Car Crash Compatibility: The Prospects for International Harmonization

Crash incompatibility between disparate classes of passenger vehicles is an issue of growing global concern. There is widespread consensus, both in the U.S. and internationally, that any regulation or test procedure focusing on crash compatibility should be a globally harmonized standard. However, this may prove to be a challenging effort due to huge differences in U.S. and international fleet composition. The U.S. fleet is dominated by a growing light truck component, and has few of the sub-1000 kg cars that are prevalent in Australian and European fleets. This paper will examine the structure of the passenger vehicle fleets in the U.S., Europe, and Australia, the relationship between fleet composition and real world crash fatalities and the prospects for a single, globally accepted, crash compatibility test procedure.