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Nowadays, traffic accidents are recorded in historical databases. Regarding the huge quantity of data, the use of data mining tools is essential to help Experts, for automatically extracting relevant information in order to establish and quantify relations between severity and potential factors of accidents. An innovative approach is here proposed for an in depth investigation of real world accidents data base. Mutual information ratio based on conditional entropies is used to quantity the association strength between an accident outcome descriptor (injury severity) and other potential association factors. Information theoretic methods help to select automatically groups of factors mostly responsible of the severity of accident.
Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis <Tokyo>rnAbstract: Analyses were conducted to clarify the features of rear-end collisions, using an integrated accident database developed by the Institute for Traffic Accident Research and Data Analysis (ITARDA). Focusing on neck injuries in rear-end collisions, analyses were made of the relation to struck-vehicle properties. Regarding the relation to the initial year of registration, the results did not show that newer vehicles tended to have a lower no-neck-injury rate, which was defined in this study as an index. On the contrary, in some passenger car classes, it was observed that the no-neck-injury rate was higher in newer vehicles. The effect of an active head restraint system, which is one type of anti-whiplash device, was analyzed by using not only the no-neck-injury rate but also a regression analysis. The results showed that the effect of an active head restraint system on suppressing the incidence of neck injuries was statistically significant.rn
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.
Recent findings from real-world accident data have shown that fatality risks for pedestrians are substantially lower than generally reported in the traffic safety literature. One of the keys to this insight has been the large and random sample of car-to-pedestrian crashes available in the German In-Depth Accident Study (GIDAS). Another key factor has been the proper use of weight factors in order to adjust for outcome-based sampling bias in the accident data. However, a third factor, a priori of unknown importance, has not yet been properly analysed. This is the influence of errors in impact speed estimation. In this study, we derived a statistical model of the impact speed errors for pedestrian accidents present in the GIDAS database. The error model was then applied to investigate the effect of the estimation error on the pedestrian fatality risk as a function of car impact speed. To this end, we applied a method known as the SIMulation-EXtrapolation (SIMEX) method. It was found that the risk curve is fairly tolerant to some amount of random measurement error, but that it does become flattened. It is therefore important that the accident investigations and reconstructions are of high quality to assure that systematic errors are minimised and that the random errors are under control.
It has been pointed that most of the accidents on the roads are caused by driver faults, inattention and low performance. Therefore, future active safety systems are required to be aware of the driver status to be able to have preventative features. This probe study gives a system structure depending on multi-channel signal processing for three modules: Driver Identification, Route Recognition and Distraction Detection. The novelty lies in personalizing the route recognition and distraction detection systems according to particular driver with the help of driver identification system. The driver ID system also uses multiple modalities to verify the identity of the driver; therefore it can be applied to future smart cars working as car-keys. All the modules are tested using a separate data batch from the training sets using eight drivers" multi-channel driving signals, video and audio. The system was able to identify the driver with 100% accuracy using speech signals of length 30 sec or more and a frontal face image. After identifying the driver, the maneuver/ route recognition was achieved with 100% accuracy and the distraction detection had 72% accuracy in worst case. In overall, system is able to identify the driver, recognize the maneuver being performed at a particular time and able to detect driver distraction with reasonable accuracy.
76 severe traffic accidents had been investigated in depth in an ongoing Volkswagen-Tongji University joint accident research project in JiaDing district, Shanghai, PR China since June 2005. With a methodology similar to German accident research units in Dresden and Hannover, a research team proceeds to the scene immediately after the incident to investigate and collect various data on environment, accident occurrence, vehicle state and deformations as well as injuries. The data combined with the results of accident reconstruction will be stored in a database for further statistical and casuistic analysis. The first outcome of the project supports the hypothesis that a main causation for the large number of traffic accidents in China is the lacking of risk awareness in Chinese driver behaviour. Low seat-belt use and the high proportion of vulnerable and poorly protected two-wheelers in traffic are reasons for the high injury and fatality rate in China. The research work shows that accident research in China is feasible and able to give support to tackle one of the urging problems in Chinese development.
Sedan type vehicles in which adult rear seat passengers were present and which were involved in frontal collisions were investigated, and the influence of unbelted rear seat passengers on the injuries of front seat occupants was studied. Unbelted rear seat passengers move forward during impact. It was observed that there were not only cases in which front seat occupants sustained injuries caused by direct contact with rear seat passengers, but also cases where front seat occupants received severe injuries due to additional force from rear seat passengers, either impacting directly or indirectly as a result of deformation of the front seat. Severe injuries of front seat occupants were observed in the latter cases. This research validates the importance of seat-belt use for rear seat passengers, not only to protect themselves but also to mitigate injuries of front seat occupants.
This work aimed for getting the main features of accidents involving Light Goods Vehicles (LGV), using accident cases collected in the In-Depth Accidents Studies built up at IFSTTAR-LMA (France), in order to analyse thoroughly the proceedings of these accidents and identify the major factors for the different types of LGV. This work was based on the analysis of 88 accident cases involving LGV with a Maximum Authorised Mass inferior to 3.5 tonnes. In particular kinematics reconstruction of these accidents were performed to calculate the average impact speeds and to better understand the compatibility problems between LGV and antagonist vehicles. Specific features have been reviewed to pick up problems concerning safety, maintenance, loading, LGV design: general conditions of the accident, vehicle features, and passive safety. The main results of this study are presented in this paper.
In Finland all fatal motor vehicle accidents are studied in-depth on-the-spot by multidisciplinary (police, road and vehicle engineers, physician and behavioural scientist) road accident investigation teams (legislation 2001, work started 1968), which operate in every province. The purpose of the teams is to uncover risk factors that turned an ordinary driving situation into a serious accident and give safety recommendations for improving road safety. The investigation teams do not take a stand on guilt or insurance compensation. When analysing accidents the teams use the concepts of key event, immediate, background and injury risk factors. Compiled investigation folders of each case contain investigation forms from each member, preinvestigation protocol, photographs, sketches etc. About 500 items of information are collected from each accident party. The collected information is also coded into a computer database. Both the database and the investigation folders are widely utilized by researchers and authorities conducting safety work.
This study aimed to identify the occurrence, type and mechanisms of the traumatic injuries of the vulnerable road users in vehicle collisions, and to determine the effects of human, engineering, and environment factors on traffic accidents and injuries. The pedestrian accident cases were collected in the years 2000 to 2005 from Changsha Wujing hospital China and Accident Research Unit at Medical University Hannover in Germany. A statistic analysis was carried out using the collected accident data. The results from analysis of Changsha data were compared with results from analysis of GIDAS data Hannover. The injury severities were determined using AIS code and ISS values. The results were presented in terms of cause of injuries, injury distributions, injury patterns, injury severity. The factors influenced the injury outcomes were proposed and discussed for the vehicle transport environment and road users. The results were discussed with regard to accident data collection, accident sampling and injury distributions etc. In the urban area of Changsha, motorcycles and passenger cars are most frequently involved in vehicle pedestrian accidents. Head and lower extremities injuries are the predominant types of pedestrian injuries. The pedestrian accidents were identified as vital issue in urban traffic safety and therefore a high priority should be given to this road user group in research of safe urban transportation. In Hannover area, cars are most frequently involved in traffic accidents, injured pedestrians are involved in road traffic of Germany in 13% of all causalities only in 2005 and have nearly the same number as motorcyclists, but the half of bicyclists.
Bus or heavy vehicle passenger accidents are rare events, compared with car accidents, but sometimes leads to a large number of victims especially in rollover crash scenarios. Two accidents occurred in Portugal in 2007 and 2013 in which 28 people died and more than 50 are injured, shown the importance of the investigation of such accidents. For the investigation of these accidents multidisciplinary teams are constituted with engineers and police officers. All the factors involved are taken into consideration including road design, traffic signs, maintenance and hardware, human factors, and vehicle factors. In this work a methodology to an accurate collection of the data is proposed. From the information collected the accident is reconstructed using the PC-CrashTM software. From this all the contribution factors are determined and recommendations to mitigate these crashes are listed. These two accidents are rollover accidents and the analysis of the injuries and its correlation with the use of retention systems is very important. From the medical data and with the dynamics of the accident determined simulations of the occupants with biomechanical models are carried out in order to evaluate the effect of the retention systems in the injuries. This analysis is based on injury criteria (such as Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) or Injury Severity Scale (ISS)). With this it is possible to determine if the seat belt was worn or not.
