Sonstige
Es wurden Unfälle, die im Rahmen des Forschungsprojektes "Erhebungen am Unfallort" dokumentiert wurden, hinsichtlich der Häufigkeit und der Charakteristik von Pkw-Mehrfachkollisionen analysiert. Beschrieben wurden bei einer vergleichenden Gegenüberstellung von Einfach- und Mehrfachkollisionen die Besonderheiten, die die Mehrfachkollisionen prägen, und zwar im Vorfeld des Unfallgeschehens wie auch im Unfallgeschehen selbst. Mit allen beobachteten Unterschieden der Merkmalsausprägungen ist eine Steigerung der Ausgangsgeschwindigkeit, also der Geschwindigkeit, die vor dem Unfallgeschehen gefahren wurde, verbunden. Die Entstehungswahrscheinlichkeit von Mehrfachkollisionen steigt mit der Zunahme der Fahrgeschwindigkeiten. Geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede sind lediglich für die Wahl der Ausgangsgeschwindigkeiten vor dem Unfallereignis von Bedeutung. Keine Rolle spielen Fahrzeugeigenschaften bei der Entstehung von Mehrfachkollisionen. Bei Mehrfachkollisionen wurde häufig beobachtet, dass Pkw seitlich mit Objekten am Straßenrand (Leitplanke, Bäume etc.) zusammenstoßen. Bei Seitenkollisionen treten überdurchschnittlich schwere Fahrzeugdeformationen sowie schwere Verletzungen am Kopf, im Thoraxbereich und an den oberen Extremitäten auf. Die Rekonstruktion von Mehrfachkollisionen wird durch ein oftmals komplexes Spuren- und Deformationsbild erschwert. Hilfreich erweisen sich fotogrammetrische Verfahren wie Stereoaufnahmen und Draufsichtfotografie.
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.
Pedestrian and cyclist are the most vulnerable road users in traffic crashes. One important aspect of this study was the comparable analysis of the exact impact configuration and the resulting injury patterns of pedestrians and cyclists in view of epidemiology. The secondary aim was assessment of head injury risks and kinematics of adult pedestrian and cyclists in primary and secondary impacts and to correlate the injuries related to physical parameters like HIC value, 3ms linear acceleration, and discuss the technical parameter with injuries observed in real-world accidents based documented real accidents of GIDAS and explains the head injuries by simulated load and impact conditions based on PC-Crash and MADYMO. A subsample of n=402 pedestrians and n=940 bicyclists from GIDAS database, Germany was used for preselection, from which 22 pedestrian and 18 cyclist accidents were selected for reconstruction by initially using PC-Crash to calculate impact conditions, such as vehicle impact velocity, vehicle kinematic sequence and throw out distance. The impact conditions then were employed to identify the initial conditions in simulation of MADYMO reconstruction. The results show that cyclists always suffer lower injury outcomes for the same accident severity. Differences in HIC, head relative impact velocity, 3ms linear contiguous acceleration, maximum angular velocity and acceleration, contact force, throwing distance and head contact timing are shown. The differences of landing conditions in secondary impacts of pedestrians and cyclists are also identified. Injury risk curves were generated by logistic regression model for each predicting physical parameters.
While cyclists and pedestrians are known to be at significant risk for severe injuries when exposed to road traffic accidents (RTAs) involving trucks, little is known about RTA injury risk for truck drivers. The objective of this study is to analyze the injury severity in truck drivers following RTAs. Between 1999 and 2008 the Hannover Medical School Accident Research Unit prospectively documented 43,000 RTAs involving 582 trucks. Injury severity including the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) and the maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) were analyzed. Technical parameters (e.g. delta-v, direction of impact), the location of accident, and its dependency on the road type were also taken into consideration. The results show that the safety of truck drivers is assured by their vehicles, the consequence being that the risk of becoming injured is likely to be low. However, the legs especially are at high risk for severe injuries during RTAs. This probability increases in the instance of a collision with another truck. Nevertheless, in RTAs involving trucks and regular passenger vehicles, the other party is in higher risk of injury.
Injury severity of e.g. pedestrians or bikers after crashes with cars that are reversing is almost unknown. However, crash victims of these injuries can frequently be seen in emergency departments and account for a large amount of patients every year. The objective of this study is to analyze injury severity of patients that were crashed into by reversing cars. The Hannover Medical School local accident research unit prospectively documented 43,000 road traffic accidents including 234 crashes involving reversing cars. Injury severity including the abbreviated injury scale (AIS) and the maximum abbreviated injury scale (MAIS) was analyzed as well as the location of the accident. As a result 234 accidents were included into this study. Pedestrians were injured in 141 crashes followed by 70 accidents involving bikers. The mean age of all crash victims was 57 -± 23 years. Most injuries took place on straight stretches (n = 81) as well as parking areas (n = 59), entries (n = 36) or crossroads (n = 24). The AIS of the lower extremities was highest followed by the upper extremities. The AIS of the neck was lowest. The mean MAIS was 1.3 -± 0.6. The paper concludes that the lower extremities show the highest risk to become injured during accidents with reversing cars. However, the risk of severe injuries is likely low.
