Sonstige
Im Oktober 2007 wurde die Rügenbrücke, eine der längsten Hochbrücken Europas, für den Verkehr freigegeben. Der Beitrag befasst sich mit den Erfahrungen, die bei Planung und Bau dieses bemerkenswerten Bauwerks gemacht wurden, insbesondere hinsichtlich der vielen bautechnischen Innovationen bei dem Schlüsselbauwerk des Brückenzuges, der 570 m langen Schrägseilbrücke über den Ziegelgraben. Eine der wesentlichen Erstanwendungen für Deutschland betraf die Ausführung der Schrägseile mit Litzenbündeln des Systems DYNA Grip der SUSPA DSI. Wegen des aus Gründen des Vogelschutzes erforderlichen Mindestdurchmessers der Seile von 12 cm waren vollverschlossene Seile aus ingenieurtechnischen und wirtschaftlichen Gründen benachteiligt, sodass sich der Bauherr für Seile aus Litzenbuendeln entschied. Die Schrägseilbrücke über den Ziegelgraben wird schon jetzt als modernes Wahrzeichen der Stadt Stralsund empfunden. Sie passt sich gestalterisch hervorragend in die Umgebung ein und beeinträchtigt auch nicht die zum Weltkulturerbe zählende Altstadt von Stralsund. Besonders besticht das Bauwerk durch seine Leichtigkeit und die Einpassung der Formen der Bauteile, zum Beispiel wegen der tropfenfoermigen Gestaltung des Pylons und der Pfeiler, in das maritime Umfeld. Da die verwendeten Schrägseil-Litzenbündel noch nicht allgemein bauaufsichtlich zugelassen sind, kam der Qualitätssicherung für die Seile in allen Stufen der Planung, Fertigung, Montage und Bauwerksprüfung eine herausragende Bedeutung zu. Der zugehörige Qualitätssicherungsplan wird im Bericht ausführlich mit den wesentlichen \"schrägseilspezifischen\" Maßnahmen beschrieben. Schwingungen und Ermüdungsbeanspruchungen der Seile durch Fahrverkehr und Wind liessen sich durch einen mehrstufigen, kontinuierlich verdichteten Planungsprozess unter Nutzung von Versuchsdaten und Messungen am Bauwerk wirkungsvoll beherrschen. Aus Sicht der Bauwerksprüfung bestanden anfänglich Bedenken wegen der Erreichbarkeit der bis in 80 m Höhe über dem Brückendeck gespannten Schrägseile und der nicht direkt zugänglichen Litzen innerhalb des Hüllrohres sowie der Verankerungen. Daher wurden alle verfügbaren Prüfverfahren für Schrägseile an der Rügenbrücke getestet. Daraus ergab sich eine Prüfmatrix aus Prüfverfahren, Prüfmittel und Prüfumfang für die gesamte Nutzungsdauer. Zusammenfassend wird festgestellt, dass bei der Ziegelgrabenbrücke Schrägseile aus Litzenbündeln eine den vollverschlossenen Seilen ebenbürtige Bauart darstellen.
Verschiedene Maßnahmen zur Verbesserung der Luftqualität in Städten waren bisher bei der Verminderung von Stickoxiden nur bedingt erfolgreich. Interessant ist, ob der Einsatz der Photokatalyse hier weiterhelfen kann. Photokatalytische Anwendungen wurden schon in einigen Pilotstudien untersucht, zum Beispiel an Straßen beziehungsweise Modell-Canyons sowie in Tunneln. Teilweise wurden international sehr positive Ergebnisse erzielt, geichzeitig liegen aus anderen internationalen Projekten Ergebnisse unterhalb der Messgenauigkeit vor. Die vorgestellten Ergebnisse werden anhand verschiedener Variablen betrachtet und die erwartbare Atmosphärenrelevanz diskutiert. Zusammengefasst wird, dass basierend auf bekannten Feldmessungen für die Photokatalyse eine mittlere NOx-Reduktion von nur wenigen Prozent (in Hauptstraßenschluchten) zu erwarten ist. Dieses Potenzial muss mit anderen Maßnahmen verglichen werden (Kosten/Nutzenanalyse). Materialien müssen vor ihrem Einsatz in der Atmosphäre sorgfältig auf ihre Aktivität untersucht werden. Erfüllen die Oberflächen die Voraussetzungen, um als aktiv eingestuft zu werden, ist ihr Einsatz zur Luftreinhaltung klar zu empfehlen.
This study aimed at comparing head Wrap Around Distance (WAD) of Vulnerable Road User (VRU) obtained from the German in-depth Accident Database (GIDAS), the China in-depth Accident Database (CIDAS) and the Japanese in-depth Accident Database (ITARDA micro). Cumulative distribution of WAD of pedestrian and cyclist were obtained for each database (AIS2+) showing that WAD of cyclists were larger than the ones of pedestrians. Comparing three regions, the 50%tile WAD of GIDAS was larger than that of both Asian accident databases. Using linear regression that might predict WAD of pedestrians and cyclists from Impact speed and VRU height, WADs were calculated to be 206cm/219cm (Pedestrian/Cyclist) for GIDAS, 170cm/192cm for CIDAS and 211cm/235cm for ITARDA. In addition, this study may be helpful for reconsideration of WAD measurement alignment between accident reconstruction and test procedures.
Since 2008, the authors inspected fatal traffic accidents on the spot every year, with the cooperation of Toyota police station in Aichi pref. In the jurisdiction, numbers of fatal accidents were 18 in 2008, 12 in 2009, 14 accidents in 2010, and 16 in 2011. We here report the results of our analysis of information obtained by detailed inspection for those that occurred from 2008 to 2010. We focused on vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents, which accounted for about 45% of all accidents in 2008. Because many accidents occurred on residential roads not far from pedestrians" homes, it was revealed that the decrease of the collision speed by traffic calming such as humps and zone speed management, was highly effective. On the other hand, pedestrian detection technologies seemed to be also effective as a countermeasure on vehicle side. Every pedestrian position against a vehicle was clarified and TTC (Time to Collision) was calculated provisionally. Pedestrian accidents in intersections were also examined. Among the intersection pedestrian accidents within the jurisdiction, compared with the national average in Japan, the ratio of intersections without a signal and the ratio without a pedestrian crossing were high. According to the comparison of the Japanese traffic accident patterns between 2001 and 2008, pedestrian accidents during turning right and turning left did not decrease much. For elderly drivers, these accidents occurred very often. Finally, single vehicle accidents were analysed with the accident pattern analysis methods used above. There were high numbers of single vehicle accidents against object on single roads. Although fatal accidents against guardrails decreased, the numbers of fatal accidents against a utility pole and a sign pole were nearly constant. As for the impact with narrow width objects such as utility poles, the fatality rate was very high, and countermeasures of both road infrastructure and vehicles seem to be effective.
Driver distraction
(2017)
This report for the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) summarises recent research and knowledge from scientific studies about distracted driving. The report defines what it means to be "distracted" when driving, discusses the impact of distraction on driver behaviour and safety, and what can be done to reduce distracted driving. The focus of distraction discussed here relates to how drivers engage with technology when driving. The report begins with a background to driver distraction, followed by discussion about what is actually meant by driver distraction. It is then considered why humans cannot successfully do two things at the same time, particularly within the context of driving. The subsequent section summarises the scientific research findings to date with regard to driver distraction and technology, and how this affects different types of road user. Recommendations for how driver distraction can be mitigated in the real world and a summary conclude the report. Responses to common questions raised by drivers are presented in Appendix A.
Die Klinik für Frührehabilitation und Geriatrie, Westküstenklinikum Heide ist Bestandteil eines Kooperationsnetzwerks und wirkt am Erhalt der Mobilität und Autonomie älterer Verkehrsteilnehmer im Landkreis Dithmarschen mit. Die Zusammenarbeit mit Seniorenbeiräten, Landesverkehrswacht, Fachdiensten, Polizei-Dienststellen, Ärzten und Psychologen sowie Fahrlehrern ermöglicht eine breite Datenerfassung zum Thema ältere Kraftfahrer, insbesondere zu ihrem Unfallgeschehen.
In einer Stichprobe von 75-jährigen Autofahrern, die in der geriatrischen Tagesklinik der Klinik für Frührehabilitation und Geriatrie rehabilitiert wurden, fanden sich relativ häufig kognitive Beeinträchtigungen, die auf das Vorliegen einer beginnenden Demenz zurückgeführt werden konnten. Darüber hinaus bestanden Störungen des Dämmerungssehens und der Sehschärfe. Auch wurde Multimorbidität diagnostiziert. Bei einer großen Gruppe (46 %) dieser Patienten war zu Behandlungsbeginn die Fahreignung nicht gegeben, und nur 29 % der Untersuchten konnte eine uneingeschränkte Fahreignung attestiert werden. Gezielte rehabilitative Interventionen trugen dazu bei, dass im Behandlungsverlauf die Fahreignung zumindest eingeschränkt wieder erreicht werden konnte.
Despite the steadily declining number of pedestrian fatalities and injuries in most European countries during recent decades, pedestrian protection is still of great importance in the European Union as well as in Germany. This is because they still constitute a large proportion of road user casualties and are more likely to suffer serious and fatal injuries than most other road users. In 1999 only car occupants suffered more fatal injuries than pedestrians in Germany. In December 1998, EEVC WG 17 completed their review and updating of the EEVC WG 10 pedestrian test procedure that made it possible to evaluate the protection afforded to pedestrians by the front of passenger cars in an accident. Within the scope of this procedure, four different impactors are used representing those parts of the body which are injured very often and/or very seriously in vehicle-pedestrian-collisions. In a project executed by IKA and BASt, a small family car was tested according to the EEVC WG 17 test procedure. Afterwards modifications to the car were carried out in order to improve the pedestrian protection provided by the vehicle design. There were certain restrictions placed on the level of modifications undertaken, e.g. only minor modifications to vehicle styling and to the vehicle structures, which provide passenger protection. The redesigned vehicle was tested again using the WG 17 test procedure. The test results of the modified vehicle were compared with those of the standard vehicle and evaluated. The results show that considered measures for pedestrian protection in many areas of the vehicle front structure and the use of innovative techniques can lead to a significant reduction of the loads of pedestrians at an acceptable expense.
With an ever rising human life expectancy the share of elderly people in society is constantly rising. This leads to the fact that at the same rate the share of people with age related diseases such as dementia and poor eyesight taking part in traffic will rise and therefore traffic accidents caused by this group of people due to the disease will play an ever greater role. This Situation will be among the future challenges of road safety work. At present this study displays specific characteristics of accidents caused by elderly car drivers (aged 65 or higher) based on the analysis of the German In-Depth Accident Study GIDAS. Herein almost 1000 elderly car drivers were identified as accident participants in the years 2008 to 2011. The focus of this study lies on identifying special types of accidents which are caused by elderly drivers and on characterizing these types with the information gathered on scene and by interviewing the participants. The main evidence analyzed is the knowledge about the accident locality, the trajectories of the participants as well as the reasons for the occurrence of the accidents. Furthermore personal information such as the personal condition before the accident and driving purposes is used to identify patterns of contributing circumstances for accidents caused by elderly traffic participants.
In the context of this study, different data sources for accident research were examined regarding their possible data access and evaluated concerning the individual quality and extent of the data. Analyses of accidents require detailed and comprehensive information in particular concerning vehicle damages, injury patterns and descriptions of the accident sequence. The police documentation supplies the basic accident statistics and is amended in the context of the forensic treatment by further information, e.g. by medical and technical appraisals and witness questionings. As a new approach to the data acquisition for the analysis of fatal traffic accidents, the information was made usable which was collected by the police and by the investigations of the public prosecutor. The best strategy for obtaining reliable, extensive and complete data consists of combining the information from these two sources: the very complete, but elementary statistic data of the Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Statistik (Lower Saxony State Authority of Statistics), based on the police documentation as well as the very extensive accident information resulting from the investigation documentation of the public prosecutor after conclusion of the procedure, the so-called Court Records. Of all 715 fatal traffic accidents, which happened in the year 2003 in the German State of Lower Saxony, 238 cases were selected by means of a statistically coincidental selective procedure based on a statistically representative manner (every third accident). These cases cover the investigation documents of the 11 responsible public prosecutor- offices, which were requested and evaluated while preserving the data security. Of the 238 cases 202 cases were available, which were individually coded and stored in a data base using 160 variables. Thus a data base of a sample of representative data for fatal accidents in Lower Saxony was set up. The data base contains extensive information concerning general accident data (35 variables), concerning road and road surface data (30 variables), concerning vehicle-specific data (68 variables) as well as concerning personal and injury data (27 variables).