The main objective of EC CASPER research project is to reduce fatalities and injuries of children travelling in cars. Accidents involving children were investigated, modelling of human being and tools for dummies were advanced, a survey for the diagnosis of child safety was carried out and demands and applications were analysed. From the many research tasks of the CASPER project, the intention of this paper is to address the following: • In-depth investigation of accidents and accident reconstruction. These will provide important points for the injury risk curve, in order to improve it. Different accident investigation teams collected data from real road accidents, involving child car passengers, in five different European countries. Then, a selection of the most appropriate cases for the injury risk curve and the purposes of the project was made for an in-depth analysis. The final stage of this analysis was to conduct an accident reconstruction to validate the results obtained. The in-depth analysis included on-scene accident investigation, creating virtual simulations of the accident/possible reconstruction, and conducting the reconstruction. In the cases of successful reconstructions, new points were introduced to the injury risk curves. Accident reconstructions of selected cases were carried out in test laboratories as the next step following in-depth road accident investigation. These cases were reconstructed using similar child restraint systems (CRS) and the same type make and model as in the real accidents. Reconstructing real cases has several limitations, such as crash angle, cars" approximation paths and crash speed. However, a few changes and applications on the testing conditions were applied to reduce the limitations and improved the representations of the real accidents. After conducting the reconstructions, a comparison between the deformations of the cars on the real accident and the vehicles from the reconstructions was made. Additionally, a correlation between the data captured from the dummies and the injury data from the real accident was sought. This finalises an in-depth analysis of the accident, which will provide new relevant points to the injury risk curve. The CASPER project conducted a large research programme on child safety. On technical points, a promising research area is the developing injury risk curves as a result of in-depth accident investigations and reconstructions. This abstract was written whilst the project was not yet finished and final results are not yet known, but they will be available by the time of the conference. All the works and findings will not necessarily be integrated in the industrial versions of evaluation tools as the CASPER project is a research program.
In the course of the EUROPEAN PROJECT TRACE all fatally injured pedestrians autopsied at the Institute for Legal Medicine in Munich in 2004 had been analysed by using the "Human Functional Failure (HFF) analysis" method. It was possible to apply this method although some restrictions have to be taken into account. The results derived from this analysis comprise first the failures the pedestrians (most often "impairment of sensorimotor and cognitive abilities") and the opponents (most often " Non-detection in visibility constraints conditions") faced in the accident, second the conflicts and tasks (pedestrian crossing the street conflicting with a vehicle from the side (which was going ahead on a straight road), the degree of accident involvement (pedestrians often the primary active part), and further the contributing factors to the accident (pedestrians most often "alcohol (> 0.05% BAC)", opponents most often "visibility constraints").
The Centre for Automotive Safety Research (formerly the Road Accident Research Unit) at the University of Adelaide in South Australia has a history of in-depth crash investigation going back to the 1970s. In recent years, our focus has been on studying factors that contribute to road crashes, with an emphasis on the role of road infrastructure. Our method involves crash notification by the South Australian Ambulance Service and detailed investigation of the crash scene usually before the crash-involved vehicles have been moved. This at-scene data collection is supplemented with police crash reports, Coroner- reports including autopsy findings for fatal crashes, case notes from hospitals for all injured persons, structured interviews with crash participants and witnesses, and computerised reconstruction of the events of the crash. One of the most notable research findings to emerge from our in-depth work has been the relationship between travelling speed and the risk of crash involvement. By comparing the calculated free speeds of crash-involved vehicles (cases) with the measured speeds of non-crash-involved vehicles travelling on the same roads at the same time of day (controls), we were able to establish that an exponential relationship exists between travelling speed and the likelihood of involvement in a casualty crash. This was the case for both metropolitan and rural areas. This research prompted the reduction of some speed limits in Australia, which has resulted in notable decreases in crash numbers. Another finding of interest in our recent investigation of 298 mostly daytime crashes in metropolitan Adelaide was that medical conditions make a sizeable contribution to the occurrence of road crashes. We found that almost half of the drivers, riders and pedestrians involved in the collisions had at least one pre-existing medical condition, and half of these individuals had two or more such conditions. We found that a medical condition was the direct causal factor in 13% of the casualty crashes investigated and accounted for 23% of all hospital admission or fatal crash outcomes. A follow-up study of all hospital admissions for road crashes in Adelaide is now going ahead to look further at this problem. The paper also describes studies looking specifically at pedestrian crashes. These include studies of the relationship between travelling speed and the risk of a fatal pedestrian crash, and studies utilising real crash data to validate headforms and test dummies used in the assessment of the safety of new vehicles in the event of a collision with a pedestrian.
Unfortunately, there has been a high number of accident fatalities reported in the Czech Republic in recent years. There are many causes which have led to a growth in the number of road traffic accidents. Since 1990, traffic density has demonstrated an upward moving tendency, daily traffic-jams are on the increase in many cities and traffic capacity on roads and streets is not able to satisfy this increasing density. Moreover, many road users lack experience in terms of driving modern cars. The National Accident Study of the Czech Republic is based on the assumption that the year 2010 is considered as a pilot project with the testing operation of collecting and evaluating data from traffic accidents. From the beginning of 2011, a fully-functional structure of the Traffic Accident Research will be created and solid data generated. Based on this assumption, we hope to begin meaningful cooperation with foreign countries.
In-depth road traffic accident research in Spain is a fairly recent activity. In the past, only accident data that had been retrospectively processed by the national and regional traffic police forces was available. In 1999 Applus+IDIADA set up a permanent accident research unit to carry out indepth analysis of road accidents in Spain. Since then accidents involving cars, motorcycles, coaches and vulnerable road users have been thoroughly studied. The Applus+IDIADA accident research team has carried out work for the various traffic polices in Spain and it is currently involved in several research projects in which accidentology is one of the main tasks. The working methodology of the team is presented in the first part of the paper. In the framework of the European research project "Rollover" (GRD2-2001-50086), Applus+IDIADA has collected data, inspected scenarios and performed virtual reconstructions of twenty-six of the total seventy-six rollover accidents studied. The second half of the paper describes how these accident investigations were used to develop a test procedure for identifying possible improvements to the vehicle structure which augment occupant protection in a rollover scenario. In particular, a proposal for a new drop test for rollover assessment is presented. The cases were analysed for severity, in terms of injury to the occupants and damage to the vehicle, and taking into account whether a seatbelt was worn or not. The worst possible cases were identified as those that had severe occupant injuries and sizable damage to the occupant compartment when seatbelts had been worn. The most severe cases were then analysed further for impact position (roll and pitch angles) and the impact velocity. With these parameters taken into account, the most representative combinations could be found. This resulted in a series of configurations for possible drop tests. The results of the tests indicate where passenger vehicle structures need to be improved in order to increase occupant safety in the event of a rollover crash.
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 NHTSA-sponsored Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) has collected and analyzed crash, vehicle damage, and detailed injury data from over 4000 case occupants who were patients admitted to Level-I trauma centers following involvement in motor vehicle crashes. Since 2005, CIREN has used a methodology known as "BioTab" to analyze and document the causes of injuries resulting from passenger vehicle crashes. BioTab was developed to provide a complete evidenced-based method to describe and document injury causation from in-depth crash investigations with confidence levels assigned to the causes of injury based on the available evidence. This paper describes how the BioTab method is being used in CIREN to leverage the data collected from in-depth crash investigations, and particularly the detailed injury data available in CIREN, to develop evidence-based assessments of injury causation. CIREN case examples are provided to demonstrate the ability of the BioTab method to improve real-world crash/injury data assessment.
As the official German catalogue of accident causes has difficulty in matching the increasing demands for detailed psychologically relevant accident causation information, a new system, based on a "7 Steps" model, so called ACASS, for analyzing and collecting causation factors of traffic accidents, was implemented in GIDAS in the year 2008. A hierarchical system was developed, which describes the human causation factors in a chronological sequence (from the perception to concrete action errors), considering the logical sequence of basic human functions when reacting to a request for reaction. With the help of this system the human errors of accident participants can be adequately described, as the causes of each range of basic human functions may be divided into their characteristics (influence criteria) and further into specific indicators of these characteristics (e.g. distraction from inside the vehicle as a characteristic of an observation-error and the operation of devices as an indication for distraction from inside the vehicle. The causation factors accordingly classified can be recorded in an economic way as a number is assigned to each basic function, to each characteristic of that basic function and to each indicator of that characteristic. Thus each causation factor can be explicitly described by means of a code of numbers. In a similar way the causation factors based on the technology of the vehicle and the driving environment, which are also subdivided in an equally hierarchical system, can be tagged with a code. Since the causes of traffic accidents can consist of a variety of factors from different ranges and categories, it is possible to tag each accident participant with several causation factors. This also opens the possibility to not only assign causation factors to the accident causer in the sense of the law, but also to other participants involved in the accident, who may have contributed to the development of the accident. The hierarchical layout of the system and the collection of the causation factors with numerical codes allow for the possibility to code information on accident causes even if the causation factor is not known to its full extent or in full detail, given the possibility to code only those cause factors, which are known. Derived from the systematic of the analysis of human accident causes ("7 steps") and from the practical experiences of on-scene interviews of accident participants, a system was set in place, which offers the possibility to extensively record not only human causation factors in a structured form. Furthermore, the analysis of the human causation factors in such a structured way provides a tool, especially for on-scene accident investigations, to conduct the interview of accident participants effectively and in a structured way.
Cyclists are more likely to be injured in fatal crashes than motorised vehicles. To gain detailed and precise behavioural data of road users, i.e. trajectories, a measuring campaign was conducted. Therefore, a black-spot for accidents with cyclists in Berlin, Germany was selected. The traffic has been detected by a fully automated traffic video analysis system continuously for twelve hours. The video surveillance system is capable of automatically extracting trajectories, classifying road user types and precise determining and positioning of conflicts and accidents. Additionally, pre-conflict and pre-accident situations could be analysed to provide further in-depth understanding of accident causation. The evaluation of the measuring campaign comprised the investigation of traffic parameters, e.g. traffic flow, as well as traffic-safety related parameters based on Surrogate Safety Measures (SSM). Furthermore, the spatial and temporal distributions of conflicts involving cyclists were determined. As a result, three possible conflict clusters could be identified, of which one cluster could be confirmed by detailed video analysis, showing conflicts caused by right turning vehicles.
