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New vehicle types are extensively tested to check almost all factors that influence ride and handling. With reference to the Association of German Car Tuners" (VDAT e.V.) valuations, approximately 10% of all cars in Germany are being modified by their owners. 28 % of those modifications" sales are divergent wheel-tire combinations, 13 % are tuning measures on the chassis suspension or wheel spacers. In almost all cases the singular modifications present a general permission for specific vehicles they have been tested in. Combined tuning measures, however, are often checked by just one inspector, following a procedure of mostly subjective assessment criteria. Today, critical attributes are only being observed, in case a vehicle is involved in an accident and the modifications are identified as crash causal factors or as a cofactor on the development of a crash. For the first time, a field study allows a survey of safety affecting chassis modifications. The test layout has to comply with some basic conditions. Different vehicle concepts with a wide margin of modifications are required to get a high transferability of the results. A total amount of more than 150 tested vehicles serves the same purpose. The tests are limited concerning the installation time of measurement techniques and the requirement that no damage, defilement or immoderate wear of the vehicles are accepted by their owners. Due to such factors as well as the driver Ìs acceptance, the vehicles are controlled by its owners instead of robots or test drivers. For keeping down the driver- influence, the lane has narrow boundaries and the driver has to drive in strictly adherence to the given instructions. After gathering all modifications, as well as static and kinematic parameters like the toe and camber angle, dynamic testing of predominantly lateral dynamics is conducted. Besides standardized tests like the ISO 3888-2 (Obstacle Avoidance) or the ISO 14512 (Braking on Surfaces with Split Coefficient of Friction), to test the influence of modified kingpin offsets caused by wheel spacers, some deviant tests are conducted. Those are required due to the demand of objective test results for road tests with vertical induced stimulation of the chassis suspension. Hence, new tests on corner braking with and without vertical stimulation have been developed. The interpretation of data includes thresholds, e.g. the maximum entrance velocity without hitting cones, on the one hand, and the analysis of characteristics of data concerning time and frequency range, "1-second values" and peak response times on the other hand. Besides the thresholds as indicators for the achievable velocities, which are mainly affected by friction coefficients, the vehicle reaction in the course of time characterizes the vehicle reaction in the threshold range and consequently the operational demands on the driver. The field study has started and promises the first long-range analysis of chassis modifications. The results offer a basis for hypothesis and resultant further test layouts for oncoming studies of the identified critical tuning measures.
Kategorie-1-Schäden bei orthotropen Fahrbahnplatten treten als bauweisenunabhängige Schäden in Form von Rissen im Anschlussbereich Deckblech-Längsrippe auf. Zur Vermeidung dieser Schäden sind geeignete Instandsetzungsmaßnahmen zu entwickeln, die zu einer Verminderung der Spannungen und Durchbiegungen in den gefährdeten Bereichen führen. Im Rahmen eines aktuellen Forschungsvorhabens an der Universität Duisburg-Essen wird der Ansatz verfolgt, einen modifizierten Fahrbahnbelag bestehend aus einem mit Epoxydharz oder alternativ mit Bioharz verfüllten Asphalttraggerüsts mit erhöhter mittragender Wirkung einzusetzen. Des Weiteren wird im vorliegenden Beitrag der Einsatz von Betonfertigteilen aus UHPC erläutert.
Herber diskutiert angesichts des Auseinanderklaffens einerseits der aktuellen Verkehrsprognosen " die namentlich auf den Autobahnen von 2004 bis 2025 Verkehrszuwächse von 44 % veranschlagen " und andererseits der finanziellen und ökologischen Begrenzungen der künftigen Verkehrspolitik verschiedene Vorschläge zur Reform der Bundesauftragsverwaltung, der Netzplanung, der Netzbereinigung und der Netzbildung sowie zur besseren Einbindung der Bürger in die Planungsverfahren von Straßeninfrastrukturprojekten. Geigers Beitrag zum planfeststellenden Bebauungsplan gelangt zu einem skeptischen Befund: Nach seiner Einschätzung sprechen insgesamt überwiegende Gründe dafür, Straßenbauvorhaben regelmäßig durch Planfeststellung und nicht durch planfeststellungsersetzenden Bebauungsplan festzusetzen. Insbesondere von dem Instrument des isolierten Straßenbebauungsplans solle nur in Ausnahmefällen Gebrauch gemacht werden. Selbst im Gesamtkontext einer umfassenden städtebaulichen Umgestaltung empfehle sich meist eine zeitlich und inhaltlich aufeinander abgestimmte Planung, bei der sich die Gemeinde auf die städtebaulichen Planungen beschränke und die straßenseitige Planung der Straßenbauverwaltung überlasse. Der Beitrag zu "notwendigen Folgemaßnahmen" von Gaentzsch diagnostiziert trotz einer ganzen Reihe einschlägiger Präjudizen weiterhin erhebliche Rechtsunsicherheiten bei der Anwendung des -§ 75 Absatz 1 Satz 1 und des -§ 78 VwVfG. Skeptisch äußert sich Gaentzsch gegenüber dem Versuch, die Voraussetzungen beider Regelungen weiter gesetzlich zu konkretisieren. Er empfiehlt stattdessen, in Zweifels- oder Streitfällen die gemeinsame oberste Behörde entscheiden zu lassen und zudem die Fehlerfolgenregelung des -§ 75 Absatz 1a VwVfG auch auf Fehler im Bereich der Folgemaßnahmen auszuweiten. Der abschließende Beitrag von Sauthoff zur "Abstufung nicht mehr fernverkehrsrelevanter Bundesfernstraßen" widmet sich einem zentralen verfassungsrechtlichen Streitpunkt des Straßenrechts der letzten Jahrzehnte. Er diskutiert neuere gutachtliche Ausarbeitungen zur Überprüfung des Bundesfernstraßennetzes, die er als Verhandlungsgrundlage zwischen Bund und Ländern ansieht. Die in den Richtlinien für integrierte Netzgestaltung (RIN) vorgesehene Anknüpfung an das raumordnerische Zentrale"Orte"System bei der Klassifizierung des Straßennetzes sei jedoch nur mit Modifikationen möglich; rechtlich entscheidend seien allein die verfassungsrechtlich fundierten Kriterien des -§ 1 Absatz 1 FStrG und damit letztlich die " gegebenenfalls geänderte " Verkehrsbedeutung der Straße. Bei Anwendung dieser Maßstäbe sei grundsätzlich auch eine Weisung des Bundes auf Einziehung zulässig. Einen Bedarf für eine Novellierung des Bundesfernstraßengesetzes verneint der Referent.