Within the COST Action TU1101 the working group WG 1 is dealing with acceptance criteria and problems in helmet use while bicycling concerning conspicuity, thermal stress, ventilation deficits and other potential confounding. To analyze the helmet usage practice of bicyclists in Europe a questionnaire was developed in the scope of working group 1 to collect relevant information by means of a field study. The questionnaire consists of some 66 questions covering the fields of personal data of the cyclist, riding und helmet usage habits, information concerning the helmet model and the sensation of the helmet, as well as information on previous bicycle accidents. A second complementary study is conducted to analyze if the use of a bicycle helmet influences the seating geometry and the posture of cyclists when riding a bicycle and if the if the helmet vertically limits the vision. For this purpose cyclists with and without helmets were photographed in real world situations and relevant geometrical values such as the decline of the torso, the head posture of the upper vertical vision limit due to the helmet were established from the photos. The interim results of the field studies which were conducted in Germany by the Hannover Medical School are presented in this study. Some 227 questionnaires were filled out, of which 67 participants had used a helmet and 42 of the 227 participants have had a bicycle accident before. For the analysis of the riding position and posture of the cyclist over 40 pictures of riders with a helmet and over 240 pictures of riders without a helmet were measured concerning the seating geometry to describe the influence of using a bicycle helmet. Some results in summary: From the riders interviewed with the questionnaire only 11% of the city bike riders and 12% of the mountain bike riders always used the helmet, while 38% of the racing bike riders and 88% of the e-bike-riders always used the helmet. The helmet use seems not to change the sensation of safety of cycling compared to the use of a car. The arguments for not wearing a helmet are mostly stated to be the short distance of a trip, high temperatures or carelessness and waste of time. The reasons for using a helmet are stated to be the feeling of safety and being used to using a helmet. Being a role model for others was also stated to be a reason for helmet use. Concerning the sensation of the helmet 9% of the riders reported problems with the field of vision when using a helmet, 57% saw the problem of sweating too much, and 10% reported headaches or other unpleasant symptoms like pressure on the forehead when using the helmet. The analysis of the seating posture from the pictures taken of cyclists revealed that older cyclists generally have a riding position where the handle bar is higher than the seat (0-° to 10-° incline from seat to handlebar), while younger riders had a higher variance (between -10-° decline and 20-° incline). Further, elderly riders and riders with helmets seem to have a more upright position of the upper body when cycling. The vertical vision limit due to the helmet is determined by the front rim of the helmet (mostly the sun shade). Typical values here range from 0-° (horizontal line from the eye to the sun shade) to 75-° upwards, in which elderly riders tend to have a slightly higher vertical vision limit possibly due to the helmet being worn more towards the face.
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.
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.
Since a number of human models have been developed it appears sensible to use these models also in the accident analysis. Especially the understanding of injury mechanisms and probably even injury risk curves can be significantly improved when interesting accidents are reconstructed using human body models. However, an important limitation for utilising human models for accident reconstruction is the effort needed to develop detailed FE models of the accident partners or to prepare the human model reconstruction by running physical accident reconstructions. The proposed approach for using human models for accident reconstruction is to use simplified and parametric car models. These models can be adapted to the crash opponents in a fast and cost effective way. Although, accuracy is less compared to detailed FE models, the relevant change in velocity can be simulated well, indicating that the computation of a detailed crash pulse is not needed. Two frontal impact test accidents that were reconstructed experimentally and using the parametric car models are indicating sufficient correlation of the adapted parametric car models with the full scale crash reconstructions. However, further developments of the parametric models to be capable for the use in lateral impacts and rear impacts are needed. For the PC Crash simulation runs the output sampling rate is too large to allow sufficient analysis. In addition the performance appears to be too general.
Within the process of integrating passenger airbags in the vehicle fleet a problem of compatibility between the passenger airbag and rear-facing child restraint systems was recognised. Especially in the US several accidents with children killed by the passenger airbag were recorded. Taking into account these accidents the deactivation of a present passenger airbag is mandatory if a child is carried in a rear-facing child restraint system at the front passenger seat in all member states of the European Union. This rule is in force since the deadline of 2003/20/EC at the latest. In the past a passenger airbag either could not be disabled or could only be disabled by a garage. Today there are a lot of different possibilities for the car driver himself to disable the airbag. Solutions like an on/off-switch or the automatic detection of a child restraint system are mentioned as an example. Taking into account the need for the deactivation of front passenger airbags two types of misuse can occur: transportation of an infant while the airbag is (still) enabled and transportation of an adult, while the airbag is disabled, respectively. Within a research project funded by BASt both options of misuse were analysed utilising two different types of surveys amongst users (field observations and interviews, Internet-questionnaires). In addition both analysis of accident data and crash tests for an updated assessment of the injury risk caused by the front passenger airbag were conducted. Both surveys indicate a low risk of misuse. Most of the misuse cases were observed in older cars, which offer no easy way to disable the airbag. For systems, which detect a child seat automatically, no misuse could be found. The majority of misuses in cars equipped with a manual switch were caused by reasons of oblivion. Also the accident analysis indicates a minor risk of misuse. From more than 300 cases of the GIDAS accident sample that were analysed, only 24 children were using the front passenger seat in cars equipped with a front passenger airbag. In most of these cases the airbag was deactivated. When misuse occurred the injury severity was low. However, when analysing German single accidents the fatality risk caused by the front passenger airbag became obvious. From the technical point of view, there were important changes in the design of passenger airbags in recent years. Not only volume and shape were modified, but also the mounting position of the entire airbag module was changed fundamentally. Even if these findings do not allow obtaining general conclusions, a clear tendency of less danger by airbags could be identified. For future vehicle development a safe combination of airbags and rear faced baby seats seems to be possible in the long term. This would mean that both types of misuse could be eliminated. For parents an easier use of child seat and car would be the result.
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.
For the assessment of vehicle safety in frontal collisions, the crash compatibility between the colliding vehicles is crucial. Compatibility compromises both the self protection and the partner protection properties of vehicles. For the accident data analysis, the CCIS (GB) and GIDAS (DE) in-depth data bases were used. Selection criteria were frontal car accidents with car in compliance with ECE R94. For this study belted adult occupants in the front seats sustaining MAIS 2+ injuries were studied. Following this analysis FIMCAR concluded that the following compatibility issues are relevant: - Poor structural interaction (especially low overlap and over/underriding) - Compartment strength - Frontal force mismatch with lower priority than poor structural interaction In addition injuries arising from the acceleration loading of the occupant are present in a significant portion of frontal crashes. Based on the findings of the accident analysis the aims that shall be addressed by the proposed assessment approach were defined and priorities were allocated to them. The aims and priorities shall help to decide on suitable test procedures and appropriate metrics. In general it is anticipated that a full overlap and off-set test procedure is the most appropriate set of tests to assess a vehicle- frontal impact self and partner protection.
When assessing the consequences of accidents normally the injury severity and the damage costs are considered. The injury severity is either expressed within the police categories (slight injury, severe injury or fatal injury) or the AIS code that rates the fatality risk of a given injury. Both injury metrics are assessing the consequences of the accident directly after the accident. However, not all consequences of accidents are visible directly after the accident and the duration of the consequences are different. Besides a physiological reduction of functionality social and psychological implications such as reduced mobility options, problems to continue the original job etc. are happening. In order to assess long term consequences of accidents the MHH Accident Research Unit established a brief questionnaire that is distributed to accident involved people of the Hannover subset of the GIDAS data set approx. one year after the accident beginning with the accident year 2013. The basic idea of using a brief questionnaire (in fact only one page) is to obtain a relatively large return rate because the questionnaire appears to be simple and quickly answered. This appears to be important because it is believed that the majority of accident involved people will not report long term consequences. In order to allow a more detailed survey amongst those responders that are reporting long term consequences they are asked for a written consent for the additional questionnaire that will be distributed at a time that is not yet defined. Long term consequences are reported for all addressed areas, medical, physiological, psychological and sociological by people without injuries, with minor injuries and with severe injuries.
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.
Accidents with vulnerable road users require special attention within the road safety work because these accidents are often accompanied with severe injuries. Thus In 2006 at least 6200 Powered Two Wheeler (PTW) riders were killed in road crashes in the EU 25 representing 16% of the total number of road deaths while accounting for only 2% of the total kilometers driven. For the prevention of accidents with VRU above all the knowledge of the causes of the accidents is of special importance. This study is based on the methodology of the German In-Depth Accident Study GIDAS. Within GIDAS extensive data on various fields of accidentology are collected on-scene from road traffic accidents with injuries in the Hannover and Dresden area. Using a well defined sample plan the collected data is highly representative to the whole German situation (Brühning et al, Otte et al). The need of in-depth accident causation data in accident research led to the development of a special tool for the collection of such data called ACASS (Accident Causation Analysis with Seven Steps), which was implemented in the GIDAS methodology in 2008 and described by Otte in 2009.
Das Führen von Kraftfahrzeugen der Klasse 2 ist entsprechend der Fahrerlaubnisverordnung nach mehr als zwei epileptischen Anfällen ausgeschlossen. Als Ausnahme gilt eine durch ärztliche Kontrolle nachgewiesene fünfjährige Anfallsfreiheit ohne antiepileptische Behandlung. Im vorliegenden Fall wies ein Lkw-Fahrer mindestens vier epileptische Anfälle auf, eine fünfjaehrige Anfallsfreiheit ohne Medikamente unter ärztlicher Kontrolle ließ sich nicht feststellen. Der letzte Anfall führte zu einem Verkehrsunfall mit anschließendem Gerichtsverfahren. Ursächlich für den Unfall war am ehesten die abgesetzte Medikation. Ein Verfahren hinsichtlich der Ungeeignetheit zum Führen von Kraftfahrzeugen der Klasse 2 wurde eingeleitet.
Das Unfallrisiko junger Fahrer - Bestandsaufnahme und Überlegungen zu wirksamen Gegenmaßnahmen
(2010)
Junge Fahrer - vor allem männlichen Geschlechts - haben ein überdurchschnittlich hohes Unfallrisiko. Der Straßenverkehrsunfall ist Todesursache Nummer eins für Jugendliche. Sie haben unter der Bevölkerung den größten Anteil an verlorenen Lebensjahren. Besonders gefährdet sind Motorradfahrer. An Wochenenden und nachts ist die Unfallwahrscheinlichkeit und -häufigkeit extrem. Auch in Ländern, die hohe Anstrengungen unternehmen, um die Sicherheit im Straßenverkehr zu erhöhen und insgesamt erfolgreich sind, zeigt sich, dass die 18- bis 24-Jährigen häufiger verunfallen als die übrigen Verkehrsteilnehmer und schwerere Folgen davontragen. Die jugendliche Persönlichkeit hat einen prädominanten Einfluss auf das Fahrverhalten. Hintergründe dafür sind die hohe Risikobereitschaft, das Spannungs- und Reizbedürfnis, der Wunsch, Grenzen auszuloten sowie Gruppeneinflüsse oder Renommierverhalten. Daneben spielt allerdings auch die geringe Erfahrung eine Rolle, die zu dreierlei Problemen führen kann: - Neulenker sehen oft die Gefahr nicht, in welcher sie sich befinden, oder - sie unterschätzen die wahrgenommene Gefahr,oder - sie ueberschätzen ihre Fahrkunst und glauben, die Gefahr meistern zu können. In den letzten Jahren wurden in verschiedenen Ländern jedoch auch Fortschritte erzielt. Empfehlenswerte Maßnahmen ergeben sich bei der Ausbildung, wo neue Methoden angewandt werden, eine zweite Phase eingeführt wurde, spezielle Kampagnen konzipiert werden oder fahrzeugtechnische Modifikationen veranlasst wurden. Auch die Nachschulung für junge Lenker, wo nötig, zeitigt Wirkung. Weitere Anstrengungen sind je nach Land oder Region notwendig, insbesondere hinsichtlich der Hauptursachen für schwere Unfälle: Geschwindigkeit, Alkohol und Nicht-Anlegen des Sicherheitsgurtes. Hier lassen sich besondere Maßnahmen für Neulenker vorsehen. Daneben müssen gesellschaftliche Einflüsse, etwa die Wirkung der Automobilwerbung und -berichterstattung auf Jugendliche, berücksichtigt werden.
