more often and severe injured than experienced and on motorcycles the experienced riders were at higher risk. Novice drivers of both groups sustained more often extremity injuries. 4.5 % novice car drivers were not restraint compared to 3.7 % of the experienced drivers and 6.1 % novice motorcycle drivers did not wear a proper helmet (versus 6.5 %). Severe injuries sustained at a rate of 20 % at collision speeds below 30 km/h and in 80% at collision speeds above 50 km/h. Novice car drivers drove significant older cars. The risk profile of novice drivers is similar to those of drivers older than 65 years. Structural protection and special lectures like skidding courses could be proper remedial action next to harder punishment of violations.