Frontal-impact airbag systems have the potential to provide a benefit to rear seat occupants by distributing restraining forces over the body in a manner not possible using belts alone. This study sought to investigate the effects of incorporating a belt-integrated airbag ("airbelt") into a rear seat occupant restraint system. Frontal impact sled tests were performed with a Hybrid III 50th perc...

OBJECTIVES Assess injury death relative risks (RR), dose-response, and attributable fractions for current cigarette smokers (smokers) in a recent representative sample of the United States population without and with adjustment for (a) demographic and (b) additional behavioral risk factors. SETTING United States. METHODS National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) adult (ages 18+ years) intervi...

A 64-year-old man presented with clinical unilateral thyroiditis after chronic left neck trauma from his car seat belt. Thyroid function tests were normal. The initial thyroid Tc-99m pertechnetate scan demonstrated decreased uptake in the entire left lobe of the thyroid. The follow-up scan 1 month later showed a more normal uptake in the left lobe. This patient's clinical course, laboratory val...

OBJECTIVES Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of hospitalized trauma during pregnancy. Maternal injury puts the fetus at great risk, yet little is known about the incidence, risks, and characteristics of pregnant women in crashes. SETTING AND METHODS Police reported crashes were analyzed from the National Automotive Sampling System Crashworthiness Data System. Since 1995, this system...

The use of manual (i.e., active) restraint systems (or seat belts) in cars has increased dramatically over the last several decades, changing from around 10% in the late 1970s to as much as 68% in the 1990s (Datta & Guzek, 1992; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA], 1996b). Several factors are responsible for this increase. One important determinant has been the passage of man...

Britain introduced a belt-use law in July 1981 to become effective on 31 January 1983, a full 13 years after Australia. In the USA, priority was given to laws requiring infants and young children to be appropriately restrained so that between 1977 and 1984 all 50 states and the District of Colombia enacted child passenger safety laws. It was not until 12 July 1984 that New York became the first...

OBJECTIVE Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of injury and mortality for children. Mitigation of these injuries requires biofidelic anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs) to design and evaluate automotive safety systems. Effective countermeasures exist for frontal and near-side impacts but are limited for far-side impacts. Consequently, far-side impacts represent increased injury and mortal...

Seat belt use is an important factor in the prevention of automobile accidents involving injuries and fatalities. The current study used a multielement design to compare the "Click It or Ticket" and "Please Buckle Up--I Care" procedures. Results indicate that the Click It or Ticket prompt resulted in a 20-percentage-point increase in seat belt use, and Please Buckle Up-I Care resulted in a 14-p...

This study developed anthropometric information on U.S. firefighters to guide fire-apparatus seat and seatbelt designs and future standards development. A stratified sample of 863 male and 88 female firefighters across the U.S. participated in the study. The study results suggested 498 mm in width, 404 mm in depth, and 365-476 mm in height for seat pans; 429-522 mm in width and 542 mm in height...

The costs of fatalities and injuries due to traffic accident have a great impact on society. This paper presents our research to model the severity of injury resulting from traffic accidents using artificial neural networks and decision trees. We have applied them to an actual data set obtained from the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) General Estimates System (GES). Experiment result...