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 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.
The increasing economics in India has an enormous growth of its road traffic. As observed from official Indian accident statistics the number of road fatalities are one of the highest worldwide. In contrast to most industrialized nations they have an rapidly increasing trend. To come along with this trend it becomes more than essential to understand the traffic accident situation. The official Indian accident statistics gives a glimpse of only basic information. Therefore more detailed data is needed. By using In-depth accident data and officially representative statistics the current accident situation can be evaluated in India, if a suitable weighting methodology is considered. Hence in 2009/2010 a pilot study with the collaboration partner JP-Research India pvt. Ldt. was gathered in Tamil Nadu in south of India. In-depth accident investigations were done around the Coimbatore area on four highways. At first, the collected data is evaluated. Due to consequent and continuous further development based on the first approach a methodology similar to NASS/CDS/GES in the US and GIDAS in Germany was developed. Of course all relevant accident related parameters including pictures and severity information were collected. As a matter of fact based on scaled sketches and reconstruction benefit analyses can be done in order to analyze the accident scenery in India. As a first outcome influence from infrastructure, missing education and vehicle safety were identified as key parameters in order to reduce the number of accidents and casualties. To compare the accident situation against international standards an accident classification for left hand traffic was developed based on the German Insurance classification system. Looking into detail additional accident types were identified and added to create an Indian accident type catalogue. The positive results encouraged several OEMs to participate in this investigation and together with BOSCH a consortium was established in 2010/11. Within one year from beginning in May 2011 about 200 highway accidents were collected, reported and reconstructed using the new standard. Hence a first good overview of the accident situation is available for the Coimbatore Tamil Nadu area. The major target for establishing accident investigations is the extension towards other states of India and urban areas to achieve a better overview of the accident scenery. Therefore local and national authorities have to be embedded in order to strengthen the awareness against traffic safety.
This study updates previous IIHS studies comparing estimated delta Vs for crash tested vehicles to the distribution of estimated delta Vs in the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) Crashworthiness Data System (CDS). The delta V estimates for 232 frontal crash tests at 64.4km/h into a deformable barrier with 40 percent overlap are compared with estimates from frontal offset crashes in the 1997-2004 NASS database. All delta V estimates were based on SMASH, the delta V estimating program used by NASS since 1997. Results indicated that for all vehicles tested by IIHS, SMASH delta Vs were, on average, 32 percent lower than impact speeds and about 28 percent lower than the expected delta V. Almost 80 percent of all real-world frontal crashes resulting in AIS 3+ injuries and just over 60 percent of all fatal crashes occur at or below the average estimated delta V calculated for crash tested vehicles.
The misuse of CRS (child restraint system) is one of the most urgent problems in connection of child safety in cars. Numerous field studies show that more than two thirds of all CRS are used in a wrong way. This misuse could lead to serious injuries for the children. Surprisingly the quality of CRS use is coded much better in accident data (e.g. GIDAS) than the results of observatory field studies show. It is expected that misuse of CRS was not detected by the accident teams in a large number of the cases. An essential part in improving child seats and their usability is the knowledge of the relation between misuse and resulting injuries. For that the analysis and experimental reconstruction of accidents is an important part. For allowing an exact experimental accident reconstruction, it is necessary to have detailed information about the securing situation of the child and about the installation of the CRS in the car.
[Introduction:] A large number of road users involved in road traffic crashes recover from their injuries, but some of them never recover fully and suffer from some kind of permanent disability. In addition to loss of life or reduced quality of life, road accidents carry many and diverse consequences to the survivors such as legal implications, economic burden, job absences, need of care from a third person, home and vehicle adaptations as well as psychological consequences. Within an EU funded project MOVE/C4/SUB/2011-294/SI2.628846 (REHABIL AID) these consequences were analyzed more detailed.
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.
In India, heavy truck crashes on national highways account for a number of fatalities. But due to lack of in-depth crash data, detailed analysis is not possible to determine injury mechanisms, and to identify infrastructure, vehicle and human factors affecting these crashes. Over the past two years, researchers in India have established a crash investigation network, with the co-operation of the police and hospitals, to conduct crash investigations and in-depth crash data collection on national highways in the state of Tamil Nadu. This pioneering effort has resulted in the development of a heavy truck crash investigation methodology, the outcome of which is scientific and reliable crash data that has been able to provide good insight into truck crashes and their causes. This paper explains the need for truck crash investigations, the methodology, conclusions of the data analyzed up to date, and the need to focus on truck driver working conditions.
In an on-going project since 2005, ADAC has been analyzing accidents documented by the ADAC air rescue service. The knowledge derived from real-life accidents serves as a basis for new test configurations and assessment criteria. In 2007, ADAC began looking into the feasibility of international data collection. The idea of Global Accident Prevention was born. Three European partner clubs have begun pioneering the project (ÖAMTC, ANWB, and RACC). The aim is to set up an international accident research network to provide a steady stream of information on road accidents. The FIA Foundation supports ADAC in developing and coordinating this initiative.
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.
The improvement of passive car security devices led to a reduction of injuries, especially of the head, the neck and the torso mainly due to the airbag function. The passenger's foot and ankle could not profit from this development. Some investigators even reported a progression of leg injuries (1). In this study, we investigated a current collective of patients with foot and ankle fractures or severe soft tissue injuries in relation with defined crash parameters. Special interest was paid to the car's footwell.
Today's volumes of traffic require more and more responsibility from each individual road user in their interactions. Those who drive motor vehicles have the singular obligation to minimise the risk of accidents and hence the severity of injuries, particularly with a view to the most vulnerable road users such as motor bikes, bikes and pedestrians. Since responsible and pro-active driving depends first and foremost on the visual information relayed by our eyes and the visual channel this requires good command of the traffic and all-round visibility from our driver's seat. Granted that human error can never be fully excluded, improving visibility around the car is nevertheless an urgent priority. To do so, we need to rate visibility in the most realistic driving situations. Since the existing visibility metrics and methodology are not applicable to real-life driving situations, this study aimed at developing a new visibility rating methodology based on real-life accident scenarios. On the basis of the cases documented by the accident research project, this study analysed criteria indicative of diminishing visibility on the one hand and revealing some peculiarities in connection with the visibility issue on the other. Based on the above, the project set out to develop a rating methodology allowing to assess all-round visibility in various road situations taking into account both driver and road geometries. In this context, the assessment of visibility while turning a corner, crossing an intersection and joining traffic on a major road (priority through route) is of major importance. The first tests have shown that critical situations can be avoided by adapting the relevant geometries and technical solutions and that significant improvements of road safety can be derived therefrom.
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).
Since 2005, the motorcycle crash fatalities in the US exceeded 10% of the overall annual traffic fatalities. Consequently, it has become critical to gain in-depth understanding of the factors and characteristics contributing to motorcycle crashes. Unfortunately, there currently exists no database gathering the necessary information for an in-depth analysis of the US motorcycle crashes. So this study utilizes the NASS/CDS database (National Automotive Sampling System, Crashworthiness Data System) in order to gain insights into the patterns and factors leading to a NASS/CDS motorcycle crash, from 1997 to 2007. NASS/CDS samples about 5,000 passenger car tow-away crashes per year. Each case includes photographs and detailed data on crash and pre-crash characteristics, vehicle types, trajectories, types of impact, and other pertinent roadway and crash scene information, allowing an in-depth investigation of the crash mechanisms. However, the NASS/CDS sampling process specifically focuses on passenger car crashes, so the cases extracted only correspond to crashes in which a passenger vehicle was towed, and a motorcycle was somehow involved. Thus, a by-hand in-depth review of about 200 cases allowed retrieving 106 relevant crashes for this study, tending to represent the severe passenger vehicle(s) versus motorcycle(s) crashes on US roads. The findings lead to the conclusion that these crashes mostly result from the low conspicuity of the motorcycle, and from the inability of the car drivers to fully appreciate and anticipate the behavior of a motorcycle. Indeed, it has been shown that, first, the car drivers involved in these cases did not attempt any avoidance maneuver, second, they were largely of ages under 25, and finally, the majority of the crashes were in an intersection scenario. In addition, the two major scenarios unveiled were the car attempting a left turn from the opposite direction and the car attempting a left turn from the right. The paper mentions several solutions to enhance the motorcycle- conspicuity and to allow the car drivers to better anticipate its behavior, which seem to be key factors in the intersection-related crashes (and more generally in the passenger vehicle(s) versus motorcycle(s) crashes).
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.