Zum besseren Verständnis der Hirnleistungsanforderungen an das Autofahren wird ein Theorie-Modell erörtert, das aus folgenden drei Stufen in einer Hierarchie besteht: Die oberste Ebene ist die strategische Ebene, die mittlere die taktische und die untere die operationale Ebene. Bezogen auf den Straßenverkehr gehört zu den Entscheidungen auf strategischer Ebene beispielsweise die Überlegung, ob man überhaupt das Auto nehmen muss oder nicht. Hierzu gehört auch die Überlegung, ob man sich grundsätzlich an Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungen halten will. Charakteristisch für strategische Entscheigungen ist, dass sie prinzipiell getroffen werden, bevor sie in konkretes Handeln umgesetzt werden. Bei den taktischen Entscheidungen geht es ausschließlich um eigenes initiatives Handeln aus der Person selbst heraus ohne äußeren Zwang oder Veranlassung (beispielsweise Überholmanöver, Abbiegen). Zu den operationalen Entscheidungen gehört jedes Reagieren auf äußere Erfordernisse (Beachten von Ampeln und sonstigen Verkehrszeichen, erzwungene Lenk- oder Bremsmanöver). Die meisten neuropsychologischen Untersuchungen beziehungsweise Tests prüfen die operationale Entscheidungsebene. Für die beiden höheren Ebenen ist eine Beurteilung nur möglich, wenn eine entsprechende Beurteilungsgrundlage vorhanden ist oder herangezogen werden kann (zum Beispiel eine praktische Fahrprobe). Die geistigen Fähigkeiten eines Menschen lassen sich ebenfalls in eine dreistufige Hierarchie gliedern: Die unterste Ebene umfasst Hirnleistungen wie Wahrnehmung, Aufmerksamkeit, Sprache, Denken und anderes mehr. Die mittlere Ebene wird konstituiert durch Ziele-Auswahl, Vorplanung, Antizipation als geistige Vorwegnahme der Handlungskonsequenz. Die höchste Hirnfunktion ist die objektive selbstreferenzielle Bewertung, die sich auf Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft erstrecken kann.
There is a need for detecting characteristics of pedestrian movement before car-pedestrian collisions to trigger a fully reversible pedestrian protection system. For this purpose, a pedestrian sensor system has been developed. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the sensor system, the in-depth knowledge of car-pedestrian impact scenarios is needed. This study aims at the evaluation of the sensor system. The accident data are selected from the STRADA database. The accident scenarios available in this database were evaluated and the knowledge of the most common scenarios was developed in terms of the pedestrian trajectory, the pedestrian speed, the car trajectory, the car velocity, etc. A mathematical model was then established to evaluate the sensor system with different detective angles. It was found that in order to detect all the pedestrians in the most common scenarios on time the sensor detective angle must be kept larger than 60 degrees.
Nowadays human-created systems are increasing in complexity due to the interaction of humans and technology. Especially road traffic systems are composed of multitudinous resources (e.g. personnel, vehicles, organizations, etc.), which make it even harder to anticipate the positive and negative effects on safety. One key in achieving a significant reduction of fatalities is seen in driver assistant systems counterbalancing the lack of drivers' capabilities. But the actual outcome of implementing these sophisticated technologies especially on influencing driver's capabilities are yet unknown. Latest research exemplifies an increase of reaction times of drivers in case of dysfunctional driver assistant systems. This research paper applies STAMP/STPA (STAMP = systems-theoretic accident model and processes; STPA = systems-theoretic process analysis) to the German automobile traffic system focusing on the effects of driver assistant systems on drivers. By doing so, the potential hazards caused by technology can be identified.
The proportion of older road users is increasing because of demographic change (in the group 65+ from current 18% to about 24% by 2030). The mobility needs of people 65+ often differ from those of younger people. Seniors (65+) are already more involved in fatal accidents than younger road users. According to the age development, the senior share of road deaths in the EU of today is increasing nearly one-fifth to one-third. From the in-depth analysis of accidents generic simulation models were developed. Attention has been paid both to psycho-physical characteristics as well as on the social and physical environment and their specifics in conjunction with seniors. By simulating the defined scenarios and varying the defined relevant parameters, accident influencing factors were examined as a basis for avoidance. In addition, the parameters were varied to show the influence from the vehicle, the pedestrian and the infrastructure to avoid the accident or to characterize the conditions for which the accident is inevitable.
In a first step, we have examined approximately 23 000 single vehicle accidents within the Austrian National Statistics database. In a second step, we considered 15% of all fatal "running off the road" accidents that occurred in Austria in 2003. As a result, two accident categories were specified; "leaving the road without preceding manoeuvre" and "leaving the road with preceding manoeuvre". These two categories can be basically characterised by the vehicle- heading angle and its velocity angle. In this report, we further suggest theoretical approaches for the dimensioning of a safety zone, an area adjacent to the road free of fixed objects or dangerous slopes. We also show the link between the two accident categories mentioned above and the real world accidents analysed in detail. These observations also form the basis for the required length for safety devices. Finally, we summarise accident avoidance strategies.
The objective of this study was to identify aspects of the individual experience and behaviour of drivers in intersection accidents. A total of 40 accident drivers sketched their ideas and expectations relating to intersection assistance using the method of Structure Formation Technique. Using this method prepared content cards and relation cards for a subject matter are formed together in a structure through the application of an explicit set of rules. The structures generated in this process were compared with the structures of 20 control persons who have not recently experienced an accident at intersections. The basis for this comparison was a case-control design with matched samples regarding the variables age, sex, education, occupation, driving experience and annual mileage. The results of the accident reports indicate that additional assistance is instrumental in the perception of other road users. Generally the interviewed drivers were open-minded towards the use of intersection assistance systems. Drivers who have recently experienced an accident at intersections significantly more often approved of warning assistance in their vehicle than drivers who have not recently experienced an accident. Further accident experienced drivers favoured warning and information via audio warning more frequently. The ideas of the drivers were strongly shaped by the experiences with already available advanced driver assistance systems. Hence acoustic and visual warnings were generally preferred to tactile warnings. The findings also indicate a relationship between the variable age and the acceptance of automatic vehicle intervention, and the suggestion of a head up display as a configuration of a visual warning system.
This study investigates the protection offered by passive head-restraints with different stiffness and energy dissipation properties. For this purpose, computational multi-body models of a generic car seat and a biofidelic 50thpercentile male human for rear impact are used to study different seat designs and passive head-restraints. The validated seat-occupant model is also used in the design of two different car-seat models which are shown to effectively mitigate whiplash by utilising a crash-energy distribution technique. Five different passive head-restraints with varying stiffness (low-medium-high) and energy dissipation percentages (low-high) are successively attached to four different car-seat models. The simulation results indicate that the protection offered by head restraints is strongly dependent on the seat design. It has also been shown that the stiffness of the passive head-restraint has much more influence on whiplash-risk in comparison to its energy dissipation capacity.
Die Europäischen Normen für Erdarbeiten werden im CEN/TC 396 "Earthworks" erarbeitet. Das Sekretariat des CEN/TC 396 wird vom französischen Normungsinstitut AFNOR gehalten. Die Normungsarbeit wird im DIN-Ausschuss NA 005-05-22 AA "Erdarbeiten (SpA zu CEN/TC 396), Gemeinschaftsausschuss mit FGSV GA 5.01" gespiegelt. Vertreter des Spiegelausschusses arbeiten in den verschiedenen Arbeitsgruppen (Working Groups (WG)) des CEN/TC 396 mit. In den Jahren 2009 und 2010 wurden die Gremien konstituiert und mit der Normungsarbeit begonnen, zunächst überwiegend durch die Zusammenstellung der vorhandenen Regelungen in den Mitgliedsstaaten (siehe auch Beitrag Vogel/Leister/Heyer zur Erd- und Grundbautagung 2013). Im November 2014 wurden vom CEN/TC 396 die Arbeitsaufträge ("work items") offiziell gestartet.
Die Europäischen Normen für Erdarbeiten werden im CEN/TC 396 "Earthworks" erarbeitet. Das Sekretariat des CEN/TC 396 wird vom französischen Normungsinstitut AFNOR gehalten. Die Normungsarbeit wird im DIN-Ausschuss NA 005-05-22 AA "Erdarbeiten (SpA zu CEN/TC 396), Gemeinschaftsausschuss mit FGSV GA 5.01" gespiegelt. Vertreter des Spiegelausschussesarbeiten in den verschiedenen Arbeitsgruppen (working groups (WG)) des CEN/TC 396 mit. In den Jahren 2009 und 2010 wurden die Gremien konstituiert und mit der Normungsarbeit begonnen, zunächst überwiegend durch die Zusammenstellung der vorhandenen Regelungen in den Mitgliedsstaaten (siehe auch Beitrag Vogel/Leister/Heyer zur Erd- und Grundbautagung 2013). Im November 2014 wurden vom CEN/TC 396 die Arbeitsaufträge("work items") offiziell gestartet.
In most of developed countries, the progress made in passive safety during the last three decades allowed to drastically reduce the number of killed and severely injured especially for occupants of passenger cars. This reduction is mainly observed for frontal impacts for which the AIS3+ injuries has been reduced about 52% for drivers and 38% for front passengers. The stiffening of the cars' structure coupled with the generalization of airbags and the improvement of the seatbelt restraint (load limiter, pretension, etc.) allowed to protect vital body regions such as head, neck and thorax. However, the abdomen did not take advantage with so much success of this progress. The objective of this study is to draw up an inventory on the abdominal injuries of the belted car occupants involved in frontal impact, to present adapted counter-measures and to assess their potential effectiveness. In the first part the stakes corresponding to the abdominal injuries will be defined according to types of impact, seat location, occupants' age and type of injured organs. Then, we shall focus on the abdominal injury risk curves for adults involved in frontal impact and on the comparisons of the average risks according to the seat location. In the second part we will list counter-measures and we shall calculate their effectiveness. The method of case control will be used in order to estimate odds ratio, comparing two samples, given by occupants having or not having the studied safety system. For this study, two type of data sources are used: national road injured accident census and retrospective in-depth accident data collection. Abdominal injuries are mainly observed in frontal impact (52%). Fatal or severe abdominal occupant- injuries are observed at least in 27% of cases, ranking this body region as the most injured just after the thorax (51%). In spite of a twice lower occupation rate in the back seats compared to the front seats, the number of persons sustaining abdominal injuries at the rear place is higher than in the front place. In recent cars, the risk of having a serious or fatal abdominal injury in a frontal impact is 1.6% for the driver, 3.6% for the front passenger and 6.3% for the rear occupants. The most frequently hurt organs are the small intestine (17%), the spleen (16%) and the liver (13%). The most common countermeasures have a good efficiency in the reduction of the abdominal injuries for the adults: the stiffness of the structure of the seats allows decreasing the abdominal injury risk from 54% (driver) to 60% (front occupant), the seatbelt pretensioners decrease also this risk from 90% (driver) to 83% (front passenger).
Rollovers continue to be a major source of heavy truck fatalities when compared to other accident modes. Real world rollover accidents are analyzed and two distinct damage patterns are identified. Damage to heavy truck roofs can occur from lateral loading that transitions to vertical roof loading as the vehicle rolls onto its side and then over onto its roof. A second load path can occur when the vehicle has rolled onto its side and furrows into the ground generating large longitudinal friction forces between the roof and ground. A review of the previous literature and various test methodologies are presented. A sled impact test methodology is presented which allows for structural assessment of a heavy truck cab's crashworthiness in both of these loading environments. Two test series are presented using the sled impact test methodology in order to analyze real world truck rollovers using varying impact platen and contact angles. The structural deformation and failure patterns were found to be consistent with damage seen in real world accident vehicles. In each case, a second equivalent truck cab was then reinforced and tested under similar conditions to evaluate the energy management and crush resistance of a stronger cab structure. These structural reinforcements demonstrated a substantial reduction in roof crush and protected the survival space of the occupant compartment. The sled impact test procedure is an effective method for testing the structural performance of a heavy truck cab in a variety of loading scenarios comparable to real world accidents and ascertaining the load and energy load levels in these accident modes.