In 2012 the fifth ESAR conference (Expert Symposium on Accident Research) was held in Hannover. ESAR is an international convention of experts, who analyze traffic accidents all over the world and discuss their results in this context, conducted at the Medizinische Hochschule Hannover every 2 years. It connected representatives of public authorities, engineers in automotive development and scientists and offers a forum with particular emphasis on In-Depth-Analyses of accident statistics and accident analyses. Special focus is placed on research on the basis of so-called "In-Depth-Accident-Investigations" [data collections at the sites of the accidents], which are characterized by extensive documentations of the sites of the accidents, of the vehicles as well as of the injuries, encompassing several scientific fields. ESAR aims at a multi-disciplinary compilation of scientific results and at discussing them on an international, scientific level. It is thus a scientific colloquium and a platform for exchanging information for all accident researchers. Experiences in accident prevention as well as in the complex field of accident reconstruction are stated and new research fields are added. Existing results of long-term research work in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan include different infrastructural correlations and give findings on population, vehicle population and driver characteristics, which offer a basis for recommendations to be derived and measures for increasing road safety.
From literature well-known analyzes on risks, hazards and causes of accidents of older drivers are amended by the present study in which a comparison of the specific features of accident causes of older car drivers (older than 60 years) and of younger car drivers (under 25 years) is conducted. Mainly the question is pursued if specific errors, mistakes and lapses are predominant in the two different age groups. The analysis system ACAS (Accident Causation Analysis System) used hereby consists of a sequential system of accident causation factors from the human, the technical and the infrastructural field, whereupon for this study the influence of the human features on the accident development in two different age groups is of interest. ACAS is both an accident model and an analysis and classification system, which describes the human participation factors of an accident and their causes in the temporal sequence (from the perceptibility to concrete action errors) taking into consideration the logical sequence of individual basic functions. In five steps (categories) of a logical and temporal sequence the hierarchical system makes human functions and processes as determinants of accident causes identifiable. The methodology specifically focuses on the use in so-called "In-Depth" and "On-Scene" investigation studies. With the help of the system for each accident participant one or more of five hypotheses of human cause factors are formed and then specified by appropriate verification criteria. These hypotheses in turn are further specified by indicators in such manner that the coding of the causation factors by a code system meets the needs of database processing and are accessible to a quantitative data analysis. The first results of the descriptive comparison of the two age groups concern mainly differences in the functional levels "information admission/perception" (where the elderly drivers have more difficulties than the young ones) and "information processing/evaluation" (where the younger drivers show more problems). Concerning the cognitive function of "planning" the group of younger drivers seems to be more often involved in an accident because of excessive speed.
Real world accident reconstruction with the Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) in Pam-Crash
(2013)
Further improvement of vehicle safety needs detailed analysis of real world accidents. According to GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) most car to car front accidents occur at mid-crash severity. In this range thoracic injuries already occur. In this study a real world frontal crash with mid-crash severity out of the AARU database was reconstructed. The selected car to car accident was reconstructed by AARU by means of pc-crash software in order to get the initial dynamic accident conditions. These initial conditions were used to reconstruct the complete accident in more detail using FE models for the car structure and the occupants. Occupant simulations were performed with FE HIII-dummy models and the THUMS using Pam-Crash code. An initial THUMS validation was performed in order to verify the model-´s biofidelity by means of table-top test simulations. THUMS bone stiffness values were modified to match the real word occupant age. A comparison between driver and passenger restraint system loading was done, as well as an injury prediction comparison between the HIII-dummy model and THUMS response for both cases. Detailed comparison between the HIII-dummy models and THUMS regarding thoracic loading are discussed.