The paper gives an overview of the recent (mostly 2012) figures of killed bus/coach occupants (drivers and passengers) in 27 Member States of the European Union as reported by CARE. The Evolution of the figures of bus/coach occupants killed in road accidents urban, rural without motorway and on motorways from 1991 to 2010 in 15 Member States of the EU supplements this information. More detailed are the figures reported for Germany by the Federal Statistics. The paper displays long-term evaluations (1957 to 2012) for killed, seriously and slightly injured occupants in all kinds of buses/coaches. Midterm evaluations (1995 to 2012) of the figures of fatalities and casualties are displayed for different busses according to their identification of road using as coaches, urban buses, school buses, trolley buses and "other buses". To be able to compare the evolutions of the safety of vehicle occupants it is customary to use different risk indicators. Calculations and illustrations for three often used indicators with their development over time are given: fatalities, seriously injured and slightly injured per 100,000 vehicles registered, per 1 billion (109) vehicle-kilometres travelled and per 1 billion (109) person-kilometres. These indicators are shown for occupants of cars, goods vehicles and buses/coaches. For the period from 1957 until 2012 it is obvious, that for all three vehicle categories analysed there was a clear long-term trend towards more occupant safety in terms of casualties per vehicles registered and per vehicle mileage. This was most significant for car occupants but it can be seen for bus/coach occupants and goodsvehicle occupants as well. Figures of killed occupants and of casualties related to person-kilometres are calculated and displayed for the shorter period 1995 to 2012. Here it becomes obvious that the bus/coach is still the safest mode of transport for the occupants of road vehicles. Graphs for the casualty risk indices still show significantly higher risks for car occupants despite the corresponding curve moved sustainable downwards. It is remarkable, that the risks of being killed or injured for the occupants of urban buses is growing whereas the corresponding risk for the occupants of coaches in line traffic tends downwards. The article ends with a short comparison and discussion of the risk indicators which are actually published for the occupants (driver and passengers) of cars and the passengers of buses/coaches, railroads, trams and airplanes. The interpretation of such information depends on the perception and it seems that for a complete view not only one indicator should be used and the evolutions of the indicator values during longer periods (as displayed with examples in the paper) should also be taken into account.
Aim of the study was to evaluate the protective effect of bicycle helmets particularly considering injuries to the head and to the face. Accidents with the participation of bicyclists which occurred from 2000 to 2007 were chosen from GIDAS. We observed that injuries to the head and face were more severe in the group of non-helmeted riders. There seems to be no significant difference in injuries with AIS 3-6. Altogether 26 cyclists were killed. 2 of them wore a helmet (1% of helmeted cyclists), 24 did not (1% of non-helmeted cyclists). Only one killed rider (without helmet) did not suffer from polytrauma (only head injuries recorded). The findings seem to support the thesis of a preventive effect of the bicycle helmet, however the two groups are different in their characteristics related to riding speed. Necessarily we need a multivariate model to evaluate the effect of helmets.
The primary goal of this investigation was to determine the relative risk of traffic accidents in students. In a two year period, a survey amongst 2,325 students was carried out, and 3,645 injuries sustained by students treated at our hospital were analyzed. Moped-riding in adolescents were associated with a 23.75-fold increased risk for injury as compared to biking. Children who ride bicycles have a 2.2-fold increased risk for an injury sustained by traffic accidents compared to pedestrians. None of 50 injured bicycle riders with helmet had an AIS for head injuries of more than 2. 24 of 233 injured bicycle drivers without helmet had an AIS for head injuries of more than 2. The use of a protective helmet significantly reduced the severity of head injuries. The level of awareness towards danger and a history of previous accidents correlate with the likelihood of future accidents. Due to the severity of traffic accidents, more adequate prevention measures (wearing of bicycle helmets and better education for moped riders) are urgently needed.
Providing effective occupant protection in rollover crashes requires supplying the occupant with a restraint system proven effective in the dynamic rollover accident mode. Preventing ejection and providing restraint sufficient to prevent potentially injurious contacts with both interior and exterior vehicle components is paramount for effective rollover occupant protection. Research has shown that the injury potential can be decreased by closely coupling the occupant to the seat. This paper focuses on the effect of restraint system slack and its relationship to occupant excursion and ejection potential during rollover. Various restraint system configurations are evaluated in rollover-type test environments. A review of prior research is presented prior to presenting new quasi-static vehicle inversion studies conducted with live surrogate occupants. Additionally, dynamic rollover testing utilizing anthropometric test devices (ATDs) is presented. The influence of belt looseness and effects of various restraint designs on the belted occupants' injury potential are discussed.
Among European Countries, Spain first issued a Standard, UNE 135900:2005, further updated in 2008, that deals with homologation and effectiveness evaluation of road restraint systems components designed to reduce harm for bikers impacting on them. An in depth analysis and critical review of this standard is reported in this paper. Beside a close examination of the standard requirements, numerical models of the crash test stated by the standard have been set up and simulated to study the effects of slight speed and approach angle variations on test results, remaining within tolerance gaps allowed by the standard. Model were validated against experimental data. Together with the expected increasing severity of the impact according with speed, a strong influence of approach angle on injury parameters was found. Possible improvements to the norm, in order to make it more robust, are suggested.
Event Data Recorder (EDR) is an additional function installed in airbag control module (ACM) to record vehicle and occupant information for a brief period of time before, during, and after a crash event. EDRs are now being installed in ACMs by several automakers in the USA and in Japan. The aim of this study is to understand the performance of EDRs for the improvement of accident reconstruction with more reliable information. In the first report of the study, data obtained from EDRs of seven vehicle types were evaluated using 2006-2007 J-NCAP (Japanese new car assessment program) full-lap frontal barrier crash tests and offset frontal deformable barrier crash tests data. For more practical standpoint, we conducted thirteen crash tests reconstructing typical real-world accidents such as single vehicle accidents with barriers or poles, car to car accidents and multi rear-end collisions focusing on Japanese typical accident types. Data obtained from EDRs are compared with data obtained from optical speed sensor, instrumented accelerometers and high speed video cameras. The velocities determined from pre-crash data of EDRs and the maximum change in velocity, delta-V, and delta-V time history data obtained from post-crash data of EDRs are analyzed. The results are as follows: - Pre-crash velocities of EDRs were very accurate and reliable. An average difference between the EDR recording values and reference speeds was 4.2% and a root mean square of the differences was 9.2%. Only two cases resulted large differences for the pre-crash velocity. Both of them were cases with braking prior to the collision. However, another test with braking resulted less difference. The braking condition may influence accuracy of pre-crash velocities. - Maximum delta-Vs obtained from the EDRs showed uncertainty of measurement in several cases in comparisons with the reliable delta-V data. The differences in maximum delta-V were more than 10% in five of twenty-five events data and more than 20% in two of twenty-five events data. An average of the all differences was about 4% and root mean square of the differences was about 11%. Especially large deformation at narrow area may influence accuracy of post-crash delta-V. - Multiple rear-end crash tests were reconstructed using EDRs data as case studies. Some EDRs recorded two events and a time gap between two events, so that these reconstruction case studies were very accurate and reliable. - If though only one of three vehicles in multiple rear end crash was equipped EDR, overview and velocities of all cars may be reconstructed using these limited EDR data. In this case study, leading car- EDR data and middle car- EDR data were valuable. However if only following car was equipped EDR, the reconstruction was not accurate
The advent of active safety systems calls for the development of appropriate testing methods. These methods aim to assess the effectivity of active safety systems based on criteria such as their capability to avoid accidents or lower impact speeds and thus mitigate the injury severity. For prospective effectivity studies, simulation becomes an important tool that needs valid models not only to simulate driving dynamics and safety systems, but also to resolve the collision mechanics. This paper presents an impact model which is based on solving momentum conservation equations and uses it in an effectivity study of a generic collision mitigation system in reconstructed real accidents at junctions. The model assumes an infinitely short crash duration and computes output parameters such as post-crash velocities, delta-v, force directions, etc. and is applicable for all impact collision configurations such as oblique, excentric collisions. Requiring only very little computational effort, the model is especially useful for effectivity studies where large numbers of simulations are necessary. Validation of the model is done by comparison with results from the widely used reconstruction software PC-Crash. Vehicles involved in the accidents are virtually equipped with a collision mitigation system for junctions using the software X-RATE, and the simulations (referred to as system simulations) are started sufficiently early before the collision occurred. In order to assess the effectivity, the real accident (referred to as baseline) is compared with the system simulations by computing the reduction of the impact speeds and delta-v.
Many safety-relevant tasks in control or diagnostics require binary choices such as "conflict versus separation" in air traffic control, "normal versus pathological" when interpreting x-ray pictures, or "permitted versus forbidden" when inspecting airport security scans. Deciders often are uncertain, but nevertheless required to decide between two alternatives, that is, they have not only to decide upon an action, but also about the admissible level of uncertainty. If the accepted level of judgment certainty is not taken into account, the sequence of decisions does not capture the full picture of the underlying decision process. Differences in judgment certainty are relevant, because they reflect not only the adequacy of the human-machine interface that is evaluated, but also the differences in expertise of the decider and the requirements of the actual situation or task. Therefore, capturing both judgment certainty and discrimination performance is essential. A comparison of different human-machine-interfaces (for air traffic control) is used to illustrate a methodological approach, which allows for integrated analyses of decision processes based on receiver-operator-characteristics and practical guidelines for the evaluation of human-machine-interfaces for safety-relevant operation procedures are provided.
This paper will outline ETSC's contribution to the European Union's road safety policy 2011-2020. It will present some of the main recommendations from ETSC's Blueprint for the 4th Road Safety Action Programme and will introduce the response to the European Commission's Road Safety Policy Orientations 2011-2020 (published July 2010). The second framework document presented is the Transport White Paper (published March 2011). The paper will focus on new targets and the new vision set for Europe's Road Safety policy picking out some issues in particular such as traffic law enforcement and the protection of vulnerable road users. It will argue that by reinforcing the current Road Safety Policy Orientations, the EU will be better placed to reach its new ambitious goal of halving road deaths by 2020 and the longer term zero casualty vision.