Diese Studie erfolgte als eine erste Prüfung der Frage, ob 0,1 Promille als Sicherheitszuschlag für eine Bestimmung eines Blutalkoholwertes von 0,1 Promille aus Gründen der Messunsicherheit angebracht und ausreichend ist. Beides trifft zu. Obwohl zur Zeit der Studie noch nicht bei oder unter 0,2 Promille kalibriert wurde, bestimmten alle Labors eine Blutalkoholkonzentration von 0,08 Promille mit einem Wert unter 0,18 g/L (Cmax ADH: 0,15 g/L = CmaxGC: 0,15 g/L = Blutalkoholkonzentration (BAK) von 0,12 Promille). Es bestand kein Bias zwischen beiden Verfahren. Festgestellte Standabweichungen: ADH: 0,021 g/L, GC: 0,025 g/L. Ein Sicherheitszuschlag von 0,1 Promille auf 0,1 Promille umfasst demnach vier Standardabweichungen und bietet für die neue Regelung im Paragrafen 24 Straßenverkehrsgesetz (StVG) bei der richtliniengemäß ausgeführten forensischen Blutalkoholbestimmung genügend Analysensicherheit.
Der Beitrag setzt sich mit folgenden Fragestellungen auseinander: 1. Stellen ältere Kraftfahrer ein Sicherheitsrisiko für den Straßenverkehr dar? 2. Wie wurden diese Frage und die "Fahreignung und Fahrtüchtigkeit älterer Kraftfahrer" in den vergangenen 50 Jahren wissenschaftlich bewertet - insbesondere bei Kongressen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Verkehrsmedizin und den Deutschen Verkehrsgerichtstagen? 3. Wie haben in den vergangenen 50 Jahren Juristen, Behörden und Gesetzgeber die "Fahreignung älterer Kraftfahrer" gesehen und umgesetzt? 4. Werden morbiditäts- und altersbedingte Beeinträchtigungen der Leistungsfähigkeit rechtzeitig und richtig durch ältere Kraftfahrer erkannt? 5. Wie gehen ältere Kraftfahrer mit erkannten Leistungsmängeln um? 6. Benötigen ältere Verkehrsteilnehmer Aufklärung, Beratung, Fortbildung und Vorsorge- oder Kontrolluntersuchungen? Insgesamt kann festgestellt werden, dass allein aus normalem Altersabbau und hohem Alter kein Rückschluss auf die Fahruntauglichkeit gezogen werden kann. Das wichtigste gesellschaftliche Ziel für die Teilnahme älterer Menschen am Straßenverkehr ist - angesichts der demographischen Entwicklung - die Einsichtsfähigkeit in das altersbedingt verminderte Leistungsvermögen und den Veränderungswillen zu Kompensationsmechanismen bei älteren Verkehrsteilnehmern zu schärfen. Der behandelnde Arzt, Angehörige und sonstige Bezugspersonen sollten alles tun, um den bejahrten Kraftfahrer zu motivieren, sich seiner Selbstverantwortung bewusst zu werden und demgemäß zu handeln.
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.
Empirical vehicle crashworthiness studies are usually based on national or in-depth traffic accident surveys: Data on accident-involved cars/drivers are analysed in order to quantify the chance of driver injury and to assess certain risk factors like car make and model. As the cars/drivers involved in the same accident form a "cluster", where the size of the cluster equals the number of accident-involved parties, traffic accident survey data are typical multi-level data with accidents as first-level or primary and cars/drivers as secondlevel or secondary units (car occupants in general are to be considered as third level units). Consequently, appropriate statistical multi-level models are to be used for driver injury risk estimation purposes as these models properly account for the cluster structure of traffic accident survey data. In recent years various types of regression models for clustered data have been developed in the statistical sciences. This paper presents multi-level statistical models, which are generally applicable for vehicle crashworthiness assessment in the sense that data on single and multiple car crashes can be analysed simultaneously. As a special case of multi-level modelling driver injury risk estimation based on paired-by-collision car/driver data is considered. It is demonstrated that assessment results may be seriously biased, if the cluster structure inherent in traffic accident survey data is erroneously ignored in the data analysis stage.
The so-called "seat-belt injuries" or "seat-belt syndromes", described as 2-point seat-belt injuries, contain heavy inflection injuries of the lumbal spinal column, combined with heavy abdominal injuries as rupture of the upper intestinal bold or heavy injuries of the upper entrails. With "playing" children in the font of the car, with inappropriate plant of 3-point belts, identical injuries can occur.
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 number of injured car occupants decreases constantly. Nevertheless, they account for nearly 50% of all fatalities and about 44% of all seriously injured persons in German traffic accidents. Further reductions of casualties require multiple efforts in all parts of traffic safety. In this paper a detailed analysis of the important pre-hospital rescue phase was done. The basis for future improvements is the knowledge about injury causation of car occupants in combination with other corresponding influence factors. For that reason more than 1.200 severe (AIS3+) injuries of frontal car occupants were analyzed. For the most relevant injuries of car occupants multivariate analysis models were created to predict the probability of these injuries in a real crash scenario. In addition to the collision severity different influence factors like impact direction, seat belt usage, age of the occupant, and gender were analyzed. Furthermore, the models were checked regarding the goodness of fit and all results all results were checked concerning their robustness. The prediction models were created on the basis of 5.000 car accidents. Afterwards, the models were validated using 4.000 different car accidents. The prediction of the probability of severe injuries could be used for different applications in the field of traffic safety. One possibility is the implementation of the models in a tool for the on-the-spot diagnosis. The background for the development of such applications is the fact, that there are only limited diagnostic possibilities available at the accident scene. Nevertheless, the rescue forces have to make essential decisions like the alerting of the necessary medical experts, appropriate treatment, the type of transportation and the choice of an adequate hospital. These decisions quite often decide between life and death or influence the long-term effects of injured persons. At this point, indications of expectable injuries could help enormously. To enable even persons with limited technical knowledge to use the tool, a procedure was developed that facilitates the assumption of the given crash severity. Another important possibility for the application of the prediction models is the use for the qualification of information sent by e-call systems.
Over the last decades the number of traffic accident fatalities on German roads decreased by 77% down to 4968 in the year 2007. This positive development is due to optimisations of vehicle safety, roads and infrastructure and medical rescue issues. Up to now mostly the optimisations of secondary safety measures lead to this effect on vehicle safety. Since some years more and more driver assistance systems are available and lead to a further reduction of all accidents. These new systems are often comfort systems and have not primarily been developed to increase vehicle safety. In contrast to secondary safety systems primary safety systems are able to mitigate and avoid accidents. So in the future it is important to estimate the benefit of these systems in reducing accident numbers as well. Current benefit estimation methods mostly focus on a single system only and not on the combination of systems. In this paper a new method for a multivariate benefit estimation based on real accident data is developed. The paper describes the basic method to estimate the benefit of primary and secondary safety systems in combination. With the presented method the benefit will not be overestimated as it would be by a simple addition of the benefits of single systems. The model will be validated by a multivariate prospective benefit estimation of different vehicle safety systems in comparison to single benefit estimations of the same systems. For this the German In-Depth Accident Database is used. The results show the importance to implement the interactions of safety systems in the estimation process and rate the overestimation by a simple addition of the single system benefits. The validation includes primary and secondary safety systems in combination. The validation is done using more than 3500 real accidents which were initiated by cars. This sample out of the GIDAS database is representative for the current accident situation in Germany. The paper shows the necessity of a multivariate estimation of the benefit for existing and future safety systems.
In the last years various new driver information and driver assistance systems made their way into modern vehicles and there are yet countless systems underway. However, expenses for both, the development and the construction of these systems are tremendous. Therefore the interest of evaluating systems keeps growing steadily, not only regarding the results of systems developed in the last years but also regarding system ideas. Only if at least a rough benefit estimation is given, the industry can decide which development should be supported. However, there is still a lack of transparency of possible and useful methods for these kinds of estimations. These were analyses and structured in this study.
The accident research project in Dresden was founded in July 1999. To date over 6.000 crash investigations have been undertaken. About 10.000 vehicles have been documented and over 13.000 participants have been debriefed. But there is much more than this scientific success. Because of the interdisciplinary character between the medical and technical focus, the project affords an important contribution for the education of the involved students. Over 200 students of different fields of study have got experiences not only for the occupational career. This lecture describes the additional effects of the accident research project regarding the education of the students, the capacity for teamwork and learning about dealing with accident casualties.
Because of actual developments and the continuous increase in the field of drive assistant systems, representative and detailed investigations of accident databases are necessary. This lecture describes the possibility to estimate the potential of primary and secondary safety measures by means of a computerized case by case analysis. Single primary or secondary safety measures as well as a combination of both are presented. The method is exemplarily shown for the primary safety measure "Brake Assist" in pedestrian accidents. Regarding accident prevention only the primary safety measure is determined.
Bei Schrägseilbrücken und Hängebrücken ist die Tragfähigkeit und die Betriebsfestigkeit der Seile von entscheidender Bedeutung. Da in Deutschland seit einigen Jahren wieder verstärkt Schrägseilbrücken gebaut werden, kommt den neueren Entwicklungen auf diesem Gebiet eine besondere Bedeutung zu. Diese neuen Entwicklungen werden im Bericht beschrieben. An erster Stelle steht dabei die Anwendung von Litzenbündeln (LBS) in Deutschland bei der fertiggestellten Ziegelgrabenbrücke im Brückenzug der Rügenbrücke und der im Bau befindlichen Niederrheinbrücke Wesel. Diese im Ausland schon seit vielen Jahrzehnten angewendete Bauart stieß in Deutschland bisher auf Bedenken, insbesondere wegen der Prüfbarkeit und des Korrosionsschutzes. Litzenbündel bestehen im Wesentlichen aus 7-drähtigen Spannstahllitzen und speziellen Verankerungsteilen. Auf der freien Länge des Seils sind die Litzen durch ein HDPE-Rohr gegen äussere Beschädigungen und Umwelteinflüsse geschützt. Da Seile aus Litzenbuendeln bisher nicht bauaufsichtlich geregelt sind, war eine Zustimmung im Einzelfall erforderlich. Die Prüfung der Seile bei den regelmäßig durchzuführenden Bauwerksprüfungen ist verbunden mit einem großen technischen Aufwand, hohen Kosten und Beeinträchtigungen des Verkehrs. Der Bericht geht ausführlich auf mögliche Methoden der Seilprüfung ein. Bei der Ziegelgrabenbrücke wurde die magnetinduktive Prüfung, die sich bei vollverschlossenen Seilen seit vielen Jahren bewährt hat, zum Feststellen von Schäden an den Seilen aus Litzenbündeln angewendet. Neue Entwicklungen bei vollverschlossenen Seilen betreffen insbesondere die Korrosionschutzsysteme und die Ausführung der Ankerköpfe. In beiden Bereichen beschreibt der Bericht die Neuerungen. Bei den Instandsetzungen der vollverschlossenen Seile werden angespochen: dauerhafte Seilspreizung zur Verbesserung der Zugänglichkeit bei der visuellen Prüfung, Seilaustausch am Beispiel der Rheinbrücke Düsseldorf-Flehe und die Instandsetzung des Korrosionschutzes mit verschiedenen Methoden. Wegen der neueren technischen Entwicklungen entsprechen die derzeit gültigen einschlägigen Regelwerke teilweise nicht mehr dem Stand der Technik. Sie müssen daher überarbeitet oder gänzlich neu erstellt werden.