A set of recommendations for pan-European transparent and independent road accident investigations has been developed by the SafetyNet project. The aim of these recommendations is to pave the way for future EU scale accident investigation activities by setting out the necessary steps for establishing safety oriented road accident investigations in Member States. This can be seen as the start of the process for establishing road accident investigations throughout Europe which operate according to a common methodology. The recommendations propose a European Safety Oriented Road Accident Investigation Programme which sets out the procedures that need to be put in place to investigate a sample of every day road accidents. They address four sets of issues; institutional addressing the characteristics of the programme; operational describing the conditions under which data isrncollected; data storage and protection; and reports, countermeasures and the dissemination of data.rn
Description of road traffic related knee injuries in published investigations is very heterogeneous. The purpose of this study was to estimate the risk of knee injuries in real world car impacts in Germany focusing vulnerable road users (pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists) and restrained car drivers. The accident research unit analyses technical and medical data collected shortly after the accident at scene. Two different periods (years 1985-1993 and 1995-2003) were compared focusing on knee injuries (Abbreviated Injury Scale (AISKnee) 2/3). In order to determine the influences type of collision, direction and speed as well as the injury pattern and different injury scores (AIS, MAIS, ISS) were examined. 1.794 pedestrians, 742 motorcyclists, 2.728 bicyclists and 1.116 car drivers were extracted. 2% had serious ligamentous or bony injuries in relation to all injured. The risk of injury is higher for twowheelers than for pedestrians, but knee injury severity is higher for the latter group. Overall the current knee injury risk is low and significant reduced comparing both time periods (27%, p<0,0001). Severe injuries (AISKnee 2/3) were below 1%). Improved aerodynamic design of car fronts reduced the risk for severe knee injuries significantly (p=0,0015). Highest risk of injury is for motorcycle followed by pedestrians, respectively. Knee protectors could prevent injuries by reducing local forces. The classically described dashboard injury was rarely identified. The overall injury risk for knee injuries in road traffic is lower than estimated and reduced comparing both periods. The aerodynamic shape of current cars compared to older types reduced the incidence and severity of knee injuries. Further modification and optimization of the interior and exterior design could be a proper measurement. Classic described injury mechanisms were rarely identified. It seems that the AIS is still underestimating extremity injuries and their long term results.
Durch chemisch-toxikologische Analysen von Blut- und Urinproben unfallverletzter Fahrer sowie eine detaillierte Unfallanalyse werden Daten über die Häufigkeit von Medikamenten, Drogen und Alkohol bei Verkehrsunfällen gewonnen und die Relevanz von Befunden hinsichtlich einer Unfallkausalität geprüft. Das Untersuchungskollektiv umfasst 500 unfallverletzte Fahrer in den Erhebungsgebieten Hannover und Saarland. In über einem Drittel der verunfallten Fahrer wurden verkehrsmedizinisch relevante Wirkstoffe nachgewiesen. Alkohol spielt hierbei eine dominante Rolle, zum Teil in Verbindung mit Medikamenten. In über drei Viertel der alkoholpositiven Proben wurden Blutalkoholkonzentrationen über 0,8 Promille gemessen. Ein Viertel aller Befunde lag über 1,7 Promille. Aus den Ergebnissen der Untersuchung wurde deutlich, dass aus dem Nachweis verkehrsmedizinisch relevanter Substanzen nicht zwingend ein Kausalzusammenhang zur Unfallverursachung abzuleiten ist. Bei 19 % der alkoholisierten Fahrer war der Unfall nicht auf das Fehlverhalten der Fahrer zurückzuführen.
Accidents with vulnerable road users require special attention within the road safety work because these accidents are often accompanied with severe injuries. Thus In 2006 at least 6200 Powered Two Wheeler (PTW) riders were killed in road crashes in the EU 25 representing 16% of the total number of road deaths while accounting for only 2% of the total kilometers driven. For the prevention of accidents with VRU above all the knowledge of the causes of the accidents is of special importance. This study is based on the methodology of the German In-Depth Accident Study GIDAS. Within GIDAS extensive data on various fields of accidentology are collected on-scene from road traffic accidents with injuries in the Hannover and Dresden area. Using a well defined sample plan the collected data is highly representative to the whole German situation (Brühning et al, Otte et al). The need of in-depth accident causation data in accident research led to the development of a special tool for the collection of such data called ACASS (Accident Causation Analysis with Seven Steps), which was implemented in the GIDAS methodology in 2008 and described by Otte in 2009.
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.
With an ever rising human life expectancy the share of elderly people in society is constantly rising. This leads to the fact that at the same rate the share of people with age related diseases such as dementia and poor eyesight taking part in traffic will rise and therefore traffic accidents caused by this group of people due to the disease will play an ever greater role. This Situation will be among the future challenges of road safety work. At present this study displays specific characteristics of accidents caused by elderly car drivers (aged 65 or higher) based on the analysis of the German In-Depth Accident Study GIDAS. Herein almost 1000 elderly car drivers were identified as accident participants in the years 2008 to 2011. The focus of this study lies on identifying special types of accidents which are caused by elderly drivers and on characterizing these types with the information gathered on scene and by interviewing the participants. The main evidence analyzed is the knowledge about the accident locality, the trajectories of the participants as well as the reasons for the occurrence of the accidents. Furthermore personal information such as the personal condition before the accident and driving purposes is used to identify patterns of contributing circumstances for accidents caused by elderly traffic participants.
