European Commission Dg Research Sixth Framework Programme Marie Curie Research Training Networks Mymosa

Motorcyclists and moped drivers are road users with a particularly high accident risk since motorcycle accidents are severe in nature, due to the relative lack of protection of motorcyclists. Furthermore, given the young age of many victims, these accidents often result in a high-loss of life expectancy for fatalities and high social-economic costs. The ambition of this project is to provide a substantial contribution to the reduction of motorcycle fatalities and injuries on European roads of at least 20% of injuries and fatalities. This ambition is shared by organisations such as APSN and EARPA. Biomechanical knowledge partially developed within the automotive impact biomechanics world over the past decades and partially to be developed within WP4 Biomechanics, can provide a contribution to the reduction of injuries and fatalities by: • increased understanding of the kinematics of motorcycle riders in the event prior to a crash and during the crash • increased understanding of the mechanisms behind injuries • the development of biofidelic tools for the design of protective devices This first deliverable of WP4 provides an introduction to the current state of the art in numerical human body modelling and volunteer testing from an automotive and pedestrian area perspective. Specifically for automotive applications biomechanical research has been ongoing for decades, basically since the first work of John Paul Stapp in 1947. Ever since, great progress has been made on improving automotive occupant and pedestrian safety based on extensive biomechanical testing with human subjects, through the development of safety assessment methodologies with anthropometric test devices (ATDs) or dummies, and through numerical methods for improved understanding and cost effectiveness. This deliverable provides a selective overview of previous research in order to be able to define the direction of and objectives for future research work to be performed within WP4 of MYMOSA. First, the field of motorcycle safety, more specifically related to rider safety and numerical modelling of the rider is introduced, from which the needs for further development are identified. Despite ever-continuing improvements in the broad field of vehicle safety, road traffic related accidents still claim an estimated 40 000 lives and injure 1 600 000 citizens each year in Europe [Roadmap 2004], and nearly 1 out of 3 people will require some kind of medical treatment as a result of a road accident during their lifetime. In addition to these figures, of truly epidemic proportions, the corresponding economic and social costs are …