Citation

Council FM, Stewart JR. Transp. Res. Rec. 1993; 1419: 78-85.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Roadside safety devices are designed to protect vehicle occupants from injuries. Because new designs cannot be tested with human occupants, the safety of new designs has traditionally been measured in crash tests, with criteria for success being structural adequacy of the device, vehicle trajectory after collision, and occupant risk. The relationship between occupant risk as measured in crash tests and the ultimate measure of occupant risk--driver injury--is explored. Vehicles from the 1973 through 1986 North Carolina crash files were matched with similar crash-test vehicles on the basis of feature struck; make, model, and year; and Traffic Accident Data Project impact location and severity. Contingency table analysis and logistic regression modeling were used to explore the potential relationship between crash-test measures and injury.

RESULTS indicated the lack of a strong relationship between driver injury and peak 50-msec longitudinal and lateral forces to the vehicle or momentum change. With respect to the newer proposed "flail space" measures of occupant risk, the limited amount of data available made conclusions virtually impossible to draw. Because of the continuing need for a strong link between crash-test measures and injury, recommendations for modification of the methodology, the data files, the test matrix, and the measures themselves are provided.

Record URL:
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1993/1419/1419-008.pdf

Language: en

Keywords

Accident prevention; Highway accidents; Mathematical models; Regression analysis; Highway engineering; Risks; Ground vehicles; Highway systems; Human engineering; Materials testing; Safety devices; Structural design