Estimation of the benefits for the UK for potential options to modify UNECE Regulation No. 95
(2010)
The side impact problem in Europe remains substantial. UK data shows that between 22% and 26% of car occupant casualties are involved in a side impact, but this rises to between 29% and 38% for those who are fatally injured. This indicates the more injurious nature of side impacts compared with frontal impacts. The European Enhanced Vehicle safety Committee (EEVC) has performed work to address the side impact issue since 1979. As part of its continuing work, it has recently investigated potential options for regulatory changes to improve side impact protection in cars further. To support this work the UK undertook an analysis to estimate the benefit for potential options to modify UNECE Regulation 95. The analysis used the UK national STATS19 and detailed Co-operative Crash Injury Study (CCIS) accident databases. Of the potential options reviewed, it was found that the addition of a pole test offered the greatest benefit.
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.
Although the annual traffic accident statistics published by the national police is available in public, the detailed traffic accident data has not been released in Korea. Recently the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport recognized the importance of in-depth accident data to enhance road traffic safety and initiated a research project to establish a collection of the detailed accident data. The main objective of the project is a feasibility study to establish KIDAS (Korea In-Depth Accident Study). Within this project, three university hospitals which are located in mid-size cities have been selected to collect accident data. Annually, more than 500 cases of accidents have been collected from the in-patient's interviews and diagnosis. Unlike GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study), currently on-site investigation can"t be performed by the Korean police. The only available data is patient medical records, patient's description of accident circumstances and the damaged vehicle. Occasionally the police provide the accident investigation reports containing very brief information on accident causation and vehicle safety. In a first step, the concept of KIDAS is to adopt the format of iGLAD (Initiative for the Global Harmonization of Accident Data) for harmonization. Since the currently collected accident information is extremely limited compared with GIDAS, the other sources of data and calculations such as KNCAP vehicle data, pc-crash simulations, vehicle registration information, insurance company data are utilized to complete the iGLAD template. Results from KIDAS_iGLAD and the cases of assessment of active safety devices such as AEBS, ESC, and LDWS will be evaluated.
The need for improved EU level accident information and data was identified in the EU White Paper on Transport Policy (2001)1 and detailed in the Road Safety Action Plan (2003)2. The plan specifies that the EC will develop a road safety observatory to coordinate data collection within an integrated framework.
A change emerges in hospital landscape due to health political measures, which in consequence also influences the pre-clinical medical care of emergencies. The main focus of this study was to gather information about emergency medical care after traffic accidents on the basis of data of Bavarian emergency medical services. In Bavaria, in 2006 it was necessary to call an emergency doctor in the case of 14.261 traffic accidents. Predominantly the patients were provided by land-based life saving appliances, air rescue services were only applied in 19.1 % of the cases. 47.6 % of patients being involved in a traffic accident were transported into a primary health care hospital. A prehospital interval of more than 60 minutes was calculated in 20 % of emergency care. 96.2 % of the patients were transported to hospitals of tertiary or maximum supply by air rescue services. The life saving appliances" readiness for action is however restricted to daylight. A further limitation appeared for routine office hours in hospitals: Only 36.7 % of accidents occurred in this time frame. An increase of hospitalizations in clinics of maximum supply appeared from 2002 until 2006 while simultaneously the prehospital period was extended. To assure a sufficient medical care of seriously injured persons further on, a fulltime and area-wide expostulation of efficient facilities is necessary. For this purpose it is necessary to establish regional trauma networks as well as emergency medical service at night time. Beyond that, a cost efficient compensation of the structural, personnel and logistic expenses has to be assured.
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.
Twenty-eight percent of traffic accidents in Japan are rear-end collisions, and of these, 13% are multiple collisions (three or more vehicles and/or roadside objects). A post-crash braking system enables the driver to stop the vehicle in a short distance after a rear-end collision to prevent secondary collisions. In this study, the effectiveness of a post-crash braking system was examined using a drive recorder database. In 64% of rear-end collisions, the driver's braking was interrupted after the collision. The stopping distance was estimated with time data from the drive recorder. We predict that the brake assist would be effective in preventing secondary collisions in 21% of cases.
SEEKING is looking for answers regarding electric powered bicycles and their relation to traffic safety issues. Does a cyclist need "E"? Is it as risky as riding a moped or are E-bikes creating conflicts with other cyclists? The project described herein, funded by the Austrian Ministry of Transport, has the aim of seeking answers to these hot topics. The SEEKING-team shows an in-depth investigation of vehicle dynamic sensing, together with subjective feedback of test riders to detect similarities and differences between conventional cycling and E-biking. Following an overview on the international status quo, measurement runs and their analyses are performed to find a set of preventative measures to make (E-)biking safer. A specific focus is the detection of curve handling, stopping and acceleration phases as well as conflict studies on course-based test rides and "real world" tests on cycling paths (naturalistic riding).
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.
Do learner gain sufficient braking capabilities at the end of education for collision avoidance?
(2013)
The paper describes a test design to evaluate the braking behaviour in the course of the driver education. The results show that the braking capabilities increased during the driver education and the learning effects are the same for males and females. The evaluation limit is set to 6 m/s-². At the beginning of education, 50% of the drivers do not reach this limit, although the driver education car is equipped with an emergency brake assist, which is regularly installed in all vehicles since 2009. After the education, 100% of the drivers can reach the limit. The results are mapped to a collision avoidance scenario.
The study aimed at estimating the impact of pedelecs (with an assumed higher speed than bicycles) on the traffic accident severity in Germany for different penetration rates. The analysis shows that in many real situations (68%) an electrical support of bicycles has no influence on the sequence of accident events. Taking into account a number of unreported "single bicycle accidents", the adoption of similar traffic behavior and similar age distribution, the authors determined a shift of 400 former slightly to seriously injured cyclists in Germany per year. Overall this would be an increase of approximately 2.3% in case of 10% of pedelec penetration with the pessimistic assumption of 10 km/h speed increase although first natural driving studies predict a much lower average speed increase of pedelecs. The hypothesis verbalized in the initial question whether a higher distribution of pedelecs will result in more severe accidents in Germany is not verified. The study shows that electrical support didn"t result in higher collision speed in general. In many accident situations, the speed of pedelecs has only a minor influence on the accident severity. Further research focusing on a possible change of driver behavior especially in new target groups (elderly people) will be needed.
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 Decision Support System (DSS) is one of the key objectives of the European co-funded research project SafetyCube in order to better support evidence-based policy making. Results will be assembled in the form of a DSS that will present for each suggested road safety measure: details of risk factor tackled, measure, best estimate of casualty reduction effectiveness, cost-benefit evaluation and analytic background. The development of the DSS presents a great potential to further support decision making at local, regional, national and international level, aiming to fill in the current gap of comparable measures effectiveness evaluation. In order to provide policy-makers and industry with comprehensive and well-structured information about measures, it is essential that a systems approach is used to ensure the links between risk factors and all relevant safety measures are made fully visible. The DSS is intended to become a major source of information for industry, policy-makers and the wider road safety community.
The Powered Two Wheelers (PTWs) accidents constitute one of the road safety targets in Europe. PTWs users' fatalities represent 15% of EU road fatalities, having increased the last few years, which is quite opposite than other road users casualties. To reduce PTW accidents is necessary to know which the accident causations are from different points of view (human factor, vehicle characteristics, environment, type of accident, situation, etc.). In TRACE project ("Traffic Accident Causation in Europe", under the European Commission 6th Framework Program, 2006-2008,) a specific task was focused on PTW users point of view, analyzing extensive databases to locate the main accident configurations (type of accident, severity, frequency), and an in-depth database to obtain the causation factors, the risk factors for each configuration founded in the extensive databases analysis and the variables associated to each causation factor in the PTW configurations.
Detailed investigations and reconstructions of real accidents involving vulnerable road users
(2005)
The aim of this research is to improve knowledge about vulnerable road users accidents and more specifically pedestrians or cyclists. This work has been based on a complete analysis of real accidents. From accidents chosen from an in-depth multidisciplinary investigation (psychology, technical, medical), we have tried to identify the configuration of the impact: car speed, pedestrian or cyclist orientations. Then, we have made a numerical modelling of the same configuration with a multibody software. In particular, we have reproduced the anthropometry of the victim and the front shape of the car. A first simulation has been performed on this starting configuration. Next, effects of some parameters such as car velocity or victim position at impact have been numerically studied in order to find the best correlations with all indications produced by the in-depth analysis. Finally, the retained configuration was close to the presumed real accident conditions because it reproduces in particular the same impact points on the car, the same injuries, and is according to the driver statement. This double approach associating an in-depth accident analysis and a numerical simulation has been applied on pedestrian-to-car and bicyclist-tocar accidents. It has allowed us to better understand the real kinematics of such impacts. Even if this method is based on a case to case study, it underlines which parameters are relevant on a vulnerable road user accident investigation and reconstruction.
The need of passive safety devices, able to reduce the accidents and the severity of injuries suffered by motorcyclist, distinctly arises from data on accident statistics. In this paper, the effectiveness of an airbag device fitted in the biker- garments has been verified through various numerical simulations. Two simple test conditions were defined, in order to investigate the performance of the device both for back and front impacts, and simulated at various impact speeds. With the aim of providing more information about the actual capability of the airbag to reduce the severity of the injuries, one of accident scenario described by ISO 13232:2005 has been also investigated, checking the real effectiveness of the airbag strap-based firing system too. Confrontation of injury indexes resulting from simulation with and without airbag made possible a realistic evaluation of the harm reduction induced by the airbag presence.