In der Vergangenheit stiegen die Verkehrsbelastung und der Anteil des Schwerverkehrs auf deutschen Straßen und Autobahnen nahezu stetig. Dies wird sich auch in der Zukunft fortsetzen. Um auch zukünftig Mobilität gewährleisten zu können, sind Bauweisen mit maximaler Nutzungsdauer und minimalen Erhaltungsaufwendungen erforderlich. In Deutschland werden Betonfahrbahndecken als unbewehrte direkt befahrene Betonfahrbahnplatten mit Querfugen in regelmäßigen Abständen gefertigt und für Nutzungsdauern von 30 Jahren konzipiert. Die Querfugen stellen dabei den schwächsten Bereich in der Konstruktion dar. Betonfahrbahndecken können auch als Durchgehend Bewehrte Betonfahrbahndecke gefertigt werden. Dabei stellt sich ein freies Rissbild mit schmalen Plattenstreifen ein. Um eine Querkraftübertragung zu sichern, wird die Rissöffnungsweite durch die Anordnung einer durchgehenden Längsbewehrung beschränkt. Die Erfahrungen zeigen, dass mit dieser Bauweise eine längere Nutzungsdauer und ein höherer Fahrkomfort erreicht werden und weniger Erhaltungsmaßnahmen erforderlich sind. Durchgehend Bewehrte Betondecken eignen sich besonders gut für eine Asphaltüberbauung, da es keine Querfugen als Störstellen gibt. Diese Komposition hat das Potenzial für eine Nutzungsdauer von 50 Jahren und erfordert geringere Kosten, wenn man den gesamten Lebenszyklus betrachtet. Um baupraktische Erfahrungen zu sammeln, wurde im Jahr 2011 auf der Bundesautobahn (BAB) A 94 bei Forstinning in Bayern eine Versuchsstrecke eingerichtet. Diese besteht aus drei Abschnitten von je etwa 4 km Länge: Durchgehend Bewehrte Betondecke mit DSH-V-Überbauung, unbewehrte Betondecke in Plattenbauweise mit DSH-V-Überbauung und unbewehrte Betondecke in Plattenbauweise mit Grinding-Oberfläche. Erste Ergebnisse bezüglich Rissbildung, Bewegungen an den Endspornen, Haftverhalten des Blacktopping und der Schallmessungen liegen vor.
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.
While accident statistics on a national level are provided by many countries, there is a need for international data that includes more detailed information about the accident, so called in-depth data. As a consequence, accident data projects have been emerging in different regions of the world. This creates a need for comparable and mergeable data from different countries, enabling the use of already existing accident data resources and helping to expedite the improvement of global road safety. While existing approaches focus that mostly on building a comprehensive accident database from scratch, the iGLAD project (Initiative for the Global Harmonization of Accident Data) attempts a more pragmatic approach by building on top of the work already accomplished in this area and complementing it. The target of iGLAD is to help setting up an additional dataset as a compatibility layer between already existing world wide data sets and integrating the structure of these by defining a common data scheme. This dataset is limited to the common denominator between the existing data sets and is inherently rather small and simple. Eventually, an individual converter for each participating accident investigation group will be built that enables pooling all data sets in a common repository. This not only saves costs and time, and hence makes such a target more feasible, but also creates data that is usable right from the start. This paper gives an overview of the current status of iGLAD and first steps taken. Additionally, some methodological aspects are discussed, next to a glance at other projects working currently on related issues, providing additional input for iGLAD. Finally, an overview of next steps and intended future work is given.
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.
Injuries in motorbike accidents in correlation with protective clothes and mechanism of the accident
(2013)
This study deals with a possible connection between safety clothing / accident mechanism and injury severity in a state-wide traffic accident investigation with focus on light and small motorbike-involvement for accidents in the area of the Saarland in which the persons riding the bike have been injured or killed. An interdisciplinary team of medical scientists and engineers collected the medical and technical data as well as all the relevant traces of the accident on scene and in time. During twenty months of data collection a total of 401 cases could be gathered. Grave injuries were more common for the group of heavier motorcycles (>125 ccm). Motorcyclists had been polytraumatized only in the group where the accident was connected with a collision. Significant correlation between protective clothes and injury severity could only be found for protective gloves and protective trousers. The knowledge about mechanism of the accident, protective clothes and severity of injuries can be helpful for the improvement of road and motorcyclists' safety.
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.
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 objective of the study is to measure the risk of pedestrian and bicyclist in urban traffic through an analysis of real-world accident data. The kinematics and injury mechanisms for both pedestrian and bicyclists are investigated to find the correlation of injury risks with injury related parameters. For this purpose, firstly 338 cases are selected as a sample from an IVAC accident database based on the In-depth Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha of China. A statistic measurement of the fatality and serious injury risks with respect to impact speed was carried out by logistic regression analysis. Secondly, 12 pedestrian and 12 bicyclist accidents were further selected for reconstruction with MADYMO program. A comparative analysis was conducted based on the results from accident analysis and computer reconstructions for the injury risk, head impact conditions and dynamic response of pedestrians and bicyclists. The results indicate that bicyclists suffered lower risks of severe injuries and fatalities compared with pedestrians. The risks of AIS 3+ injury and fatality are 50% for pedestrians at impact speeds of 53.2 km/h and 63.3 km/h, respectively, while that for bicyclists at 62.5 km/h and 71.1 km/h, respectively. The findings could have a contribution to get a better understanding of pedestrians" and bicyclists" exposures in urban traffic in China, and provide background knowledge to generate strategies for pedestrian protection.
