There is a need to continue to set the right vehicle safety policy priorities in the future. Research has to point out the most cost efficient and safety relevant measures to further reduce the number of road traffic casualties. The overall development shows that the constant and rapid decrease in the number of road casualties slows down. New innovations need to enter the vehicle market soon, in order to continue the success achieved in the last decade. Priorities for vehicle safety are driven by safety and mobility demands. It is necessary to keep a strong lid on all aspects of elderly and vulnerable road users. The fraction of powered-two-wheelers (PTW) is a priority group. PTWs have a risk of being involved in an accident, 14times higher than that of a passenger car. However, the figures do also show that every second fatality is a car occupant. Therefore passenger car safety remains to be top priority. Heavy goods vehicles are overly represented in fatal accidents, addressing the need to make these vehicles more compatible with other road users. These facts highlight the necessity not only to increase vehicles" self protection, but also to make cars - and trucks - more compatible and safe. Cycling is a strongly increasing mode of transport. This is a further reason to demand better protection for cyclists and pedestrians from car design and car active and integrated safety systems. Another priority for future vehicle safety is related to demographics. It is less known that the purely demographic effect will be superimposed by an increasing wish of elderly people to be mobile. However, elderly people show deficits concerning their biomechanics. This emphasizes the need for better and more adaptive restraint systems, but also further technological challenges and demands for active safety systems. However, in order to progress, current technological limitations have to be overcome. Cost benefit considerations, but also consumer acceptance and desires, will drive this process.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mit diesem Bericht wird der zweite Kinderunfallatlas der Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen vorgelegt, in dem die Verkehrsunfallsituation von Kindern für alle Kreise, Städte und Gemeinden in Deutschland abgebildet wird. Während der erste Kinderunfallatlas die regionale Verteilung der Kinderverkehrsunfälle von 2001 bis 2005 analysierte, fokussiert der vorliegende Kinderunfallatlas auf die Situation für die naechsten fünf Jahre. Dadurch ist es wieder möglich, die Verkehrssicherheitssituation von Kindern vor Ort mit der in anderen Kreisen und Gemeinden gleicher Größe zu vergleichen und somit einen Hinweis darüber zu erhalten, ob und wie sich die Situation vor Ort von anderen unterscheidet. Zudem ist es wichtig zu wissen, ob und wie sich die Unfallsituation von Kindern in den folgenden Jahren weiterentwickelt hat. Daher wurden nicht nur für den Folgezeitraum 2006 bis 2010 die Kinderunfalldaten nach dem gleichen Prinzip ausgewertet, zusätzlich wurde berechnet, ob die Situation jedes Kreises/kreisfreien Stadt im Trend der bundesdeutschen Gesamtentwicklung liegt, ob die Verkehrsunfälle vor Ort überdurchschnittlich zurückgegangen sind oder ob sich in den letzten Jahren im Vergleich zur gesamtdeutschen Entwicklung wenig getan hat. Diese Analysen wurden auch im Rahmen des Städtevergleiches angestellt. Da die Zuständigkeit für die Durchführung von Verkehrssicherheitsmaßnahmen in weiten Bereichen bei den Ländern liegt, wurde das Konzept erweitert und für jedes Bundesland eine Sonderauswertung der Daten vorgenommen, sodass die Verantwortlichen auf Landesebene für ihre Verwaltungseinheit zusätzlich die Information erhalten, wie die Kreise landesintern zueinander stehen. Ergebnis ist, dass Kinderverkehrsunfälle in der Bundesrepublik nicht gleichmäßig verteilt sind, vielmehr belegt die bevölkerungsbezogene Analyse auf Kreisebene ein deutliches Nord-Süd-Gefälle. Die Analyse nach Art der Verkehrsteilnahme ergab, dass Kinder als Fußgänger besonders häufig in Nordrhein-Westfalen und großen Städten der Bundesrepublik verunglücken, während Kinder als Radfahrer in Kreisen und kreisfreien Staedten in Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Brandenburg besonders gefährdet sind. Als Mitfahrer in Pkw verunglücken die meisten Kinder in den ländlichen Regionen Bayerns und den östlichen Regionen der Bundesrepublik. Insbesondere für den Osten der Bundesrepublik und das östliche Bayern konnte durch den Vergleich der Daten der Kinderverkehrsunfälle von 2001 bis 2010 nachgewiesen werden, dass der deutliche Rückgang der Kinderverkehrsunfälle über den allgemeinen bundesdeutschen positiven Trend hinausgeht. Es wurde allerdings auch festgestellt, dass in manchen Kreisen bereits 1984 (Unfallatlas Heinrich/Hohenadel) hohe Unfallbelastungen zu beobachten waren. Diese Ergebnisse der Kreisanalyse finden sich auch auf Gemeindeebene wieder. Danach steigt das auf die Altersgruppe bezogene Risiko für Fußgänger mit der Größe einer Stadt, während Radfahrer in sogenannten Mittelstädten besonders häufig verunglücken. Als Mitfahrer in Pkw tragen Kinder in sehr kleinen Orten unter 10.000 Einwohnern ein deutlich erhöhtes Risiko. Die Analyse der Unfallentwicklung in den Städten berücksichtigte ebenfalls den bundesdeutschen Trend. Fuer die 15 Großstädte konnte so nachgewiesen werden, dass sich in der Mehrzahl der Großstädte die Unfallkennziffern zwischen 2003-2005 und 2008-2010 positiv im bundesdeutschen Trend entwickelten. In sieben Großstädten lagen die Werte sogar darüber. Während die Vergleiche der