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.
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.
The price of a new car increased almost every year for a long period. In recent years however, the budget available to most people for purchasing a car either did not grow or became even smaller. Therefore it was in the interest of some OEMs to offer economical car models in the so-called "8,000- Euro class". Here an important question arose regarding the safety of these vehicles. There is no question that the very high safety level of cars reached in Europe during the last decades should not be sacrificed as a consequence of smaller budgets. Customers with sense of responsibility have the right to be properly informed about the balance between safety and price so that they can make a deliberate decision when buying either a new or a used car. Against this background, the German magazine "AutoBILD" commissioned DEKRA to conduct fullscale frontal crash tests with a view to publishing the results. These tests have been carried out in accordance with the corresponding Euro NCAP crash test requirements and performance criteria. The tested vehicles were two new Logans produced by the manufacturer Dacia, two used cars of the type VW Golf IV (registration date 2000) and one new VW Fox. This paper describes the safety features of the vehicles and the results of the five crash tests to demonstrate state-of-the-art safety levels and what levels may be expected from vehicles in the "8,000- Euro class". Looking at real-world crashes it is of interest to think about future trends in a more detailed manner. Therefore it will be more and more necessary to supplement the federal statistics with more detailed in-depth information about the consequences of accidents and the safety performance of crashed vehicles.
The utilisation of secondary-safety systems to protect occupants has attained a very high level over the past decades. Further improvements are still possible, but increasingly minor progress is only to be had with a high degree of effort. Thus, a key aspect must be the impact to overall safety in an accident. If reliable information is available on an imminent crash, measures already taken in the pre-crash phase can result in a significantly great influence on the outcomes of the crash. With this background preventive measures are the key to a sustainable further reduction of the figures of crash victims on our roads. This paper aims to show a preventive approach that can contribute to lessening the consequences of a crash by creating an optimum interaction of measures in the fields of primary and secondary safety. To further enhance vehicle safety, driver assistant systems are already available that warn the driver of an imminent front-to-rear-end crash. The next step is to support him in his reactions or if he fails to react sufficiently, to even initiate an automatic braking when the crash becomes unavoidable. Automatic pre-crash braking can, in an ideal situation, fully prevent a crash or can significantly reduce the impact speed and thus the impact energy (and the severity of the accident). If a vehicle is being braked in the pre-crash phase, the occupants are already being pre-stressed by the deceleration. The information available about the imminent crash can be used to activate the belt tensioners and likewise other secondary safety systems in the vehicle right before the impact. The pre-crash deceleration also causes the front of the vehicle to dip. Conventional crash tests do not take this specific impact situation into consideration. This is why, for example, the influences of the pre-crash displacements of the occupants are not recorded in the test results. Furthermore, a reproducible representation of the benefit of the vehicle safety systems which prepare the occupants for the imminent impact is not possible. In order to demonstrate the functions of automated pre-crash braking and to investigate the differences during the impact as a consequence of the altered occupant positions as well as the initiation of force and deformations of the vehicle front, DEKRA teamed up with BMW to carry out a joint crash test with the latest BMW 5 series vehicle. It involved the vehicle braking automatically from a starting test speed of 64 km/h (corresponding to the impact speed set by Euro NCAP) down to 40 km/h. The test was still run by the intelligent drive system of the crash test facility. This required several modifications to be made to the test facility as well as to the vehicle. The paper will describe and discuss some relevant results of the crash test. In addition, the possible benefits of such systems will also be considered. The test supplemented the work of the vFSS working group (vFSS stands advanced Forward-looking Safety Systems).
Crash involvement studies using routine accident and exposure data : a case for case-control designs
(2009)
Fortunately, accident involvement is a rare event: the chance of an individual road user trip to end up in a crash is close to zero. Thus, according to general epidemiological principles one can expect the case-control study design to be especially suitable for quantifying the relative risk (odds ratio) of accident involvement of road users with a certain risk factor as compared to road users that do not have this characteristic. Ideally, of course, the database for such a case-control study should be established by drawing two independent random samples of cases (accidental units) and controls (nonaccidental units), respectively. If, however, special data collection is not an option, it is nevertheless possible to analyze routine accident and exposure data under a case-control design in order to fully exploit the information contained in already existing databases. As a prerequisite, accident and exposure data from different sources are to be combined in a single file of micro or grouped data in a way consistent with the case-control study design. Among other things, the proposed methodological approach offers the possibility to use in-depth data of the GIDAS type also in investigations of active vehicle safety by combining this data with appropriate vehicle trip data collected in mobility surveys.
Active safety systems are aimed at accident prevention, hence the knowledge required for their development is different from that required for passive safety systems aimed at injury prevention. Particularly, knowledge about accident causation is required. When looking at existing accident causation data, it is argued it fails to explain in sufficient detail how and why the accidents occur. Therefore, there is a need for detailed micro-level descriptions of accident causation mechanisms, and also of methodologies suitable for creating such descriptions. One study addressing these needs is the Swedish project FICA (Factors Influencing the Causation of Accidents and Incidents), where an accident investigation methodology suitable for active safety is developed, and in-depth accident investigations following this methodology are carried out on-scene in the area of Gothenburg by a multidisciplinary team. A preliminary aggregated analysis of different cases shows that the methodology developed is adequate for pointing out common contributing factors and devising principal countermeasures.
The current paper reports on the results of a pilot study aiming to investigate the effect of mobile telephone use on the driving performance of 5 amateur and 5 professional drivers. Their driving acuity was tested through a driving simulator. Analysis and interpretation of the results occurred comparing the drivers' driving performance while talking, reading messages and writing a message on the mobile phone (intervention time) with the drivers' driving performance engaged in no activity (control time). The variables affected by the mobile phone were the "steering", the "lane offset" and the "duration of lane offset". Moreover, the drivers involved in a car crash in the last five years appeared to differ from those who were not involved in a crash in both "lane offset" and "following distance". The results of this pilot study will inform the design of a large experimental study on 50 professional and 50 amateur drivers.
The fact that ADAC Air Rescue handles approximately 4,000 road accident missions every year gave rise to set up an accident research programme for which ADAC Air Rescue provides its data. This data is of initial informational quality and will be supplemented by data from the police, experts, fire brigades as well as hospitals and forensic institutes. Although the number of cases is still rather low, certain tendencies can be identified. The causes for most accidents occur when joining or intersecting traffic, followed by speeding in road bends and tailgating. Many accidents involve HGV rear end collisions, often causing serious injuries, considerable damage and technical problems for the rescue operations. With regard to the various impact types, it has become obvious that most of the extremely serious injuries are inflicted during a passenger car side impact. In addition, access to and removal of trapped passengers is becoming more and more complicated, partly due to the increasing use of high-strength materials, and rescue operations tend to be more time consuming.
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.
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.
In recent years the boundaries between active and passive safety blurred more and more. Passive safety in the traditional term includes all safety aspects to prevent occupants to be injured or at least injury severity should be reduced. Passive Safety starts with the collision (first vehicle contact) and ends with rescue (open vehicle doors). Within this phase the occupant has to be protected by the passenger compartment whereby no intrusion should occur. Active safety on the other side was developed to interact prior to the collision whereby the goal is to prevent accidents. The extensive interaction between active and passive safety led to the terminologies "Primary" and "Secondary" safety whereas the expression Integrated Safety Concept was generated. Within this study the most well documented single vehicle accidents with cars not equipped with ESP were identified from the PENDANT database and reconstructed. Additional cases were found in the database ZEDATU of TU Graz. In comparison each case was simulated with the assumption that the cars were equipped with ESP. The differences regarding accident avoidance or crash severity as well as reduction of injury risk were analysed.
In order to enable foreseeing or comparing the benefit of safety systems or driver assistance systems in Germany, in the United States and in Japan, the traffic accident databases in those three countries are examined. The variables used are culpable party, collision partner, accident type, and injury level and the method to re-classify the databases for comparison are proposed. The result indicates that single passenger car fatality is the most frequent in Germany and in the United States, while passenger car vs. pedestrian is the most frequent fatality scenario in Japan. When the casualty by fatality ratio is focused, the greatest difference is observed in rear-end collisions. The ratio of slight injuries in Japan yields about eighteen times as many as those in Germany, and about eight times as many as those in the United States.
For the determination of the road surface roughness common methods have been established, like Skid Resistance Tester (SRT) or the Sideway-force Coefficient Routine Investigation Machine (SCRIM). Both methods are used to measure a comparable and reliable maximum friction potential value and to assess the quality of the road surface. However, the comparison of the measurements under real conditions and the results of measurements with SRT and SCRIM showed only minor correlations. The paper shows the comparison between these standardised methods and real vehicle braking tests and discusses the results.