Zur Ergänzung der bestehenden Routineverfahren in der forensischen Blutalkoholanalytik wurde ein massenspektrometrisches Verfahren mit d6-Ethanol als internem Standard entwickelt. Ziel war die Anwendung eines beweissicheren Bestimmungsverfahrens, bei dem Ethanol über die Retentionszeit und Substanzeigenschaften identifiziert wird. Die Pilotstudie belegt, dass die forensische Blutalkoholbestimmung durch Anwendung eines gaschromatographischen und massenspektrometrischen Verfahrens mit Dampfraumanalyse routinemäßig möglich ist. Im Gegensatz zum GC- und ADH-Verfahren ist die massenspektrometrische Blutalkoholbestimmung beweissicher. Die Autoren empfehlen die Aufnahme in die Richtlinien zur Bestimmung der Blutalkoholkonzentration für forensische Zwecke. Die Arbeit wurde vom Bund gegen Alkohol und Drogen im Straßenverkehr e.V. (B.A.D.S.) unterstützt.
Cycling supports the independence and health of the aging population. However, elderly cyclists have an increased injury risk. The majority of injured cyclists is victim of a single-sided accident, an accident in which there is no other party involved. The aim of the project "Safe and Aware on the bicycle" is to develop guidelines for an advisory system that is useful in preventing single-sided accidents. This system is able to support the elderly cyclist; enabling the cyclist to timely adapt his cycling behaviour and improve cycling safety and comfort. For the development of such advisory system the causes of singles accidents and the wishes of the elderly cyclist must be known. First step to obtain this insight was a literature survey and an GIDAS research. Unfortunately accidentology research with GIDAS did not give the full understanding of the pre-crash situations and (especially the behaviour related) factors leading to the accident. The second step was consultation of elderly cyclist through a questionnaire (n=800), in-depth interviews (n=12) and focus group sessions (n=15). This offered complementary information and a much better understanding of the behavioural aspects. Results concern the behaviour in traffic and identify specific physical (i.e. problems looking backwards over the shoulder) and mental issues. Furthermore, the needs and wishes for support in specific cycling situations were identified. In conclusion; The GIDAS results together with the information obtained contacting the elderly cyclists enabled setting up requirements for an advisory system, which is useful in preventing single-sided accidents.
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.
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.
Im von der DG Home (CIPS Program) geförderten Projekt "SecMan " Security Manual for Road Infrastructures" wurde ein vierstufiges Verfahren zur Identifikation kritischer Straßeninfrastrukturen, ihre Bewertung hinsichtlich diverser von Menschen verursachter Gefahren sowie die Bestimmung effektiver Schutzmaßnahmen entwickelt. Diese Ergebnisse wurden in einem ganzheitlichen "best-practice" Handbuch zusammen getragen, welches einen trans-nationalen Sicherheitsmanagement-Ansatz für Betreiber und Eigentümer von Straßeninfrastrukturen in Europa ermöglicht. Im Folgenden wird die entwickelte Methodik vorgestellt, ausgehend von der Bewertung der Netzkritikalität über die Attraktivität und Vulnerabilität eines Bauwerks hin zu einer Bewertungsmethodik für die Auswahl geeigneter Schutzmaßnahmen.
The European CASPER (Child Advanced Safety Project for European Roads) project studying car child safety includes a sociological approach in order to have a better understanding of the behaviour of parents driving children under 12 years old. A questionnaire was distributed via the internet in Europe with 998 parents (representing 1638 children) from 22 European countries responding. The results inform on the way parents secure their children during a car trip. Many parents did not control how their children were installed in the child restraint system (CRS). A toddler was more likely to travel into a child seat than an older child was. Regarding misuse situations, an important part of the participants did not think that they could make mistakes when fixing the child seat to the car (26%) or when placing the child into the seat (39%). This leaves an important field of action especially by communication via different media and in the CRS sale outlets.
Rollover scenarios in Europe
(2005)
Rollover accidents seem to be a rising problem in Europe and therefore the systematic of this accident scenario should be investigated. Based on statistical investigations on major European accident databases for different countries a series of 73 real world rollover accidents was analysed. These cases were reconstructed using PC-Crash and preliminary categorised using a modified USbased rollover classification. In a first step, the rollover events were reconstructed from the point of conflict to the vehicle- rest position. The vehicles kinematics as well as its linear and rotational velocities were derived. In a second step typical velocity characteristics as well as kinematics were identified and the events categorised according to these criteria. Based on these results four main categories were defined, covering all reconstructed accidents. This categorisation was based on mechanical parameters (rotatory and translator kinematical data of the vehicle). Significant differences can be seen for different scenarios for the "first phase of rollover".
Interdisciplinary accident research and research projects of AARU Audi Accident Research Unit
(2017)
AARU (Audi Accident Research Unit) is an interdisciplinary research project of the University Hospital Regensburg in cooperation with AUDI AG. Specific objective is to comprehend the respective accident scenario and retrieve generally applicable findings as to technical, medical and psychological processes. In order to prevent traffic accidents and to alleviate vehicle accident consequences, postulates of general traffic safety, human-machine interaction, technical design and function of new vehicles and occupant as well as third party protection shall be inferred from these findings. Specifically, each accident with new Audi, Lamborghini and Ducati vehicles involved is analyzed interdisciplinary, discussed in a case meeting and anonymously documented with more than 2,000 parameters. The database is continually used for solving safety relevant issues. Parallel to accident analysis, research projects are performed in the fields medicine, psychology and engineering in order to gain comprehensive insight and identify potential additional areas of activity of accident research.
The data situation for quantifying the proportion of accidents avoided by the introduction of active safety systems is incomplete, since there is generally no data available on the accidents avoided by the technology in question. In this paper, a split-register approach is suggested and compared with the classical case-control approach known from epidemiologic applications. Provided a set of assumptions hold, which can reasonably be made in such data situations, the split register approach allows inferences on the population accident risk. For both approaches the benefits of basing the analysis on the results of a logistic regression to adjust for confounding factors are outlined. The biasing effects of violating key assumptions are discussed and the split-register approach is demonstrated using the example of the active safety system ESP with data from the German in-depth accident study GIDAS.
This study that was funded by the Research Association for Automotive Technology (FAT) develops a method for the evaluation of the placement of tanks or batteries by using the deformation frequencies in real-world accidents. Therefore, the deformations of more than 20.000 passenger cars in the GIDAS database are analysed. For each vehicle a contour of deformation is calculated and the deformed areas of the vehicles are transferred in a rangy matrix of deformation. Thereby, the vehicle is divided into more than 190.000 cells. Afterwards, all single matrices of deformation are summarized for each cell which allows representative analyses of the deformation frequencies of accidents with passenger cars in Germany. On the basis of these deformation frequencies it is possible to determine least deformed areas of all passenger cars. Furthermore, intended placements of tanks or batteries can be estimated in an early stage of development. Therefore, all vehicles with deformations in the intended tank areas can be analysed individually. Considering numerous parameters out of the GIDAS database (e.g. collision speed, kind of accident, overlap, collision partner etc.) the occurring forces can be calculated or the deformation frequency can be estimated. Furthermore, it is possible to consider the influence of primary and secondary safety systems on the deformation behaviour. The analysis of "worst case accident events" is an additional application of the calculated matrix of deformation frequency.
Seit einigen Jahren steht mit dem pupillographischen Schläfrigkeitstest (PST) ein objektives Messverfahren zur Ermittlung der Tagesschläfrigkeit zur Verfügung, wobei die Zunahme der spontanen Schwankungen des Pupillendurchmessers unter Müdigkeit registriert wird. Es wurde eingesetzt bei verschiedenen Probandengruppen, die einem potenziell erhöhten Risiko von Vigilanzminderungen ausgesetzt sind: chronische Schmerzpatienten (n = 20) beziehungsweise substituierte Heroinabhängige (n = 52) unter Opioiden, ambulante Patienten unter Psychopharmaka (n = 32), Allergiker unter Antihistaminika (n = 40) und medizinisches Nachtdienst-Pflegepersonal (n = 40). Verglichen wurde unter anderem mit zwei Kontrollgruppen (n = 21, n = 10). Bei den Untersuchungen ergaben sich relativ normale Schläfrigkeitswerte bei ambulanten Psychopharmaka-Patienten und Allergikern. Teils exzessiv erhöhte Werte wurden dagegen insbesondere bei substituierten Heroinabhängigen (81 Prozent), opiatversorgten Schmerzpatienten (59 Prozent) und dem Nachtdienstpersonal (70 Prozent) festgestellt.
At IAM RoadSmart we share the excitement about autonomous cars " who wouldn't! However over half of the drivers we polled supported concentrating on making drivers safer " among IAM RoadSmart members it was 70%. Driverless cars are still years away but delivering safer drivers can help reduce death and injury from tomorrow. Governments, academics and car makers need to work hard to convince sceptical British and American drivers that autonomous cars can deliver the benefits promised such as a 90% plus reduction in road deaths.
The Swedish "Vision Zero" regards road fatalities and severe injuries as unacceptable. The vision is based on this ethical perspective together with a fundament of shared responsibility between the system designers and the road user. The design of the traffic system shall protect the road user from these effects as long as he or she follows the traffic rules. It should be possible to make a mistake without being killed. This policy has, during the first period of the "vision zero" (since 1997) put high priority on road and car design where the purpose has been to develop a forgiving environment. Gradually it has, however, become clear that much more effort has to be focused on the responsibility of the road user. Protecting measures will have limited effect as long as the understanding and acceptance from road users is limited. During the last years, Sweden has gone through several improvements of the driver education and is in the middle of important improvements of road safety education for children in schools. Several EU-projects has contributed to this development. One aspect that has received large international interest is the lay instructed driver training from 16 years of age supervised by parents. This has been in use since 1993. Another is the development of mandatory courses, such as an introduction for the learner and the lay instructor, a "risk awareness" courses dealing specifically with speeding, seat belt use, drunk driving, tiredness, and driving on low friction. The presentation will share some of the "vision zero" fundaments together with the latest experiences, research and development concerning driver education in Sweden.
An der Fortbildungsakademie der Ärztekammer Nordrhein werden in einem 16-Stunden-Kurs Qualifizierungen zum Fachgutachter/zur Fachgutachterin für verkehrsmedizinische Begutachtung in Kooperation mit unterschiedlichen Fachreferenten aus den verschiedenen klinischen Bereichen durchgeführt. Leistungskontrollen zum Kursinhalt, ein intensives Arbeiten an Fallbeispielen oder gar eine fachliche Begleitung der ersten Gutachten sind nicht generell vorgegeben, wenngleich in Evaluationen zum Kurs insbesondere eine fallorientierte Ausbildung und eine Supervision zumindest in ersten eigenen Begutachtungen von den Teilnehmern/Teilnehmerinnen gewünscht werden. Auf der Grundlage der Erfahrungen der Autoren mit der Leitung/Moderation der entsprechenden Fachfortbildungen der Ärztekammer Nordrhein wurden das bestehende Curriculum kritisch diskutiert und Anregungen zur Umstrukturierung erarbeitet, die im Einzelnen vorgestellt werden. Dabei handelt es sich um ein Konzept auf der Basis des "blended learning": Via Internet wird vertiefendes Lehrmaterial für die verschiedenen Fachbereiche der medizinischen Begutachtung unter verkehrsmedizinischen Fragestellungen zur Bearbeitung angeboten. Die Bearbeitung selbst kann online kontrolliert und bei Bedarf auch mit Lerninhaltsüberpruefungen verknüpft werden. Zusätzlich können Fallbeispiele anonymisiert vorgelegt und mit tatsächlich ausgesprochenen Begutachtungen bereitgestellt werden. Weiterhin wird eine qualifizierte Begleitung zumindest zu Beginn der Gutachtertätigkeit angeregt.
India is one of the leading countries reporting highest road accidents & related injuries. TMARG (Tata Motors Accident Research Group) has been recording crashes in association with M/s. Lokamanya Medical Foundation since 2011 with M/s, Amandeep Hospitals since Aug 2013. This study has highlighted some accident types not discussed extensively in literature. Trucks to Truck impacts " Cabin interaction with overhanging loadbody structures and Offset underside impacts for passenger vehicles are seen in significant numbers. The paper discusses these in more detail including severity.