Rear-end collisions are the most frequent same and opposite-direction crashes. Common causes include momentary inattention, inadequate speed or inadequate distance. While most rear-end collisions in urban traffic only result in vehicle damage or slight injuries, rear-end collisions outside built-up areas or on motorways usually cause fatal or serious injuries. Driver assistance systems that detect dangerous situations in the longitudinal vehicle direction are therefore an essential safety plus. In view of this, for ADAC, systems that alert drivers to dangerous situations and initiate autonomous braking complement ESC as one of the most important active safety features in modern vehicles. The aim of ADAC is to provide consumers with technical advice and competent information about the systems available on the market. Reliable comparative tests that are based on standardised test criteria may provide motorists with important information and help them make a buying decision. In addition, they raise consumer awareness of the systems and speed up their market penetration. The assessment must focus on as many aspects of effectiveness as possible and include not only autonomous braking but also collision warning and autonomous brake assist. The work of the ADAC accident research is the development of the testing scenarios with direct link to accident situations and the identification of useful test criteria for testing.
The effect of fatigue on driving has been compared to the effect of alcohol impairment in both driver performance and crash studies. However are crash characteristics and causation mechanisms similar in crashes involving fatigue to those involving alcohol when studied in the real world? This has been explored by examining data held in the EC project SafetyNet Accident Causation Database. Causation data was recorded using the SafetyNet Accident Causation System (SNACS). The focus was on Cars/MPV crashes and drivers assigned the SNACS code Alcohol or Fatigue. The Alcohol group included 44 drivers and the Fatigue group included 47. "Incorrect direction" was a frequently occurring critical event in both the Alcohol and Fatigue groups. The Alcohol group had more contributory factors related to decision making and the Fatigue group had more contributory factors relating to incorrect observations. This analysis does not allow for generalised statements about the significance of the similarities and differences between crashes involving alcohol and fatigue, however the observed differences do suggest that attempts to quantify the effect of fatigue by using levels of alcohol impairment as a benchmark should be done with care.
The European CASPER (Child Advanced Safety Project for European Roads) project studying car child safety includes a sociological approach in order to have a better understanding of the behaviour of parents driving children under 12 years old. A questionnaire was distributed via the internet in Europe with 998 parents (representing 1638 children) from 22 European countries responding. The results inform on the way parents secure their children during a car trip. Many parents did not control how their children were installed in the child restraint system (CRS). A toddler was more likely to travel into a child seat than an older child was. Regarding misuse situations, an important part of the participants did not think that they could make mistakes when fixing the child seat to the car (26%) or when placing the child into the seat (39%). This leaves an important field of action especially by communication via different media and in the CRS sale outlets.
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.
The grip between the road surface and vehicle tires is the physical basis for the moving of all vehicles in road traffic. In case of an accident the available grip level is one of the most relevant influence factors, influencing the causation and the procedure of the accident. However, the estimation of the grip level is not easy and therefore, is commonly not done on the accident scene. This is especially true for the measurement of the water depth. Until now, real accident databases provide no measurement data about the grip level and the water film depth and thus, the estimation of its influence is not possible yet. From the tyre manufacturers point of view, it is important to know about the road conditions (namely grip level, macro-texture, water depth, temperature) at the accident scene, as well as the operating conditions of the vehicles (braking, loss of control, speed, etc). These data is necessary to define relevant tyre traction tests for the end-user and for regulations. For this reason VUFO and Michelin developed a consistent method for the measurements of grip level and water depth for the accidents of the GIDAS database. The accident research team of Dresden, which documents about 1000 accidents with at least one injured person every year, is measuring the micro-roughness and the macro-roughness directly on the spot. For the measurement of the micro-roughness a Skid Resistance Tester (British Pendulum) is used. The Mean Texture Depth (describing the macro-roughness) is measured by the Sand Depth Method. Since June 2009, measurements for more than 700 accidents including 1200 participants have been carried out. In case of wet or damp road conditions during the accident, the water depth is measured additionally. Therefore VUFO and Michelin developed a special measurement device, which allows measurements with an accuracy of 1/10 millimetre. The measurement point at the accident scene is clearly defined and thus, the results are comparable for all different accidents and participants. The use of the GIDAS database and the accident sampling plan allows representative statements for the German accident scenario. With this data it is possible for the first time to have an accurate view of the road conditions at the accident scene. One possibility is a more detailed estimation of hydroplaning accidents using the actually measured water depths. The development of new testing methods and new tires can be based on the real situation of the road infrastructure. Furthermore, the combination of the technical GIDAS data and the measured road surface properties can also be used for the estimation of effectiveness of several safety systems like the brake assist and/or emergency braking systems. The calculation of a reduced collision speed due to the use of a brake assist is only one example for the application of real measured grip level data.
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.
Analysis of the accident scenario of powered two-wheelers on the basis of real-world accidents
(2013)
For the first time since 20 years the German national statistics of traffic accidents revealed an increasing number of fatalities and seriously injured persons in 2011. This negative development was especially caused by increasing numbers in all groups of vulnerable road users (VRU). Furthermore, the comparison of fatality reduction rates between several categories of road users shows that persons on motorcycles show the worst performance over years. Although every second fatality in German traffic accidents is still a car occupant, users of PTW make up more than 20% in the meantime. Assuming further improvements in the field of occupant protection this trend will continue. For that reason, a study on the basis of real-world accidents was conducted to describe the accident scenario involving motorcycles and to identify the reasons of the above-described fact. Approximately 1.800 motorcycle accidents out of GIDAS database were used for the analyses. The first part of the study deals with the question how representative the GIDAS database is for the German motorcycle accident scenario. Afterwards, detailed descriptive statistics on motorcycle accidents were presented considering numerous parameters about the accident scene, environmental influences, vehicle information, individual characteristics, interview data, injury severity and injury causation. One important point is the identification of the most frequent critical situations that are typical for motorcycle accidents. Furthermore, a special focus was on accident causation. Finally, conspicuous facts out of the analysis are emphasized. All in all, the study gives a comprehensive overview about the German motorcycle accident scenario. One the one hand, the use of weighted GIDAS data allows representative and robust statements on the basis of large case numbers; on the other hand highly detailed conclusions can be drawn. The results of the study help to understand the particularities of motorcycle accidents and provide approaches for further improvements in the field of PTW safety.