In this study, we compared the injury severity of occupants according to the seating position and the crashing direction in motor vehicle accidents. In the driver's point of view, it was separated the seating position as "Near-side" and "Far-side". The study subjects were targeted by people who visited 4 regional emergency centers following motor vehicle accidents. Real-world investigation was performed by direct and indirect methods after patient- consent. The information of the damaged vehicle was informed by Collision Deformation Classification (CDC) code and the information of the injury of patients was informed by using the Abbreviated Injury Score (AIS) and Injury Severity Score (ISS). When the column 3 in CDC code was P, damaged at the middle part of lateral side, the average point of AIS 3 was 1.91-±1.72 in near-side and 1.02-±1.31 in far-side (p<0.01). The average point of maximum AIS (MAIS) was 2.78-±1.39 in near-side and 2.02-±1.11 in far-side (p<0.01). The average point of ISS was 15.74-±14.71 in near-side and 8.11-±8.39 in far-side (p<0.01). Also, when the column 3 in CDC code was D, damaged at the whole part of lateral side, it was significant that the average point of AIS 3 and MAIS in near-side was bigger than in far-side (p=0.02).
The aim of this study is to investigate the differences in car occupant injury severity recorded in AIS 2005 compared to AIS 1990 and to outline the likely effects on future data analysis findings. Occupant injury data in the UK Cooperative Crash Injury Study Database (CCIS) were coded for the period February 2006 to November 2007 using both AIS 1990 and AIS 2005. Data for 1,994 occupants with over 6000 coded injuries were reviewed at the AIS and MAIS level of severities and body regions to determine changes between the two coding methodologies. Overall there was an apparent general trend for fewer injuries to be coded at the AIS 4+ severity and more injuries to be coded at the AIS 2 severity. When these injury trends were reviewed in more detail it was found that the body regions which contributed the most to these changes in severity were the head, thorax and extremities. This is one of the first studies to examine the implications for large databases when changing to an updated method for coding injuries.
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.
Cycle helmets have continued to increase in popularity since their introduction half a century ago. Many studies indicate that overall, head injury can be significantly reduced by wearing them. This study was conducted using two distinct sets of real-world cycling collision data from Ireland, namely cases involving police collision reports and cases involving admission to a hospital emergency department. The analyses sought to simulate and analyse the protective performance of cycle helmets in such collision scenarios, by comparing the Head Injury Criterion score and peak head accelerations, both linear and angular. Cycle collisions were simulated using the specialised commercial software MADYMO. From the simulation results, these key metrics were compared between the same-scenario helmeted and unhelmeted cyclist models. Results showed that the inclusion of bicycle helmets reduced linear accelerations very significantly, but also increased angular accelerations significantly compared to unhelmeted situations. Given the modest protective performance of cycle helmets against angular accelerations, it is recommended that cycle helmet manufacturers and international test standards need to pay more attention to head angular accelerations.
One goal of the assessment of the crashworthiness of passenger cars is to characterize the potential of injury outcome to occupants of cars involved in an accident. This can be achieved by the help of an index that puts the number of injured occupants of passenger cars in relation to the number of cars involved in an accident. As a consequence, this index decreases with a lower potential of injury and rises with a higher number of injuries while assuming a fixed number of accidents. Another index is introduced that uses an economical weighting of each injury level. The consequential injury costs are calculated using the average economical costs for lightly, severely and fatally injured persons. The calculation of the safety indices is based on an anonymized sample of accident data provided by the Federal Statistical Office. An index of Mercedes passenger car drivers depending on the year of registration between 1991 and 2006 is compared to the index of drivers of cars of other makes within the same range of registration years.
This paper uses the national accident statistics of Great Britain to evaluate the effectiveness of Electronic Stability Control Systems (ESC) to reduce crash involvement rates. The crash experience of 8,951 cars is analysed and compared to a closely matching set of non-ESC cars using case-control methods. This is one of the largest ESC samples analysed to date. Overall the cars with ESC are involved in 3% fewer crashes although the effectiveness is substantially higher under conditions of adverse road friction. ESC equipped cars are involved in 15% fewer fatal crashes although this reduction represents the combined effect of ESC and passive safety improvements.
The average CO2 concentrations relevant to a motorcyclist wearing an integral helmet were measured twenty years ago and found to be alarmingly high. The present study examined gas concentrations typically inhaled by a motorcyclist. Average concentrations of CO2 for persons (n=4) wearing integral motorcycle helmets were measured in the laboratory and the field to facilitate comparison to previous work, and similarly high average concentrations were found: above 2% when stationary, well below 1% for speeds of 50km/h or more. Detailed measurements of the time-dependent CO2 concentrations during normal inhalation showed levels of about half of the corresponding average concentrations, including 1% at standstill, though higher concentrations (4% or more) are inhaled at the beginning of each breath. Opening the visor at standstill lowered the average inhaled concentration only to about 0.8%. The oxygen deficiency is equal to the CO2 concentration, and could also contribute negatively to motorcyclist cognitive abilities.
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.
Event data recorders (EDRs) are a valuable tool for in-depth investigation of traffic accidents. EDRs are installed on the airbag control module (ACM) to record vehicle and occupant information before, during, and after a crash event. This study evaluates EDR characteristics and aims at better understanding EDR performance for the improvement of accident reconstruction with more reliable and accurate information regarding accidents. The analysis is based on six crash tests with corresponding EDR datasets.
Introduction: The incidence of trauma-related cervical-spine fractures is 19-88 / 100.000. In contrast, the incidence of cervical spine injuries is as high as 19% - 51% of all spinal trauma. Cervical spine injuries in non-polytrauma patients are rare. However, due to the potential damage to the spinal cord these traumata are feared and mustn't be missed. Cervical spine injuries represent the highest reported early mortality rate of all spinal trauma. The rate of functional impairment afterwards is high and the rate of reintegration into work is low compared to other organ systems. In the past, trauma surgeons often did x-rays of the cervical spine with low inhibition threshold and often without strong clinical suggestion for vertebral or discoligamental injuries. This practice was queried by the Canadian C-Spine rule and extensively discussed in the past. Therefore we did a retrospective study whether non-polytrauma patients benefit from cervical spine x-rays.
Causation patterns and data collection blind spots for fatal intersection accidents in Norway
(2010)
Norwegian fatal intersection accidents from the years 2005-2007 were analysed to identify any causation patterns among their underlying contributing factors, and also to evaluate whether the data collection and documentation procedures used by the Norwegian in-depth investigation teams produces the information necessary to perform causation pattern analysis. A total of 28 fatal accidents were analysed. Details on crash contributing factors for each driver in each crash were first coded using the Driving Reliability and Error Analysis Method (DREAM), and then aggregated based on whether the driver was going straight or turning. Analysis results indicate that turning drivers to a large extent are faced with perception difficulties and unexpected behaviour from the primary conflict vehicle, while at the same time trying to negotiate a demanding traffic situation. Drivers going straight on the other hand have less perception difficulties. Instead, their main problem is that they largely expect turning drivers to yield. When this assumption is violated, they are either slow to react or do not react at all. Contributing factors often pointed to in literature, e.g. high speed, drugs and/or alcohol and inadequate driver training, played a role in 12 of 28 accidents. While this confirms their prevalence, it also indicates that most drivers end up in these situations due to combinations of less auspicious contributing factors. In terms of data collection and documentation, information on blunt end factors (those more distant in time/space, yet important for the development of events) was more limited than information on sharp end factors (those close in time/space to the crash). A possible explanation is that analysts may view some blunt end factors as event circumstances rather than contributing factors in themselves, and therefore do not report them. There was also an asymmetry in terms of reported obstructions to view due to signposts and vegetation. While frequently reported as contributing for turning drivers, they were rarely reported as contributing for their counterparts in the same accidents. This probably reflects an involuntary focus of the analyst on identifying contributing factors for the driver legally held liable, while less attention is paid to the driver judged not at fault. Since who to blame often is irrelevant from a countermeasure development point of view, this underlying investigator mindset needs addressing to avoid future bias in crash investigation reports.
Causation of traffic accidents with children from the perspective of all involved participants
(2017)
In the year 2014 about 2,800 children between zero and 14 years got injured due to traffic accidents in Austria. More than 50% were taking part in traffic as active road users like cyclists or pedestrians. Within this study 46 real world traffic accidents between vehicles and children as pedestrians were analysed. In 39 cases, car drivers hit the crossing children. In the other cases, the collision opponents were busses, trucks or motorcycles. Most of the children got hit while crossing a road at urban sites. By analysing the traffic accidents from the perspectives of all involved participants, vehicle drivers and injured children, it is possible to identify factors for each participant, which led to the accident and factors that contributed the accident. The main task is to find patterns in the behaviour of crash victims (children and driver) before the collision. One important fact is that in more than 50% of the analysed cases sight obstructions were an important contributing factor for both, the driver and the child. From drivers view situations in which the child moved unexpected into the driven road lane were often found. For the injured child, factors like: no attention to the road traffic or no sufficient traffic observation were found to be relevant. Further it- possible to sensitise children and adults to possible source of critical traffic situations according to the findings of this study.
The GIDAS-investigation team of Dresden (VUFO) has documented more than 11.500 accidents since 1999. The documentation of the accident includes beside vehicle-, injury- and environmental-data very detailed reconstruction data. Within this accident investigation the VUFO began to record the skid resistance of the accident site in 2009. The measurements are divided in macro- and microroughness (Sand depth method and Portable Skid Resistance Tester-SRT-by Munro-Stanley London-©). Both methods are used to determine the skid resistance for more than 1000 passenger cars. The aim of the present study is to find out a relationship between the measured skid resistance, the road conditions and the friction coefficient, which is used to calculate the maximum accelerations and decelerations during a reconstruction of an accident. Basic approach to convert the SRT-value into the friction coefficient is the calculation of the theoretical absorbed energy of the spring rubber system of the swinging arm of lever. This absorbed energy is used to get the friction coefficient by using the equations for the work of friction. To consider the road-behavior, in correlation to the friction coefficient, the results will be merged with existing literature. Last step for this study will be a comparison between actual used friction coefficients all over the GIDAS-database and the theoretical results. The study shows, if it is possible to use the SRT-Measurement for the estimation of a friction coefficient for the reconstruction of a traffic accident. As expected, the GIDAS-Database and the additional measurement of the roughness of the road directly on the spot are an enormous useful dataset.