The Swedish National Road Administration (SNRA), the Japanese Automobile Research Institute (JARI) and the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) are co-operating in the International Harmonized Research Activities on Intelligent Transportation Systems (IHRA-ITS). Under this umbrella a joint study was conducted. The overall objective of this study was to contribute to the definition and validation of a "battery of tools" which enables a prediction and an assessment of changes in driver workload due to the use of in-vehicle information systems (IVIS) while driving. In this sense \"validation\" means to produce empirical evidence from which it can be concluded that these methods reliably discriminate between IVIS which differ in terms of relevant features of the HMI-design. Additionally these methods should also be sensitive to the task demands imposed on the driver by the traffic situation and their interactions with HMI-design. To achieve these goals experimental validation studies (on-road and in the simulator) were performed in Sweden, Germany and Japan. As a common element these studies focused on the secondary task methodology as an approach to the study of driver workload. In a joint German-Swedish on-road study the Peripheral Detection Task (PDT) was assessed with respect to its sensitivity to the complexity of traffic situations and effects of different types of navigation systems. Results show that the PDT performance of both the German and the Swedish subjects reflects the task demands of the traffic situations better than those of the IVIS. However, alternative explanations are possible which will be examined by further analyses. Results of this study are supplemented by the Japanese study where informational demands induced by various traffic situations were analysed by using a simple arithmetic task as a secondary task. Results of this study show that relatively large task demands can be expected even from simple traffic situations.
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.
In the last years there has been a decline in accident figures in Germany especially for four wheeled vehicles. At the same time, accident figures for motorcycles remained nearly constant. About 17 % of road traffic fatalities in the year 2006 were motorcyclists. 33 % of these riders were killed in single vehicle crashes. This leads to the conclusion that improving driving dynamics and driving stability of powered two wheelers would yield considerable safety gains. However, the well-known measures for cars and trucks with their proven effectiveness cannot be transferred easily to motorcycles. Therefore studies were carried out to examine the safety potential of Anti Lock Braking Systems (ABS) and Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) for motorcycles by means of accident analysis, driving tests and economical as well as technical assessment of the systems. With regard to ABS, test persons were assigned braking tasks (straight and in-curve) with five different brake systems with and without ABS. Stopping distances as well as stress and strain on the riders were measured for 9 test riders who completed 105 braking manoeuvres each. Knowing the ability of ABS to avoid falls during braking in advance of a crash and taking into account the system costs, a cost benefit analysis for ABS for motorcycles was carried out for different market penetration of ABS, i.e. equipment rates, and different time horizons. The potential of VSC for motorcycles was estimated in two steps. First the kinds of accidents that could be prevented by such a system at all have been analysed. For these accident configurations, simulations and driving tests were then performed to determine if a VSC was able to detect the critical driving situation and if it was technically possible to implement an actuator which would help to stabilise the critical situation.
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.
Es werden erste Ergebnisse des von der Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen (BASt) geförderten Forschungsprojekts "Hauptstudie zur Wirksamkeit von Tunnelwänden als Träger photokatalytischer Oberflächen" (FE 9.0184/2011/ARB) vorgestellt. Ziel war die Erarbeitung von technischen Lösungen zur Stickoxidreduktion an einem Tunnelstandort durch die Konzeptionierung und den Bau abgeschlossener photokatalytischer Reaktoren (Tunnelkassetten) sowie deren Validierung im Tunnel "Rudower Höhe" an der Bundesautobahn A113 in Berlin. Dabei wird künstliches UV-Licht als Energiequelle für den Schadstoffabbau eingesetzt. Es wird speziell über die Modellierungen berichtet, mit Hilfe derer die Tunnelkassetten sowohl strömungstechnisch als auch in Hinblick auf den photokatalytischen Abbauwirkungsgrad optimiert wurden.
This paper set out to examine the possibilities for injury avoidance implications for older drivers in crashes, based on crash and injury patterns among older drivers and current trends in ageing in most western societies. A number of safety technologies were identified and discussed which have potential for improving vehicle older driver crash avoidance and crashworthiness. While there were some promising estimates available of the likely benefits of this technology for improving safety, it is evident that they need to be confirmed for older drivers, given their age-related disabilities and sensory limitations. Further research is urgently required to ensure that these technologies yield safety benefits without any disbenefits for older drivers.rn
Whiplash injuries are characterized by the high variability of its symptoms and by the subjectivity of its diagnosis, which sometimes leads to frauds perpetrated by victims of rear-end impacts. It is estimated that whiplash injuries cost annually about 10.000 million Euros in Europe. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the dynamics of the accident in which the victim was involved in the probability of development of whiplash associated injuries. In the presented methodology, first an accident reconstruction is performed where the dynamics of the accident is determined. This is carried out using the software PC-Crash, police and insurance companies' data. Then biomechanical injuries criteria related with whiplash injuries are evaluated. For the evaluation of the probability of having whiplash injuries, the Neck Injury Criterion (NIC) of the victim and the mean acceleration of the vehicle were evaluated. Then, with medical reports, the results of the accident reconstruction are correlated with the reported injuries. Some examples are presented. The results obtained indicate that the study of the dynamics of the road accidents in which the victims were involved could be used as an auxiliary of the prognosis of whiplash injuries and is important for a precise diagnosis of this type of injuries.
A national initiative from the vehicle manufacturers, safety system suppliers, the road administration and universities in Sweden took off in 2007. The aim was to develop a national investigation network and a methodology focusing on all phases of a crash (pre-crash, in-crash and post-crash) as well as all parts of the road transport system (road user, vehicle and road environment). The initiative is formally run as a project with the acronym INTACT (Investigation Network and Accident Collection Techniques). It was a three year pilot with the aim to develop methodologies for an extended national crash investigation activity. During the first year the INTACT partners agreed on the aim for the investigation and methods for retrieving the data were developed. During the second and third year the methodology was tested in real-world investigations and further refinement was made. The paper describes the methodology developed to obtain high qualitative in-depth road crash data.
The overall purpose of the ASSESS project is to develop a relevant and standardised set of test and assessment methods and associated tools for integrated vehicle safety systems, primarily focussing on currently available pre-crash sensing systems. The first stage of the project was to define casualty relevant accident scenarios so that the test scenarios will be developed based on accident scenarios which currently result in the greatest injury outcome, measured by a combination of casualty severity and casualty frequency. The first analysis stage was completed using data from a range of accident databases, including those which were nationally representative (STATS19, UK and STRADA, SE) and in-depth sources which provided more detailed parameters to characterise the accident scenarios (GIDAS, DE and OTS, UK). A common analysis method was developed in order to compare the data from these different sources, and while the data sets were not completely compatible, the majority of the data was aligned in such a way that allowed a useful comparison to be made. As the ASSESS project focuses on pre-crash sensing systems fitted to passenger cars, the data selected for the analysis was "injury accidents which involved at least one passenger car". The accident data analysis yielded the following ranked list of most relevant accident scenarios: Rank Accident scenario 1 Driving accident - single vehicle loss of control 2 Accidents in longitudinal traffic (same and opposite directions) 3 Accidents with turning vehicle(s) or crossing paths in junctions 4 Accidents involving pedestrians The ranked list highlights the relatively large role played by "accidents in longitudinal traffic", and "accidents with turning vehicle(s) or crossing paths in junctions" (the second and third most prevalent accident scenarios, respectively). The pre-crash systems addressed in ASSESS propose to yield beneficial safety outcomes with specific regard to these accident scenarios. This indicates that the ASSESS project is highly relevant to the current casualty crash problem. In the second stage of the analysis a selection of these accident scenarios were analysed further to define the accident parameters at a more detailed level .This paper describes the analysis approach and results from the first analysis stage.
The SafetyNet project was formulated in part to address the need for safety oriented European road accident data. One of the main tasks included within the project was the development of a methodology for better understanding of accident causation together with the development of an associated database involving data obtained from on-scene or "nearly onscene" accident investigations. Information from these investigations was complemented by data from follow-up interviews with crash participants to determine critical events and contributory factors to the accident occurrence. A method for classification of accident contributing factors, known as DREAM 3.0, was developed and tested in conjunction with the SafetyNet activities. Collection of data and case analysis for some 1 000 individual crashes have recently been completed and inserted into the database and therefore aggregation analyses of the data are now being undertaken. This paper describes the methodology development, an overview of the database and the initial aggregation analyses.
The main focus of the benefit estimation of advanced safety systems with a warning interface by simulation is on the driver. The driver is the only link between the algorithm of the safety system and the vehicle, which makes the setup of a driver model for such simulations very important. This paper describes an approach for the use of a statistical driver model in simulation. It also gives an outlook on further work on this topic. The build-up process of the model suffices with a distribution of reaction times and a distribution of reaction intensities. Both were combined in different scenarios for every driver. Each scenario has then a specific probability to occur. To use the statistical driver model, every accident scene has to be simulated with each driver scenario (combinations of reaction times and intensities). The results of the simulations are then combined regarding the probabilities to occur, which leads to an overall estimated benefit of the specific system. The model works with one or more equipped participants and delivers a range for the benefit of advanced safety systems with warning interfaces.
Millions of kilometers are driven and recorded by car manufacturers and researchers every year to gather information about realistic traffic situations. The focus of these studies is often the recording of critical situations to create test scenarios for the development of new systems before introducing them into the market. This paper shows a novel Analysis and Investigation Method for All Traffic Scenarios (AIMATS) based on real traffic scenes. It also shows how to get detailed information about speeds, trajectories and behavior of all participants without driving thousands of kilometers at the example of conflict situations with animals. Basis of the AIMATS is the identification of the most relevant locations as "Points of Interest" (POI), the recording of the critical situations and their "base lines" at these POI. This paper presents a new method to identify critical scenarios involving both vehicles and animals as well as preliminary results of a study done in Saxony using this new method.