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.
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.
Having a look at safety to traffic and the prevention of accidents it can be observed that technical improvements in active safety of vehicles have let to various positive effects in this area. Among other components the tyre-road-contact takes a key role in the development of active safety technologies. All forces in accelerating, breaking and vehicle guidance have to be transmitted through the tyre-road contact area by friction forces. A common way to characterize a friction process is to identify the coefficient of friction μ between two touching materials. Even though there are several approaches to experimentially characterise road surfaces, no standard method exists. In this paper an overview of existing test methods is given. Furthermore the preliminary design of a newly developed portable test device with its possibility to investigate the tyre-road-friction of arbitrary roads or even places of accidents is shown.
Since 2008, the authors inspected fatal traffic accidents on the spot every year, with the cooperation of Toyota police station in Aichi pref. In the jurisdiction, numbers of fatal accidents were 18 in 2008, 12 in 2009, 14 accidents in 2010, and 16 in 2011. We here report the results of our analysis of information obtained by detailed inspection for those that occurred from 2008 to 2010. We focused on vehicle-to-pedestrian accidents, which accounted for about 45% of all accidents in 2008. Because many accidents occurred on residential roads not far from pedestrians" homes, it was revealed that the decrease of the collision speed by traffic calming such as humps and zone speed management, was highly effective. On the other hand, pedestrian detection technologies seemed to be also effective as a countermeasure on vehicle side. Every pedestrian position against a vehicle was clarified and TTC (Time to Collision) was calculated provisionally. Pedestrian accidents in intersections were also examined. Among the intersection pedestrian accidents within the jurisdiction, compared with the national average in Japan, the ratio of intersections without a signal and the ratio without a pedestrian crossing were high. According to the comparison of the Japanese traffic accident patterns between 2001 and 2008, pedestrian accidents during turning right and turning left did not decrease much. For elderly drivers, these accidents occurred very often. Finally, single vehicle accidents were analysed with the accident pattern analysis methods used above. There were high numbers of single vehicle accidents against object on single roads. Although fatal accidents against guardrails decreased, the numbers of fatal accidents against a utility pole and a sign pole were nearly constant. As for the impact with narrow width objects such as utility poles, the fatality rate was very high, and countermeasures of both road infrastructure and vehicles seem to be effective.
The number of road accidents in Portugal has decreased significantly in the last decades, however, this tendency is not similar in all types of transportation. In the most recent years and by European standards, Portugal is still one of the leading countries concerning the number of fatalities in Powered Two Wheelers (PTW) accidents. To this effect, the in-depth investigation of PTW accidents is crucial and so, a thorough statistical analysis concerning the main factors influencing PTW riders injury severity accidents was undertaken regarding the 2007-2010 period in the National Road Safety Authority (ANSR) injured riders database using the software SPSS. In addition, to determine the importance of absent factors in the database analysis, such as velocity, a set of 53 real accidents involving PTW were also investigated and computationally reconstructed using the software PC-Crash. Lateral collisions between a motorcycle, its rider and the side of three different passenger cars were also simulated, varying the motorcycle impact angle and velocity in order to estimate the PTW deformation energy and the rider- injuries, as this accident configuration stands out in terms of frequency and even severity. The results of this detailed study are presented.
The presentation deals with the simulation tool rateEFFECT which intends to answer the following questions: Which active safety systems should be developed to maximize safety benefit in real traffic accidents? What is the effectiveness of a specific active safety system in the real world? How many casualties could be avoided by such a system? It is shown that a lot of information is required to simulate existing accidents in order to estimate ADAS effects. This particularly includes numerical values for the pre-crash and in-crash phase. The database GIDAS provides a required minimum number of these parameters for a statistically significant sample.
Accident research 2.0: New methods for representative evaluation of integral safety in traffic
(2013)
BMW has developed a procedure for rating Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) benefits that integrates two distinct tools. The tool "S.A.F.E.R." is designed to analyze the pre-crash phase. The aim of S.A.F.E.R. is to simulate all relevant processes in sufficient detail to obtain reproducible estimates of key indicators (effectiveness, false positives, etc.). The relevant processes include not only traffic and vehicle dynamics, but also environmental and most importantly human factors. Representative distributions of factors and parameters are obtained by taking the stochastic variation of all relevant parameters into account in the simulations. The second tool, known as "ICOS", has been designed to provide a high-resolution, high-fidelity description of crash phase dynamics. If one converts the outputs of stochastic simulation into inputs for crash dynamics, the result is a comprehensive description of exactly how a safety system can reduce injuries. Applications currently focus on high-fidelity simulation of individual crashes in order to enhance our understanding and optimization of connected safety systems. An integrated simulation process thus allows an exact prediction of the effectiveness in individual cases in terms of injury severity. The development and rating of integral safety need to reflect the true efficiency in the field. The integrated approach described here could provide a valid and reproducible basis for rating connected systems of active and passive safety. In particular, "virtual experiments" using a traffic-based approach and incorporating models of all relevant processes constitute an essential element of the approach.
