OBJECTIVES Motor vehicle crash fatality rates have been consistently higher in rural areas than in urban areas. However, the explanations for these differences are less clear. In this study the decomposition method was used to explore the factors associated with increased fatal crash involvement rates in rural communities. DESIGN Using national databases, the fatal crash incidence density was...

A 30-year-old woman crashed her car into a parked car after leaving work. She was restrained, and the car’s airbag did not deploy. When the paramedics arrived, she was confused and unable to answer questions appropriately. En route to the hospital, she had tonic-clonic seizure that lasted approximately 45 seconds. Upon arrival at the emergency department, she was unresponsive. Her vital signs w...

Buckling and certain contact situations cause scattering results of numerical crash simulation: For a BMW model differences between the position of a node in two simulation runs of up to 10 cm were observed, just as a result of round-off differences in the case of parallel computing. An engineer has to measure this scatter, to check whether important parts of the car show such indeterministic b...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of various configurations of a driver restraint system by using a combined injury criteria index and making the restraint system adaptive to different frontal crash coinditions, such as severity of the crash, belt use, sitting position, pre-impact braking and size of the driver. For this purpose, a mathematical model of a driver restra...

This paper describes a study undertaken to improve road safety through a fundamentally different approach. The study draws on Sweden’s Vision Zero road safety philosophy, the foundation of which is that it is ethically unacceptable to trade lives and health for other benefits in society. The research’s main purpose was to develop a model to identify the research needs and priorities required to...

Recent attention has focused on adults in farside crashes but little attention has been given to children in farside crashes. Thus, we sought to elucidate Injury Causation Scenarios (ICS’s) in children in center and farside seat positions. Crash investigation cases were drawn from the Partners for Child Passenger Safety Crash Investigation database, and the Crash Injury Research and Engineering...

Motorcycles are the most dangerous form of motorized transportation. Per vehicle miles traveled, motorcyclists are about 3 times as likely as passenger car occupants to be injured in a crash, and 16 times as likely to die. Because the majority of these deaths are caused by head injury, safety advocates have recommended mandatory use of motorcycle helmets. Others contend that state laws mandatin...