Ruptures and dissections of the thoracic and abdominal aortic vessel caused by traffic accidents are rare but potentially life-threatening injuries. They can occur by blunt trauma via seat belt or dashboard injury. The study aimed at evaluating the overall mortality, morbidity, neurological disorders, and differences in operative procedures of open repair and stenting. It shows that, with a change and improvement in diagnostic tools and surgical approach, mortality and morbidity of blunt aortic injuries were significantly reduced. Still an immediate life-threatening injury early diagnosis via multiple-slice and scans and surgical repair with minimally invasive stents showed excellent short-time results for selected patients.
Still correlated with high mortality rates in traffic accidents traumatic aortic ruptures were frequently detected in unprotected car occupants in the early years. This biomechanical analysis investigates the different kinds of injury mechanisms leading to traumatic aortic injuries in todays traffic accidents and how the way of traffic participation affects the frequency of those injuries over the years. Based on GIDAS reported traffic accidents from 1973 to 2014 are analyzed. Results show that traumatic aortic injuries are mainly observed in high-speed accidents with high body deceleration and direct load force to the chest. Mostly chest compression is responsible for the load direction to the cardiac vessels. The main observed load vector is from caudal-ventral and from ventral solely, but also force impact from left and right side and in roll-over events with chest compression lead to traumatic aortic injuries. Classically, the injury appeares at the junction between the well-fixed aortic arch and the pars decendens following a kind of a scoop mechanism, a few cases with a hyperflexion mechanism are also described. In our analysis the deceleration effect alone never led to an aortic rupture. Comparing the past 40 years aortic injuries shift from unprotected car occupants to today's unprotected vulnerable road users like pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists. Still the accident characteristics are linked with chest compression force under high speed impact, no seatbelt and direct body impact.
The purpose of this study was to analyse the actual injury situation of bicyclists regarding accidents involving more than one bicyclist. Bicyclists were included in a medical and technical analysis to create a basis for preventive measures and discovered repeating accident patterns and circumstances such as daytime, environment, helmet use rate. Technical and medical data were collected at the scene, shortly after accident. The population was compared focusing on bicycle versus bicycle accidents. Technical analysis included speed at crash, type of collision, impact angle, environment, used lane and relative velocity. Medical analysis included injury pattern and severity (AIS, ISS). Included were 578 injured bicyclists in 289 accidents from years 1999 to 2008, 61 percent were male (n=350) and 39 percent female (n=228). Sixty-seven percent ranged between 18 to 64 years of age, twelve percent each between 13 to 17 years of age and older than 65 years, eight percent between 6 to 12 years and one percent between 2 to 5 years.. Crashes took place in urban areas in 92 percent, in rural areas in 8 percent. Weather conditions were dry lanes in 97 percent and wet conditions in 3 percent. Eighty-three percent of all accidents happened during daytime, ten percent during night, and seven percent during dawn. The helmet use rate was only 7,5 percent in all involved bicyclists. The mean Maximum Abbreviated injury scale, Injury severity score was 1,31. Bicyclists are still minimally- or unprotected road users. The helmet use rate is unsatisfactorily low. The incidence of bicycle to bicycle crashes is high. Most of these accidents take place in urban areas. The level and pattern of injuries is moderate. Most of the more severe injuries occur to the head and could have been avoided by frequent helmet use.
An increased use of bicycles comes along with an increased number of bicycle accidents. Bicycle accidents are more frequent than recorded by the police. To evaluate the real number of bicycle accidents during 12 months in Münster, Germany, injuries were collected by the Police and in each emergency unit anonymously. 2,153 patients had to be treated in a hospital, nearly triple the number of accidents that were registered by the police. Beside fractures of the upper extremities with major surgery, traumatic brain injuries were the leading cause for hospital admission. Bicycle helmet use can reduce traumatic brain injuries and the related number of deaths and hospital admissions. Laws on bicycle helmet might decrease the use of bicycles and therefore the reduction of positive health benefits. Other methods of accident prevention may lead to positive effects as helmet legislation as well, while having no reduction in bicycle use.
The paper presents a methodology for the benefit estimation of several secondary safety systems for pedestrians, using the exceptional data depth of GIDAS. A total of 667 frontal pedestrian accidents up to 40kph and more than 500 AIS2+ injuries have been considered. In addition to the severity, affected body region, exact impact point on the vehicle, and the causing part of every injury, the related Euro NCAP test zone was determined. One results of the study is a detailed impact distribution for AIS2+ injuries across the vehicle front. It can be stated, how often a test zone or vehicle part is hit by pedestrians in frontal accidents and which role the ground impact plays. Basing on that, different secondary safety measures can be evaluated by an injury shift method concerning their real world effectiveness. As an example, measures concerning the Euro NCAP pedestrian rating tests have been evaluated. It was analysed which Euro NCAP test zones are the most effective ones. In addition, real test results have been evaluated. Using the presented methodology, other secondary safety like the active bonnet (pop-up bonnet) or a pedestrian airbag measures can be evaluated.
Accident data shows that the vast majority of pedestrian accidents involve a passenger car. A refined method for estimating the potential effectiveness of a technology designed to support the car driver in mitigating or avoiding pedestrian accidents is presented. The basis of the benefit prediction method consists of accident scenario information for pedestrian-passenger car accidents from GIDAS, including vehicle and pedestrian velocities. These real world pedestrian accidents were first reconstructed and the system effectiveness was determined by comparing injury outcome with and without the functionality enabled for each accident. The predictions from Volvo Cars" general Benefit Estimation Model are refined by including the actual system algorithm and sensing models for a relevant car in the simulation environment. The feasibility of the method is proven by a case study on a authentic technology; the Auto Brake functionality in Collision Warning with Full Auto Brake and Pedestrian Detection (CWAB-PD). Assuming the system is adopted by all vehicles, the Case Study indicates a 24% reduction in pedestrian fatalities for crashes where the pedestrians were struck by the front of a passenger car.
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.
Females sustain Cervical Spine Distortion injury (CSD) more often than males. Most work dealing with the biomechanics background (e.g. injury mechanism/criteria) as well as the application in seat design/testing, focuses on the occupant model of an average male. Therefore the EU-Project ADSEAT (Adaptive Seat to Reduce Neck Injuries for Female and Male Occupants) is aimed at adding a female model for gender balanced research of CSD and improving seat design. An extensive literature review, searching for risk factors and injury criteria for males and females, was accompanied by the evaluation of different databases containing CSD cases. The database evaluations suggests that an anthropometry quite close to the 50%ile female anthropometry as known from crash test dummy design is appropriate. The results presented here form the basis for the future development of a computational female model and the improvement of seat design for better protection of both males and females in the frame of the ADSEAT-Project.
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.
For the estimation of the benefit and effect of innovative Driver Assistance Systems (DAS) on the collision positions and by association on the accident severity, together with the economic benefit, it becomes necessary to simulate and evaluate a variety of virtual accidents with different start values (e.g. initial speed). Taken into account the effort necessary for a manual reconstruction, only an automated crash computation can be considered for this task. This paper explains the development of an automated crash computation based on GIDAS. The focus will be on the design of the virtual vehicle models, the method of the crash computation as well as exemplary applications of the automated crash computation. For the first time an automated crash computation of passenger car accidents has been realized. Using the automated crash computation different tasks within the field of vehicle safety can be elaborated. This includes, for example, the calculation of specific accident parameters (such as EES or delta-V) for various accident constellations and the estimation of the economic benefit of DAS using IRFs (Injury Risk Functions).
Automotive interiors have long been a potentially injurious impact area to occupants during accidents, especially in the absence of adequate padding. The U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 201, Occupant Protection in Interior Impact, outlines test procedures and performance criteria in order to mitigate potentially injurious head impacts to interior surfaces. FMVSS 201 specifies a finite set of impact locations and applies to passenger vehicles of a specified year range and with a gross vehicle weight rating less than 10,000 lb. In this paper, two head impact test methodologies are presented, a pendulum-test device and a Free Motion Headform (FMH) launching device, which allows for dynamic, repeatable impact evaluation of various vehicle interior surfaces and their impact attenuation abilities. The presented testing includes multiple series that evaluate the effect of differing vehicle upper interior padding on occupant head injury. One study in particular, analyzes a head impact to the side header of a heavy truck (not included in FMVSS 201) during a 90 degree rollover. Additionally, two other series of tests are presented which assess the injury reduction effect of side airbags to near side as well as far side occupants in a side impact scenario. Lastly, a forensic analysis is presented which evaluates two possible head impact locations experienced in a real world accident by analysis of the resulting interior compartment damage utilizing the FMH launching device test method. The data collected and presented includes accelerometer instrumentation and high speed video analysis. These studies demonstrate that adequate padding and airbags are very effective at mitigating head injury potential at impact speeds of 12-25 mph (19-40 kph).