mittleren und großen Kreise und Gemeinden auf einer stabilen Berechnungsbasis erfolgten, sind bei den sehr kleinen Kreisen und Gemeinden aufgrund geringer Bevölkerungsdichte Verzerrungen möglich. Daher sollten insbesondere bei hohen Unfallbelastungen keine voreiligen Schlüsse gezogen werden, vielmehr ist eine sorgfältige Interpretation angezeigt. So ist beispielsweise insbesondere in vom Tourismus geprägten Gebieten eine erhöhte Unfallbelastung identifiziert worden, die allerdings aufgrund der erhöhten Anzahl von Kindern, die sich nur vorübergehend in den Gebieten aufhalten und nicht gemeldet sind, relativiert werden muss. Die Analyse und Erklärung spezifischer Verkehrsunfallsituationen vor Ort sollte daher die gesamte Bandbreite möglicher Zusammenhänge einbeziehen. Denn nur, wenn die wirklichen Probleme und Zusammenhänge erkannt sind, können sinnvolle Maßnahmen zur Verbesserung der Verkehrssicherheit von Kindern eingeleitet werden.
Every second counts when human lives are at stake. The increasingly safe design of vehicles presents rescuers with a serious challenge. Faced with high-strength steels and body reinforcements, even the most powerful cutters reach their limits. Therefore, incident commanders require information on the technical features and components installed, directly in the vehicle. Several tests have shown that such information helps to save valuable minutes. Therefore, a standardised A4 "rescue sheet" containing information on the location of cabin reinforcements, the tank, the battery, airbags, gas generators, control units etc. " and indicating adequate cutting points must be used throughout Europe. Hopefully, in a few years, the new eCall emergency call system will be in place everywhere in Europe. The system will transmit the relevant vehicle-specific data directly to the rescuers on-site. Until then, we need a simple and effective solution that saves lives.
A total survey of road traffic accidents involving most severely injured, defined as sustaining a polytrauma or severe monotrauma (ISS > 15) or being killed, was conducted over 14 months in a large study region in Germany. Data on injuries, pre-clinical and clinical care, crash circumstances and vehicle damage were obtained both prospectively and retrospectively from trauma centers, dispatch centers, police and fire departments. 149 patients with a polytrauma and eight with a severe monotrauma were recorded altogether. 22 patients died in hospital. Another 76 victims had deceased at the accident scene. In 2008, 49 % of patients treated with life-threatening injuries were car or van occupants, 21 % motorcyclists, 18 % cyclists and 10 % pedestrians. Among fatalities at the scene, vehicle occupants constituted an even larger portion. The number of road users with life-threatening trauma in the region was extrapolated to the German situation. It suggests that 10 % among the "seriously injured" as defined in national accident statistics are surviving accident victims with a polytrauma or severe monotrauma.
Providing effective occupant protection in rollover crashes requires supplying the occupant with a restraint system proven effective in the dynamic rollover accident mode. Preventing ejection and providing restraint sufficient to prevent potentially injurious contacts with both interior and exterior vehicle components is paramount for effective rollover occupant protection. Research has shown that the injury potential can be decreased by closely coupling the occupant to the seat. This paper focuses on the effect of restraint system slack and its relationship to occupant excursion and ejection potential during rollover. Various restraint system configurations are evaluated in rollover-type test environments. A review of prior research is presented prior to presenting new quasi-static vehicle inversion studies conducted with live surrogate occupants. Additionally, dynamic rollover testing utilizing anthropometric test devices (ATDs) is presented. The influence of belt looseness and effects of various restraint designs on the belted occupants' injury potential are discussed.
Empirical vehicle crashworthiness studies are usually based on national or in-depth traffic accident surveys: Data on accident-involved cars/drivers are analysed in order to quantify the chance of driver injury and to assess certain risk factors like car make and model. As the cars/drivers involved in the same accident form a "cluster", where the size of the cluster equals the number of accident-involved parties, traffic accident survey data are typical multi-level data with accidents as first-level or primary and cars/drivers as secondlevel or secondary units (car occupants in general are to be considered as third level units). Consequently, appropriate statistical multi-level models are to be used for driver injury risk estimation purposes as these models properly account for the cluster structure of traffic accident survey data. In recent years various types of regression models for clustered data have been developed in the statistical sciences. This paper presents multi-level statistical models, which are generally applicable for vehicle crashworthiness assessment in the sense that data on single and multiple car crashes can be analysed simultaneously. As a special case of multi-level modelling driver injury risk estimation based on paired-by-collision car/driver data is considered. It is demonstrated that assessment results may be seriously biased, if the cluster structure inherent in traffic accident survey data is erroneously ignored in the data analysis stage.