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.
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.
In-depth road traffic accident research in Spain is a fairly recent activity. In the past, only accident data that had been retrospectively processed by the national and regional traffic police forces was available. In 1999 Applus+IDIADA set up a permanent accident research unit to carry out indepth analysis of road accidents in Spain. Since then accidents involving cars, motorcycles, coaches and vulnerable road users have been thoroughly studied. The Applus+IDIADA accident research team has carried out work for the various traffic polices in Spain and it is currently involved in several research projects in which accidentology is one of the main tasks. The working methodology of the team is presented in the first part of the paper. In the framework of the European research project "Rollover" (GRD2-2001-50086), Applus+IDIADA has collected data, inspected scenarios and performed virtual reconstructions of twenty-six of the total seventy-six rollover accidents studied. The second half of the paper describes how these accident investigations were used to develop a test procedure for identifying possible improvements to the vehicle structure which augment occupant protection in a rollover scenario. In particular, a proposal for a new drop test for rollover assessment is presented. The cases were analysed for severity, in terms of injury to the occupants and damage to the vehicle, and taking into account whether a seatbelt was worn or not. The worst possible cases were identified as those that had severe occupant injuries and sizable damage to the occupant compartment when seatbelts had been worn. The most severe cases were then analysed further for impact position (roll and pitch angles) and the impact velocity. With these parameters taken into account, the most representative combinations could be found. This resulted in a series of configurations for possible drop tests. The results of the tests indicate where passenger vehicle structures need to be improved in order to increase occupant safety in the event of a rollover crash.
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.
Interaction of road environment, vehicle and human factors in the causation of pedestrian accidents
(2005)
The UK On-the-Spot project (OTS) completed over 1500 in-depth investigations of road accidents during 2000-2003 and is continuing for a further 3 years. Cases were sampled from two regions of England using rotating shifts to cover all days of the week and all hours of the day and night. Research teams were dispatched to accidents notified to police during the shifts; arrival time to the scene of the accident was generally less than 20 minutes. The methodology of OTS includes sophisticated systems for describing accident causation and the interaction of road, vehicle and human factors. The purpose of this paper is to describe and illustrate these systems by reference to pedestrian accidents. This type of analysis is intended to provide an insight into how and why pedestrian accidents occur in order to assist the development of effective road, vehicle and behavioural countermeasures.
Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis <Tokyo>rnAbstract: Analyses were conducted to clarify the features of rear-end collisions, using an integrated accident database developed by the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA). Focusing on neck injuries in rear-end collisions, analyses were made of the relation to struck-vehicle properties. Regarding the relation to the initial year of registration, the results did not show that newer vehicles tended to have a lower no-neck-injury rate, which was defined in this study as an index. On the contrary, in some passenger car classes, it was observed that the no-neck-injury rate was higher in newer vehicles. The effect of an active head restraint system, which is one type of anti-whiplash device, was analyzed by using not only the no-neck-injury rate but also a regression analysis. The results showed that the effect of an active head restraint system on suppressing the incidence of neck injuries was statistically significant.rn
76 severe traffic accidents had been investigated in depth in an ongoing Volkswagen-Tongji University joint accident research project in JiaDing district, Shanghai, PR China since June 2005. With a methodology similar to German accident research units in Dresden and Hannover, a research team proceeds to the scene immediately after the incident to investigate and collect various data on environment, accident occurrence, vehicle state and deformations as well as injuries. The data combined with the results of accident reconstruction will be stored in a database for further statistical and casuistic analysis. The first outcome of the project supports the hypothesis that a main causation for the large number of traffic accidents in China is the lacking of risk awareness in Chinese driver behaviour. Low seat-belt use and the high proportion of vulnerable and poorly protected two-wheelers in traffic are reasons for the high injury and fatality rate in China. The research work shows that accident research in China is feasible and able to give support to tackle one of the urging problems in Chinese development.
The "Seven Steps Method" is an analysis and classification system, which describes the human participation factors and their causes in the temporal sequence (from the perceptibility to concrete action errors) taking into consideration the logical sequence of individual basic functions. By means of the "seven steps" it is possible to describe the relevant human causes of accidents from persons involved in the accident in an economic way with a sufficient degree of exactitude, because the causes can be further differentiated in their value (e.g. diversion as external diversion with regard to impact due to surroundings) and their sub values (e.g. external diversion with regard to impact due to surroundings in the shape of a "capture" of the perception by a prominent object of the traffic environment). Theoretically it is possible that one or more causing moments can be assigned to a person involved in an accident in each of the "seven steps"; however it is also possible to sufficiently clarify the cause in only one level (examples for this are described). In the practice of accident investigation at the site of the accident, the sequence chart is also relevant. With its assistance the questioning of the people involved in an accident can be accomplished in a structured way by assigning a set of questions to each step.
The European Union has set a target to reduce all road fatalities (over 40,000) with 50% in 2010. This target percentage remained unchanged with the introduction of the ten new member states within the EU as by May 1st, 2004. According to Eurostat, 34% of all fatalities in 1998 in the, then, fifteen states of the European Union were the result of single vehicle collisions. This represents over 14,000 lives lost each year of which many can likely be saved through better roadside infrastructure design. The challenge for road safety professionals is to find methods and design strategies that help to reduce these casualties. Procedures for full-scale vehicle crash testing of guard rails were first published in the US in 1962. Present European regulation is mainly based on these procedures and later developments. Since then the vehicle fleet has changed considerably. Due to the complexity of the actual safety problem the numerical simulation approach offers a good opportunity to evaluate the different parameters involved in road safety, such as infrastructure properties, vehicle type, vehicle occupants and injuries. The ideal situation would be that simulation tools are coupled or integrated and all involved effects would be related. At the moment this is not the case yet, but initiatives are taken and a new virtual era has started. This paper offers a method looking at two components that encompass the driving environment: the car and the guardrail. As part of the EC-funded project, RISER (Roadside Infrastructure for Safer European Roads) a multi body simulation program study is carried out to determine sensitivities of some parameters in car to guardrail collisions and gives insides in performance of the car with passive safety equipment, the guardrail and the interaction of these objects with each other. By offering a set of methods that includes these two aspects and their intertwining relations, more confidence can be gained in actually reducing fatalities due to single vehicle collisions with, or due to, roadside furniture. Reducing the number of fatalities of single vehicle crashes would contribute greatly to the stated goal of reducing casualties altogether.
Since the compulsory use of child restraints for children up to 5 years of age was introduced in 2000, restraint use among younger children has increased significantly. However, the observed rate of child restraint use plateaus at around 50%, and apparently little spillover effect has been found for older children who are not covered by the law. This report examines the restraint use patterns for children who were injured in cars in relation to driver and child passenger characteristics. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to describe the association between the outcome measure (the proper use of restraints for children) and relevant variables. Better ways for parents and caregivers to improve the use of restraints for children are also discussed.