Nowadays human-created systems are increasing in complexity due to the interaction of humans and technology. Especially road traffic systems are composed of multitudinous resources (e.g. personnel, vehicles, organizations, etc.), which make it even harder to anticipate the positive and negative effects on safety. One key in achieving a significant reduction of fatalities is seen in driver assistant systems counterbalancing the lack of drivers' capabilities. But the actual outcome of implementing these sophisticated technologies especially on influencing driver's capabilities are yet unknown. Latest research exemplifies an increase of reaction times of drivers in case of dysfunctional driver assistant systems. This research paper applies STAMP/STPA (STAMP = systems-theoretic accident model and processes; STPA = systems-theoretic process analysis) to the German automobile traffic system focusing on the effects of driver assistant systems on drivers. By doing so, the potential hazards caused by technology can be identified.
It is very important for Automotive OEMs to get feedback on their product performance on real roads for continuous improvement. Every OEM has a way of collecting this feedback for various performance parameters. Systematic accident research is a way to generate the information related to safety performance of the vehicle. In India, while there is a large amount of data related to the accidents, it is found this data is aimed at understanding the gross statistics and not directly useful for technology development. This paper explains learnings from a pilot study carried out in collaboration with an Emergency Medical Services provider on one of the expressways (motorways). This pilot study has resulted in development of working model that could now be scaled up at for wider application. The paper also presents some of the important observations based on the data collected.
The number of injured car occupants decreases constantly. Nevertheless, they account for nearly 50% of all fatalities and about 44% of all seriously injured persons in German traffic accidents. Further reductions of casualties require multiple efforts in all parts of traffic safety. In this paper a detailed analysis of the important pre-hospital rescue phase was done. The basis for future improvements is the knowledge about injury causation of car occupants in combination with other corresponding influence factors. For that reason more than 1.200 severe (AIS3+) injuries of frontal car occupants were analyzed. For the most relevant injuries of car occupants multivariate analysis models were created to predict the probability of these injuries in a real crash scenario. In addition to the collision severity different influence factors like impact direction, seat belt usage, age of the occupant, and gender were analyzed. Furthermore, the models were checked regarding the goodness of fit and all results all results were checked concerning their robustness. The prediction models were created on the basis of 5.000 car accidents. Afterwards, the models were validated using 4.000 different car accidents. The prediction of the probability of severe injuries could be used for different applications in the field of traffic safety. One possibility is the implementation of the models in a tool for the on-the-spot diagnosis. The background for the development of such applications is the fact, that there are only limited diagnostic possibilities available at the accident scene. Nevertheless, the rescue forces have to make essential decisions like the alerting of the necessary medical experts, appropriate treatment, the type of transportation and the choice of an adequate hospital. These decisions quite often decide between life and death or influence the long-term effects of injured persons. At this point, indications of expectable injuries could help enormously. To enable even persons with limited technical knowledge to use the tool, a procedure was developed that facilitates the assumption of the given crash severity. Another important possibility for the application of the prediction models is the use for the qualification of information sent by e-call systems.
Introduction: Spine injuries pose a considerable risk to life and quality of life. The total number of road deaths in developed countries has markedly decreased, e.g. in Germany from over 20000 in 1970 to less than 4000 in 2010, but little is known how this is reflected in the burden of spine fractures of motor vehicle users. In this study, we aimed to show the actual incidence of spine injuries among drivers and front passengers and elucidate possible dependencies between crash mechanisms and types of injuries.
Beside numerous information about vehicles injuries and environmental data the GIDAS database contains detailed reconstruction data. This data is calculated by a reconstruction engineer who handles about 1000 accidents per year. The spectrum of one reconstruction ranges from simple crossing accidents to complex run-off accidents with rollover events. Especially for complex accident scenarios there is a large effort to design the environment of the accident scene within PC-Crash ®. To reduce the reconstruction time by maintaining the high quality of reconstruction 3D-geodata can be useful. Geodata is available for nearly every area in Germany and can be used for a fast and detailed creation of complex accident environments. In combination with the accident sketch areal images of the accident scene can be created and the participants are implemented in the new-built 3D-reconstruction environment. As a consequence, the characteristics of the terrain can be considered within the reconstruction which is especially important for run-off accidents.
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.
Supervision of the safety performance in public transport is one of the main tasks of the Federal Office of Transport (FOT) in Switzerland. Recently a three level system of safety indicators has been defined to cover all means of Swiss public transport. The safety indicators are fed by the FOT incident database since the year 2000. In cooperation with the Institute for Traffic Safety and Automation Engineering (iVA) at TU Braunschweig, Germany, FOT is developing a suitable methodology for the definition and evaluation of the safety targets in Swiss public transport. The methodology is applied for evaluation of safety indicators on a country level and for single transport companies. In a new approach the abovementioned methodology is applied to car incident data to develop an indicator based cross-modal safety measure.
