Citation

Digges KH, Bahouth GT. Annu. Proc. Assoc. Adv. Automot. Med. 2003; 47: 417-423.

Affiliation

The FHWA/NHTSA National Crash Analysis Center, The George Washington University, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12941239

PMCID

PMC3217534

Abstract

NASS 1998-2000 was queried to determine the frequency of serious injuries in multiple impact crashes and the distribution of injuries by crash sequence. The data set included all passenger cars and light trucks in NASS/CDS. The results showed that 42% of the MAIS 3+ injuries were in crashes that involved more than one harmful event. Approximately 24% of the MAIS 3+ injuries involved two harmful events, and 18% involved 3 or more harmful events. For multiple crashes with serious injuries, the most frequent initial impact direction was frontal (50%) followed by side (44.9%). The most frequent second impact was side (48.4%) followed by frontal (27.6%). The most harmful sequences were side-side (27.7%), front-side (15.8%) and front-front (14.9). The data suggests the need for further investigation and classification complex multiple impact crashes to aid in the in the design of safety systems.