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.
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.
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.
Annually within the European Union, there are over 50,000 road accident fatalities and 2 million other casualties, of which the majority are either the occupants of cars or other road users in collision with a car. The European Commission now has competency for vehicle-based injury countermeasures through the Whole Vehicle Type Approval system. As a result, the Commission has recognised that casualty reduction strategies must be based on a full understanding of the real-world need under European conditions and that the effectiveness of vehicle countermeasures must be properly evaluated. The PENDANT study commenced in January 2003 in order to explore the possibility of developing a co-ordinated set of targeted, in-depth crash data resources to support European Union vehicle and road safety policy. Three main work activity areas (Work Packages) commenced to provide these resources. This paper describes some of the outcomes of Work Package 2 (WP2, In-depth Crash Investigations and Data Analysis). In WP2, some 1,100 investigations of crashes involving injured car occupants were conducted in eight EU countries to a common protocol based on that developed in the STAIRS programme. This paper describes the purposes, methodology and results of WP2. It is expected that the results will be used as a co-ordinated system to inform European vehicle safety policy in a systematic, integrated manner. Furthermore, the results of the data analyses will be exploited further to provide new directions to develop injury countermeasures and regulations.
A lack of representative European accident data to aid the development of safety policy, regulation and technological advancement is a major obstacle in the European Union. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety and is also needed to support the development of further actions by stakeholders. This short-paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to partly fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect fatal crash data under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using retrospective detailed police reports (n=1,300). The typical level of detail recorded was a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of fatal crashes to be interpreted to provide information on a range of causal factors and events surrounding the collisions.
This study aims to analyze spine injuries in motor vehicle accidents. Between 1985 and 2004 the Hannover accident research unit documented 18353 accidents. We identified 161 front passengers (0.53%) with cervical spine injuries, 84 (0.28%) with thoracic and 95 (0.31%) with lumbar injuries. Technical and medical data was reviewed. Patients" records were retrieved. X-rays were evaluated and fractures were classified according to the Magerl classification. 68% and 57% of thoracic and lumbar fractures occurred in accidents with multiple impacts. Delta-v was 50, 40 and 40 kph in passengers with cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, resp. Passengers with spinal fractures frequently showed numerous concomitant injuries, e.g. additional vertebral fractures. The influence of seat belts and airbags is discussed. Patient work-up has to include a thorough investigation for additional injuries.
To elucidate the risk of pedestrians, bicycle and motorbike users, data of two accident research units from 1999 to 2014 were analysed in regard to demographic data, collision details, preclinical and clinical data using SPSS. 14.295 injured vulnerable road users were included. 92 out of 3610 pedestrians ("P", 2.5%), 90 out of 8307 bicyclists ("B", 1.1%) and 115 out of 4094 motorcycle users ("M", 2.8%) were diagnosed with spinal fractures. Thoracic fractures were most frequent ahead of lumbar and cervical fractures. Car collisions were most frequent mechanism (68, 62 and 36%). MAIS was 3.8, 2.8 and 3.2 for P, B and A with ISS 32, 16 and 23. AIS-head was 2.2, 1.3 and 1.5). Vulnerable road users are at significant risk for spine fractures. These are often associated with severe additional injuries, e.g. the head and a very high overall trauma severity (polytrauma).
This paper describes the methodology of In-Depth Investigation in Germany on the example of GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study). Since 1999 in Germany a joint project between FAT (Forschungsvereinigung Automobiltechnik or Automotive Industry Research Association) and BASt (Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen or the Federal Road Research Institute) is being carried out in Hannover and Dresden. The methodology of this project is based on a statistically orientated procedure of data sampling (sampling plan, weighting factors). The paper describes the possibilities of such in-depth investigation on the results of the offered title. The accident cases were collected randomly within GIDAS at Hannover. There are more cases existing from previous investigation started in 1985 under the same methodology. The portion of rollovers can be established at 3.7% of all accidents with casualties in the year 2000. For the study 434 cases of car accidents with rollovers are used for a detail comprehensive analysis. The accidents happened in the years 1994 to 2000 in the Hannover area. The injury distribution will report about 741 occupants with rollover accident event. The presented paper will give an overview of the accident situations following in rollover movements of cars. The distributions of injury frequencies, injury severity AIS for the whole body and for the body regions of occupants will be presented and compared to technical details like the impact speed and the deformation pattern. The speed of the car was determined at the point of rollover and on the point of accident initiency. The characteristics of the kinematics followed in a rollover movement are analyzed and the major defined types of rollover will be shown in the paper. The paper will describe the possibilities of In-Depth Investigation methods for the approach of finding countermeasures on the example of car accidents with rollover and explaining the biomechanics of injuries in rollover movements.