A concept for Safe-Driving-Trainings with a focus on risky behavior and safety related attitudes has been evaluated. 519 participants have been tested before and after the training by means of a questionnaire with the topics: technical driving competence, awareness of risks, and propensity for anticipation. A control group (131 subjects) was used to check for the possibility of response artifacts. Three months later, 92 members of the treatment group and 25 members of the control group have been tested again. The results show significant positive changes in driving competence, risk awareness, and safety related attitudes, especially anticipation, due to the training. Compared to the control group the participants have become more risk aware and they regard of risk avoiding behavior as more important. The results show that this concept for Safe-Driving-Trainings has not only short-term but, more importantly, long-term positive effects on the safety-relevant attitudes and cognitions of young drivers.
To date, the Trauma Registry (TraumaRegister DGU-® contains data of approximately 100.000 severely injured patients, 65% of which suffered from a road traffic crash. Thus, it is the world's largest data base for severely injured patients. The article describes the development of the registry and explains how it was rolled out over Germany using the established structure of the German Trauma Network (TraumaNetzwerk DGU-®). In addition, this article presents three typical use cases from the fields of quality management, policy making and system-wide interventions, clinical research and injury prevention. In conclusion, the TraumaRegister DGU-® is a well-established tool for various purposes related to the control and reduction of the burden of road injury. Its ongoing expansion to other countries will support the goal of international benchmarking of hospitals and trauma systems.
Police records about traffic accidents like used by IRTAD (International Road Traffic and Accident Database) and CARE (Community Road Accident Database) do not represent all road injuries. For instance, road accidents of bicyclists without a counterpart are usually not reported. Furthermore, IRTAD-like data contains hardly any information on injury outcome and accident circumstances. This information gap leads to an under-representation of the safety concerns of the most vulnerable road users like children and the elderly both in accident research and safety promotion. Injury registration for the European Injury Database (IDB), in turn, combines details of accident causation with diagnostic information that can be used to assess injury severity and long term consequences. The IDB is collecting data from hospital emergency department patients and is being implemented in a growing number of countries. In this article IDB results on mode of transport and injury outcome are presented from a sample of nine EU member states.
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).
The paper aims to study the injury risk and kinematics of pedestrians involved in different passenger vehicle collisions. Furthermore, the difference of pedestrian kinematics in the accidents involved minivan and sedan was analyzed. The 18 sample cases of passenger car to pedestrian collisions were selected from the database of In-depth Investigation of Vehicle Accident in Changsha of China (IVAC),of which the 12 pedestrian accidents involved in a minivan impact for each case, and the 6 accidents in a sedan impact for each. The selected cases were reconstructed by using mathematical models of pedestrians and accident vehicles in a multi-body dynamic code MADYMO environment. The logistic regression models of the risks for pedestrian AIS 3+ injuries and fatalities were developed in terms of vehicle impact speed by analyzing the minivan-pedestrian and sedan-pedestrian accidents. The difference of pedestrian kinematics was identified by comparing the results from reconstructed pedestrian accidents between the minivans and sedans collisions. The result shows that there is a significant correlation among the impact speed and the severity of pedestrian injuries. The minivan poses greater risk to pedestrian than sedan at the same impact speed. The kinematics of pedestrian was greatly influenced by vehicle front shape.
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.
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.
T. DÜNCHHEIM erörtert in seinem Einführungsvortrag zu "Die Stellung der Gemeinden im Straßenrecht" die kommunalen Gestaltungsspielräume hinsichtlich ihres Satzungsrechts, das sich auf -§ 19 StrWG NRW stützen lässt. Er schildert die Auswirkungen dieser Gestaltung auf das Straßen- und Straßenverkehrsrecht, die letztlich Ausfluss der gemeindlichen Selbstverwaltungsgarantie sind. Dabei problematisiert er die Abgrenzung zwischen straßenrechtlichem Gemeingebrauch und Sondernutzung sowie die Bedeutung der rechtlichen Ausgestaltung des Straßen- und Straßenverkehrsrechts. Hierbei wird die Anwendung des -§ 45 StVO durch die Gemeinden einer kritischen Analyse unterzogen. A. NETTER schildert in seinem Beitrag "Aktuelle Rechtsfragen der Ortsdurchfahrten" die Gremienstruktur im Straßenwesen und den Einfluss des Europarechts, des Bundes- und Landesstraßenrechts sowie den Ortsdurchfahrtenrichtlinien auf das Straßenwesen. Er stellt dabei die Folgen der Aufhebung der Radwegbenutzungspflicht sowie die aus der Straßenbaulast folgende Entwässerungsverpflichtung der Straßenbaulastträger und ihre Umsetzung in den Gemeinden dar. U. WEGNER berichtet in ihrem Beitrag "Aktuelle Entwicklungen des Verbandsklagerechts" über die Auswirkungen europäischer Richtlinien auf das Umweltrecht. In diesem Zusammenhang wird eine wegweisende Entscheidung des BVerwG erörtert, welche die direkte Anwendung des Art. 9 Abs. 3 AK zum Gegenstand hat. Trotz der Einführung einer bundesrechtlichen Verbandsklage in -§ 64 BNatSchG sei das Problem der Wahrung von Allgemeininteressen nicht gelöst, da diese Norm die Interessen des Umweltschutzes nicht hinreichend zu schützen vermöge. Der Beitrag "Inanspruchnahme öffentlicher Wege durch TK-Unternehmen" von U. STELKENS, stellt eine differenzierte Auseinandersetzung mit dem TKG-Wegerecht dar. Er konstatiert, dass die Bestimmungen des TKG im Wesentlichen auf den Normen des Telegraphenwegegesetz (TWG) basieren. Daher bestehen Spannungsverhältnisse und Reibungsflächen zwischen den verschiedenen Abschnitten des TKG, da das TKG und das TWG unterschiedliche Ziele verfolgen. Beispielsweise seien die -§ 77a bis -§ 77e TKG nicht auf die -§ 68 bis -§ 77 TKG abgestimmt worden. Der abschließende Beitrag "Fachplanerische Auswirkungen des Umweltschadensgesetzes" von M. PETERSEN widmet sich der Frage, ob und welche Auswirkungen das Umweltschadensgesetz auf das Fachplanungsrecht hat. Zunächst wird allgemein herausgearbeitet, dass das Umweltschadensgesetz nicht Schadensersatz- oder Ausgleichsleistungen eines geschädigten Dritten bezweckt; vielmehr sollen Umweltschäden vermieden und die Wiederherstellung geschädigter Umweltgüter erreicht werden. Die Frage, ob und inwieweit das Umweltschadensgesetz Auswirkungen auf das Fachplanungsrecht hat, hängt davon ab, ob die Haftungstatbestände des -§ 3 Abs. 1 USchadG einschlägig sind.