The focus of the technical innovation in the automobile industry is currently changing to sensor based safety systems, which are operating in the pre-crash phase of an accident. To get more information about this pre-crash phase for real accidents a simulation of this phase using the GIDAS database is done. The basics for this simulation are geometrical information about the accident location and the exact accident data out of the GIDAS database. This aggregated information gives the possibility to simulate an exact motion for every accident participant, using MATLAB / SIMULINK, in the pre-crash phase. After the simulation the information about the geometrical positions, the velocities and maneuvers of the drivers to an individual TTC (time to collision) are available. With those results it is possible to develop new useful sensor geometries using pre-crash scatter plots or estimate the efficiency of implemented active safety systems in combination with sensor characteristics. This simulation can be done for every reconstructed accident included in the GIDAS database, so these results can represent a wide spread basis for the further development of active safety systems and sensor geometries and characteristics
Entgegen populären Meinungen, welche älteren Kraftfahrern ein generelles Gefahrenpotenzial für die allgemeine Verkehrssicherheit zuschreiben, weisen die Unfallstatistiken eher auf eine besondere Gefährdung dieser Gruppe von Verkehrsteilnehmern hin, woraus sich Forderungen nach einer zielgruppenspezifischen Verkehrssicherheitsarbeit begründen. Kompetentes und damit sicheres Verhalten kann als Ergebnis der Passung zwischen den individuell verfügbaren Ressourcen und den Anforderungen der Umwelt betrachtet werden. Überschreiten die Umweltanforderungen die Verhaltenspotenziale des Individuums, kann es zu Überforderung kommen. Verdeutlichen lässt sich diese Perspektive durch genaue Betrachtung von Verkehrsunfällen unter Beteiligung älterer Kraftfahrer: So spiegeln die aktuellen Unfallstatistiken aus 2008 wider, dass ein großer Teil der Unfälle von Kraftfahrern im Alter über 65 Jahren auf sogenanntes Fehlverhalten in Knoten, wie z.B. Fehler beim Abbiegen, Ein- und Ausfahren in Kreuzungen und Vorfahrtbeachtung, zurückzuführen sind. Diese im Vergleich zu jüngeren Fahrern häufigere Verwicklung Älterer in Unfälle dieser Art legt nahe, dass es in genau diesen Situationen zu einem Ungleichgewicht zwischen individuell verfügbaren Ressourcen und den Anforderungen der Verkehrsumwelt kommt. Beispielsweise könnten in diesen Situationen Beeinträchtigungen der visuellen Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit, verlangsamte Reaktionszeiten oder auch Einschränkungen der Bewegungsausführung zu einer zu langsamen oder auch falschen Entscheidungsfindung oder Handlungsausführung im Straßenverkehr führen. Dieser Perspektive folgend können Maßnahmen zur Erhöhung der Verkehrssicherheit älterer Kraftfahrer zum einen auf Seiten des Individuums ansetzen und dazu beitragen, die Kompetenzen des älteren Kraftfahrers zu erhöhen, zum anderen Bezug auf den Kontext nehmen, indem durch Anpassungen der Bedingungen der Verkehrsumwelt zur Sicherheit " nicht nur " älterer Kraftfahrer beigetragen wird. Personenzentrierte Ansätze zielen dabei auf die Ausschöpfung der individuellen Potenziale zur Aufrechterhaltung, Verbesserung oder auch Wiederherstellung einer sicheren Verkehrsteilnahme bis ins hohe Lebensalter. Diese Ansätze umfassen Trainings- und Rehabilitationsprogramme der Fahrkompetenz gleichermaßen wie verkehrspädagogische Programme, mediale Informationskampagnen oder auch Beratungsmaßnahmen und Screening-Tests. Eine Schlüsselposition kann in diesem Kontext dem (Haus)-Arzt als Experten hinsichtlich Konstitution und Lebensverhältnissen seines Patienten und Vertrauensperson zukommen. In der Regel passen ältere Kraftfahrer ihr Fahrverhalten ihren individuell verfügbaren Kompetenzen an. Auf diese Weise können altersbegleitende oder auch mit Erkrankungen oder Medikamenteneinnahmen einhergehende Veränderungen der körperlichen oder geistigen Leistungsfähigkeit zumeist erfolgreich kompensiert werden. Personenzentrierten Ansätzen kommt jedoch eine besondere Relevanz für den kleinen Anteil älterer Fahrer zu, welche keine oder nur unzureichende Kompensation aufweisen. Kontextorientierte Ansätze beziehen sich auf Maßnahmen, welche eine möglichst optimale Gestaltung der Bedingungen der Verkehrsumwelt auf die Bedürfnisse und Anforderungen älterer Kraftfahrer herbeiführen sollen. Maßnahmen dieser Art zielen zum Beispiel auf eine Entschleunigung des Straßenverkehrs durch Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzungen oder auch bauliche Maßnahmen. Auch die Potenziale moderner Fahrzeugtechnik werden unter dieser Perspektive zur Erhöhung der Verkehrssicherheit älterer Fahrer nutzbar. So können Fahrerassistenz- oder Fahrerinformationssysteme den älteren Fahrer in komplexen Situationen unterstützen. Dabei ist der Nutzen für die Verkehrssicherheit jedoch stark von der Handhabbarkeit und Bedienqualität der technischen Hilfsmittel abhängig. Technologien, welche die Komplexität der Fahrzeugbedienung erheblich erhöhen oder die Aufmerksamkeit vom Straßenverkehr ablenken, können ggf. auch zu einer weiteren Diskrepanz zwischen Anforderungssituation und verfügbaren Kompetenzen beitragen. Neben diesen eher auf die individuelle Verkehrsteilnahme als Autofahrer bezogenen Maßnahmen sind weitere wichtige kontextorientierte Ansatzpunkte in alternativen Mobilitätsvarianten zum Auto, wie in der Verbesserung der Attraktivität von Angeboten des ÖPNV oder auch den Bedingungen für Fußgänger und Radfahrer, zu finden. In diesem Sinne erscheint ein mehrdimensionaler Ansatz für die Gestaltung von Maßnahmen zur Erhöhung der Verkehrssicherheit älterer Kraftfahrer am erfolgversprechendsten. Interventionsansätze sollten sich gegenseitig ergänzen und möglichst sowohl die Ressourcen auf Seiten des älteren Menschen selbst als auch der Umwelt umfassen.
A set of recommendations for pan-European transparent and independent road accident investigations has been developed by the SafetyNet project. The aim of these recommendations is to pave the way for future EU scale accident investigation activities by setting out the necessary steps for establishing safety oriented road accident investigations in Member States. This can be seen as the start of the process for establishing road accident investigations throughout Europe which operate according to a common methodology. The recommendations propose a European Safety Oriented Road Accident Investigation Programme which sets out the procedures that need to be put in place to investigate a sample of every day road accidents. They address four sets of issues; institutional addressing the characteristics of the programme; operational describing the conditions under which data isrncollected; data storage and protection; and reports, countermeasures and the dissemination of data.rn
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.
The role of a national motor vehicle crash causation study-style data set in rollover data analysis
(2010)
On 1 January 2005, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an agency of the United States Department of Transportation, implemented a new data collection strategy designed to assess crash avoidance technologies and report associated behavioral inputs and outcomes. The original goal was a six-year program, however, during the shortened data collection period; it proved a valuable resource for understanding a precrash environment previously obscured by forensic case investigation. Another unintended consequence was an overlap with infrastructure, roadway geometry, and design with the occupant and vehicle outcomes, by virtue of well-defined attributes. External to the collected data, supplementary information was extrapolated, by using manuals published in the United States, by the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials and selected State Departments of Transportation, in conjunction with the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Study (NMVCCS). This provided a backdrop to the infrastructure framework of the rollover problem within which the occupant and vehicle outcomes were studied. If a NMVCCS-style data collection were to be implemented elsewhere, then complementary manuals produced by federal transportation officials might be consulted producing similar relationships. The current study uses NMVCCS data to describe vehicles travelling through diverse design geometries and the outcome for occupants involved in crashes within that system. Codified and extrapolated data form the basis for assessing NMVCCS and its value to the transportation safety community, as the protocols are applicable universally. The benefit in continuing a NMVCCS-style study is noted, as the interaction of roadway infrastructure and occupant protection agencies might find paths to better work together in solving the complex rollover problem using a common data-driven approach.
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.
Das Fahrverhalten ändert sich mit zunehmendem Alter. Damit ändern sich auch die Risiken. Neben den jungen Fahranfängern im Alter von 18 bis etwa 25 Jahren stellen Fahrer über 75 Jahre eine besondere Problemgruppe dar. Mit zunehmender Zahl alter Fahrer (demographische Entwicklung plus Zunahme der Fahrerlaubnisinhaber in dieser Altersgruppe) besteht hier in naher Zukunft akuter Handlungsbedarf. Ansatzpunkte gibt es im gesamten Mensch-Maschine-Umwelt-System. Fahrzeuge müssen vermehrt im Hinblick auf alte Fahrer konstruiert und optimiert werden. Die Infrastruktur muss den Bedürfnissen einer eindeutigen Verkehrsführung angepasst werden. Aber nur, wenn der Mensch selbst geeignet ist, als Fahrer am Straßenverkehr teilzunehmen, ist ein Gewinn bei der Verkehrssicherheit zu erwarten. Dies muss gewährleistet werden. Wichtig ist, dass die Problematik der alten Fahrer als solche erkannt wird und schnell eine tragfähige Lösung für die Zukunft gefunden wird.
Although the number of road accident casualties in Europe (EU27) is falling the problem still remains substantial. In 2011 there were still over 30,000 road accident fatalities. Approximately half of these were car occupants and about 60 percent of these occurred in frontal impacts. The next stage to improve a car's safety performance in frontal impacts is to improve its compatibility. The objective of the FIMCAR FP7 EU-project was to develop an assessment approach suitable for regulatory application to control a car's frontal impact and compatibility crash performance and perform an associated cost benefit analysis for its implementation. This paper reports the cost benefit analyses performed to estimate the effect of the following potential changes to the frontal impact regulation: • Option 1 " No change and allow current measures to propagate throughout the vehicle fleet. • Option 2 " Add a full width test to the current offset Deformable Barrier (ODB) test. • Option 3 " Add a full width test and replace the current ODB test with a Progressive Deformable Barrier (PDB) test. For the analyses national data were used from Great Britain (STATS 19) and from Germany (German Federal Statistical Office). In addition in-depth real word crash data were used from CCIS (Great Britain) and GIDAS (Germany). To estimate the benefit a generalised linear model, an injury reduction model and a matched pairs modelling approach were applied. The benefits were estimated to be: for Option 1 "No change" about 2.0%; for Option 2 "FW test" ranging from 5 to 12% and for Option 3 "FW and PDB tests" 9 to 14% of car occupant killed and seriously injured casualties.
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.
This paper gives an overview of the in-depth crash investigation activity conducted by the Centre for Automotive Safety Research (CASR) at the University of Adelaide, in South Australia. Recent changes in method include: an expansion in on-call hours for the crash investigation team, providing the option of a phone interview for crash participants to discuss the crash, and downloading objective crash data from vehicle airbag control modules. These changes have resulted in: increased representativeness of crashes by hour of day; a decrease in the over-representation of fatal crashes in our sample; an increase in the proportion of crashes that involved a pedestrian, bicycle or scooter (moped); an increase in the proportion of crash participants consenting to an interview; and an increase in the objective data available, through airbag control module downloads. Our in-depth crash investigations enabled research into road departures that found barriers were a more feasible solution than clear zones for eliminating serious and fatal injury resulting from run off road crashes.
An analysis of NASS and FARS was conducted to determine crash conditions that involved injuries that are not currently being directly addressed by vehicle safety standards or by consumer information test protocols. Analysis of both field data and US NCAP tests were conducted to determine the relative safety provided by seating position and by vehicle model year. Opportunities for improvements were determined by crash categories with large populations of injuries that were not addressed by safety tests or smaller numbers that were increasing in frequency. Areas of opportunities include improved occupant restrain in rollovers, improved frontal protection for rear seat occupants and improved fire prevention in frontal and rollover crashes.
One of the major problems of road safety in Europe is the powered two wheelers accidents. One of the European countries with one of the highest rates is Portugal where in 2006, mopeds and motorcycles fatalities represented 27% of all road users deaths. In this work, a deep analysis and overview of the current state of mopeds and motorcycles accidents for the 2004-2006 period is presented. Within this period 830 PTW occupants die, 2958 have been severely injured and 25000 suffer slight injuries. A detailed analysis of the conditions of these accidents has been carried out, using the data of the national accident database. This analysis provides global information, about geographic environmental conditions, driver- characteristics among others. From this data detailed information is obtained allowing to know when, where and who. In order to answer the question why more a widely collection of data has been collect for 70 accidents. The data has been collected using OECD methodology. For these accidents a detailed reconstruction has been carried out, what is especially important for fatal accidents where for instance speed in an important factor. From these collection and analysis of data a wider overview of facts and measures are extracted. Among them, some are emphasized such as that the quality and non-use of helmets plays an important role in severe and fatal accidents especially for accidents involving moped vehicles, or speed is the most important factor in fatal accidents involving motorcycles. Concerning motorcycle accident reconstruction, different tools can be used depending of the accident scenario and complexity. For simple cases, with specific characteristics, analytical formulation based in vehicle crash dynamics can be use in order to determine the impact speed of the vehicles impact, analysing the skid marks, deformations, victims rest position and considering parameters (EES, vehicle deceleration, etc). Aspects such as the energy absorption capability of motorcycles are also discussed. In the general cases the accident reconstruction software Pc-Crash has been used for the reconstruction of the accident. In very complex cases, has for instance the impact between motorcyclist and barriers, Madymo software is used especially to determine speed from injuries. An example of the impact of a motorcyclist and a motorcyclist-friendly barrier is present to illustrate the benefits and limitations of such systems.
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.
Accidents involving two wheels vehicles represent one of the more important types of accidents in Europe. These accidents are usually not easy to reconstruct specially for the analysis of the injuries and its correlation with accident dynamics and evidences. Different methodologies are applied in this work for the reconstruction of two wheeler accidents, especially accident involving motorcycles. From the typologies of road evidences like skid marks, to the use of Pc-Crash and the use of Madymo models, different reconstruction of real accidents are presented. One of the questions that sometimes arise for legal purposes when some type of head injuries arise is if the occupant was wearing or not a helmet. The correlation of head injuries with the use of the helmet is a very important issue, therefore an important legal aspect. One of the key questions for the reconstructions that is difficult to analyze, is if the vehicle occupant, was or not, wearing the helmet. Based on the previously collected information, a generic model of a helmet was developed on CAD 3D, followed by its conversion into finite elements, all in order to perform impact tests using the Madymo software that would help improve the helmet- safety, but that also can be used as a tool in accident reconstruction.