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.
Detailed anthropometric data of pregnant women have been collected and used in the development of a computational model of the pregnant occupant model "Expecting". The model is complete with a finite element uterus and multi-body fetus, which is a novel feature in the models of this kind. The computational pregnant occupant model has been validated and used to simulate a range of impacts. The strains developed in the utero-placental interface are used as the main criteria for fetus safety. Stress distributions due to inertial loading of the fetus on the utero-placental interface play a role on the strain levels. Inclusion of fetus model is shown to significantly affect the strain levels in the utero-placental interface. This series of studies has led to the design of seatbelt features specifically for the pregnant women to enable them use the seatbelt correctly and comfortably.
The current Brussels EU Regulation No. 1235/2011, valid from May 30, 2012, has introduced an European Tyre Label with wet grip index G classes from A to G for passenger car tyres C1, light commercial vehicles tyres C2 and heavy truck- and bus tyres C3. Every wet grip class for each vehicle category has a defined band of numerical values for the wet grip index G. The legislated wet grip values G in this EU- Regulation are very low. The measured braking distances and corresponding impact speeds of the test vehicles are showing very critical results. Regulation No. 1235/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council for Type Approval of Vehicles (EU) should be changed in such a way, that for C1-tyres (normal passenger cars tyres) the minimum wet grip index G is 1.25. All C2-tyres (light commercial vehicles tyres) should at least meet a minimum wet grip index of G = 1.1. All C3-tyres (heavy trucks and buses tyres) should at least meet a minimum wet grip index of G = 0.95. Due to the missing lower limits for G in the wet grip class F for C1, C2 and C3 tyres according to Commission Regulation (EU) No. 1235/2011, officially valid from 30 May 2012, a tyre-to-road coefficient of adhesion in the extreme of 0 (zero) is legally permitted. This is an apparent flaw in above cited EU Regulation, which causes a potential danger to the road traffic safety for all motor vehicles in Europe with such tyres. The wet grip class F has to be removed urgently from said EURegulation, since a direct liability of the responsible EU-Commission can not be excluded.
Vorgestellt werden Ergebnisse aus der Untersuchung "Vergleich verschiedener Modellierungsprogramme zur Berechnung von Luftschadstoffen". Die Untersuchung wurde begleitend zu der Pilotstudie "NO2-Reduktion an Ti02-dotierten Lärmschutzwänden (LSW) an der A1" durchgeführt. Projektziel war der Vergleich von drei Ausbreitungsmodellen sowie die Auswahl eines geeigneten Modells für ein zu entwickelndes Online-Monitoring-System. Es wurde festgestellt, dass sich die Modellergebnisse infolge der Umsetzung kleinräumiger Details unterscheiden sowie dass alle Modelle lediglich geringe NOx-Minderungen in Folge der katalytischen Oberflächenbeschichtung anzeigen. In den numerischen Modellen wird die photokatalytische Wirkung der Ti02-beschichteten Lärmschutzwand über einen Depositionsprozess berücksichtigt. Unter Berücksichtigung der Hintergrundbelastung und der NOx-NO2-Umwandlung würde sich die Wirkung des Katalysators im Maximum auf weniger reduzieren. Die Messungen zeigten keine eindeutige Wirkung bezüglich der Immissionskonzentrationen im Bereich der beschichteten beziehungsweise unbeschichteten LSW an.
While it is important to track trends in the number of road accidents in different countries using national statistics, there is a need for data with more detailed information, so called in-depth accident data. For this reason, several accident data projects emerged worldwide in recent years. However, also different data standards were established and so comparative analysis of international in-depth data has been very hard to conduct, so far. This is why the project iGLAD (Initiative for the Global Harmonization of Accident Data) was established and created the prerequisites for building up a standardized dataset out of the common denominator of different in-depth accident databases from Europe, USA and Asia. In the first phase, the project received funding from ACEA to compile an initial database. To accomplish this, a suitable data scheme has been defined, a pilot study has been conducted as proof of concept and the recoding of the first common data base has been initiated. Also, to prepare the project for its self-supporting continuation in the next years, a business model has been developed. This paper reports the history and status of the project, the current challenges and the creation of a capable consortium to maintain the data. In mid-2014, the initial database containing 1550 cases from 10 different countries will be completed and a first detailed view on this data will be possible.