Portugal has the highest rate of road fatalities in Europe (2002 and for Eur-15 - CARE database). For this highest rate, the accidents involving pedestrians and motorcycle occupants have a higher contribution than the European average. In the last years, especially accidents involving motorcycles have been investigated and currently two different projects are being carried out, one related with motorcycles accidents and the other with pedestrian accidents. In these projects, countermeasures among others to reduce the fatalities between these two types of road users are being studied. These accidents are investigated with the commercial accident reconstruction software PCCRASH but also new methodologies based on multibody dynamics are in development in order to more accurately study these two types of accidents. In this paper, the methodologies in use for accident reconstruction and new methodologies in development are presented. Speeding his found to be one of the major causes of road fatalities for pedestrians and motorcycle occupants. In the case of motorcycle accidents, these involve mainly young drivers. Aspects as social behavior are also important to understand the causes of some of these accidents. Some examples of accidents occurring in Portugal, involving especially motorcycles and pedestrians are presented and discussed.
Internationally, the need is expressed for harmonized traffic accident data collection (PSN, PENDANT, etc.). Together with this effort of harmonization, traffic accident investigation moves more and more in the direction of accident causation. As current methods only partly address these needs, a new method was set up. The main characteristics of this method are: • Accident/injury causation (associated) factors can objectively be identified and quantified, by comparison with exposure information from a normal population. • All relevant accident and exposure data can be included: human-, vehicle-, and environmental related data for the pre-crash, crash and postcrash situation (the so-called Haddon matrix). The level of detail can be chosen depending on interest and/or budget, which makes the method very flexible. In this paper the accident collection and control group method are presented, including some of the achieved results from a pilot study on 30 truck accidents and 30 control locations. The data were analyzed by using cross-tabulations and classification-tree analysis. The method proved useful for the identification of statistically significant causational aspects.
Validation of human pedestrian models using laboratory data as well as accident reconstruction
(2007)
Human pedestrian models have been developed and improved continually. This paper shows the latest stage in development and validation of the multibody pedestrian model released with MADYMO. The biofidelity of the multibody pedestrian model has been verified using a range of full pedestrian-vehicle impact tests with a large range in body sizes (16 male, 2 female, standing height 160-192cm, weight 53.5-90kg). The simulation results were objectively correlated to experimental data. Overall, the model predicted the measured response well. In particular the head impact locations were accurately predicted, indicated by global correlation scores over 90%. The correlation score for the bumper forces and accelerations of various body parts was lower (47-64%), which was largely attributed to the limited information available on the vehicle contact characteristics (stiffness, damping, deformation). Also, the effects of the large range in published leg fracture tolerances on the predicted risk to leg fracture by the pedestrian model were evaluated and compared with experimental results. The validated mid-size male model was scaled to a range of body sizes, including children and a female. Typical applications for the pedestrian models are trend studies to evaluate vehicle front ends and accident reconstructions. Results obtained in several studies show that the pedestrian models match pedestrian throw distances and impact locations observed in real accidents. Larger sets of well documented cases can be used to further validate the models especially for specific populations as for instance children. In addition, these cases will be needed to evaluate the injury predictive capability of human models. Ongoing developments include a so-called facet pedestrian model with a more accurate geometry description and a more humanlike spine and neck and a full FE model allowing more detailed injury analysis.
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.
While cyclists and pedestrians are known to be at significant risk for severe injuries when exposed to road traffic accidents (RTAs) involving trucks, little is known about RTA injury risk for truck drivers. The objective of this study is to analyze the injury severity in truck drivers following RTAs. Between 1999 and 2008 the Hannover Medical School Accident Research Unit prospectively documented 43,000 RTAs involving 582 trucks. Injury severity including the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) and the maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) were analyzed. Technical parameters (e.g. delta-v, direction of impact), the location of accident, and its dependency on the road type were also taken into consideration. The results show that the safety of truck drivers is assured by their vehicles, the consequence being that the risk of becoming injured is likely to be low. However, the legs especially are at high risk for severe injuries during RTAs. This probability increases in the instance of a collision with another truck. Nevertheless, in RTAs involving trucks and regular passenger vehicles, the other party is in higher risk of injury.
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).
The National Roads Authority in Ireland is responsible for planning and supervision of construction and maintenance works on the National Road network. Its primary function is "to secure the provision of a safe and efficient network of national roads". The population of Ireland has grown rapidly from 3.5 million to 4 million within the past 10 years, and vehicle ownership has also risen rapidly to 2 million vehicles, with 2.2 million drivers. Collisions rates in Ireland are at approximately 1.5 collisions per 1,000 population (in 2002), and 8.4 deaths per 1,000,000 population (in 2003). This ranked 8th out of the 15 countries in the European Union at the time. Ireland- current Road Safety Strategy includes Engineering Targets. These are to complete construction of certain lengths of new motorway, dual carriageway and 2+1 highway, to implement a certain number of accident remedial and traffic calming schemes, and to implement road safety audit on all new schemes. The accident remedial schemes, traffic calming schemes, and road safety audit are all the responsibility of the Road Safety section of NRA. The road safety programme of the NRA is divided into four main areas; a) accident remedial measures at individual sites, b) accident remedial treatment of entire routes, c) traffic calming of towns and villages on main roads, d) road safety audit. Examples of these measures are described. Evaluation of past programmes of single site accident remedial measures show a reduction in collision occurrence at these sites, but the effectiveness and the economic rate of return is decreasing over successive programmes. A similar programme has now been adopted on the rest of the country- road network, on regional and local roads. The programme of remedial treatment of entire routes has only recently started and has not been evaluated. Evaluation of the first programme of traffic calming of towns and villages shows an overall decrease in collisions and their severity, and a small reduction in speed. Road Safety Audit, examining new schemes a number of times during design and after construction, has been standard procedure on the national road network for nearly 6 years. An evaluation is currently underway.
Impact severity is a fundamental measure for all in-depth crash investigation projects. One methodology used in the UK is based on the US Calspan software package CRASH3. The UK- in-depth crash investigation studies routinely use AiDamage3 a software package which is based on an updated version of the original CRASH3 algorithm, including enhancements to the vehicle stiffness coefficients. Real world accident-damaged vehicles are measured and their crush is correlated with a library of stiffness coefficients. These measurements are then used, along with other parameters, to calculate the crash energy and equivalent changes of velocity of the vehicles (delta-v), which is a measure of the impact severity. UK in-depth accident studies routinely validate the crash severity methodologies applied as the vehicle fleet changes. This is achieved by analysing crash test data and using the appropriate residual crush damage and other inputs to AiDamage3 and checking the program- outputs with the known crash severity parameters. This procedure checks, at least in part, the default stiffness values in the data libraries and the reconstruction methods used.
Traffic accidents were ranked the third among the major causes of death in Thailand. About 13,438 deaths and the death rate from traffic accident was 21.5 per 100,000 of population in 2002. The deaths and death rate varied upon the economic situation. After the economic crisis, traffic accidents were increased as well as the period of the bubble economy. In the Central region of Thailand numbers of road traffic crashes were lower than Bangkok Metropolis, but the highest in the number of deaths, death rate and serious injuries in 2002. Men aged 15"29 years old had higher numbers of deaths than men in other age groups and higher than women. Deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes were the highest in April and January, because there was a long weekend in those months. About 80 percent of road traffic crashes were caused by private car and motorcycle. In 2000 about 51 percent of traffic accidents took place on the straight way, followed by the junction and curves. In 2002, about 97 percent of road traffic crashes were caused by human factors including improper passing, speeding and disregarding to traffic signal, however, the identification of causes of traffic accident needed to improve. Drunk driving, disregarding on safety equipment usage, inefficiency of law enforcement and discontinuing of road safety programs were the deepest causes of traffic accidents. Research based information, a broad coalition of stakeholder and urban planning policy were needed to incorporate for a comprehensive road safety policy formulation and actions.
Pedestrian and cyclist are the most vulnerable road users in traffic crashes. One important aspect of this study was the comparable analysis of the exact impact configuration and the resulting injury patterns of pedestrians and cyclists in view of epidemiology. The secondary aim was assessment of head injury risks and kinematics of adult pedestrian and cyclists in primary and secondary impacts and to correlate the injuries related to physical parameters like HIC value, 3ms linear acceleration, and discuss the technical parameter with injuries observed in real-world accidents based documented real accidents of GIDAS and explains the head injuries by simulated load and impact conditions based on PC-Crash and MADYMO. A subsample of n=402 pedestrians and n=940 bicyclists from GIDAS database, Germany was used for preselection, from which 22 pedestrian and 18 cyclist accidents were selected for reconstruction by initially using PC-Crash to calculate impact conditions, such as vehicle impact velocity, vehicle kinematic sequence and throw out distance. The impact conditions then were employed to identify the initial conditions in simulation of MADYMO reconstruction. The results show that cyclists always suffer lower injury outcomes for the same accident severity. Differences in HIC, head relative impact velocity, 3ms linear contiguous acceleration, maximum angular velocity and acceleration, contact force, throwing distance and head contact timing are shown. The differences of landing conditions in secondary impacts of pedestrians and cyclists are also identified. Injury risk curves were generated by logistic regression model for each predicting physical parameters.
Mechanical properties of tibial bone at compressive strain rates of 50-200 s-1 are obtained through Split Hopkinson pressure bar. Cylindrical specimens of 12-15 mm diameter and 2-5 mm thickness were used. The Young- moduli are calculated from linear portion of stress-strain curves. For both cortical and cancellous part of the bones, the Young- modulus was found to increase with the increasing strain rates. Also for both cancellous and cortical bones the Young- modulus increases consistently with increase in densities.
Before 2002, France was in the queue of Europeans countries in terms of road safety results because of the low density of population and the faulty behaviour of French due itself to a very low level of traffic law enforcement Even if there were signs of the change of mind in France towards road safety before, the turning point was in summer 2002, when the President declared road safety as a priority work during his mandate. The more symbolic measure was the decision to settle an automatic speed control system (700 fixed and 300 mobile). Over three years, the average speed on French roads decreased by 5 km/h and the number of fatalities on road turned down from an average of 8000 deaths per year to 5 300, which represents a decrease of more than 34 %. For the next months, we anticipate that, as many drivers have kept loosing points on their driving licence through light speed violations, this will lead drivers to check their speed and the speed limits more systematically as loosing points on one's driving license has longer time effects than paying a fine. Consequently, we expect a decrease of 10 % to 15% of fatalities in 2006, which is a very good result if we compare with the trend of the last twenty five years (about 2,3 %). The reverse effect of this system that lies on the changes of behaviour of the majority is that, there is more and more discontent against the system taking into account that automatic speed control system allows only a minor tolerance above limits and that local speed limits are not always adapted to local infrastructure and traffic conditions. Another weakness of the system is that motorcyclists are too rarely caught by the system; the system is being gradually improved by placing the new speed cameras in position of taking photographs of the back of the vehicle. But this would not be sufficient to reduce the speed of motorcyclists that are a very high risk group (16% of fatalities for 0,8 % of traffic) For alcohol, there is no easy route for progress: all what is done nowadays is toward festive impaired driving (through designating sober drivers or mass alcohol preventive screenings) although there is not enough done towards chronic alcoholic driving.
An eCall device has been mounted on some vehicles in France since 2003. It is an integrated car radio/GSM/GPS system that can be used with a SIM card. When an accident occurs, a call can be sent manually or automatically made to a telephone call centre. Knowing the geographic location, the vehicle identity and the possibility of a direct communication with the people involved enables the nearest emergency services to be called out. In this context, the LAB / CEESAR have set up a study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of this system. The purpose of this paper is to detail the E-call system evaluation method of effectiveness used and give a global synthesis of the results.
This work aims at bringing evidence for mass incompatibility in frontal impact for cars built according to the UNECE R94 regulation. French national injury accidents database census for years 2005 to 2008 were used for the analysis. The heterogeneity of frontal self-protection among cars of different masses is investigated, as well as the partner protection parameter offered by these cars. The last part of the analysis deals with the estimation of the benefit, in terms of fatal and severe injuries avoided, if crashworthiness was harmonized for the whole fleet of vehicle. This calculation is done for France and is extended to all Europe.