Rear seat adult occupant protection is receiving increased attention from the automotive safety community. Recent anthropomorphic test device (ATD) studies have suggested that it may be possible to improve kinematics and reduce injuries to rear seat occupants in frontal collisions by incorporating shoulder-belt force-limiting and pretensioning (FL+PT) technologies into rear seat 3-point belt re...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effects of wheelchair seat height on wheeling efficiency and technique during rehabilitation in subjects with a spinal cord injury. DESIGN Laboratory-based study. SUBJECTS Twelve persons with spinal cord injury (age range 19-77 years, lesion level: C5/C6-L2; 7 men; 8 incomplete). METHODS Subjects conducted 8 submaximal hand rim wheelchair exercise tests (4 min) o...

OBJECTIVE To increase teen seat belt use among drivers at a rural high school by implementing the Drive Alive Pilot Program (DAPP), a theory-driven intervention built on highway safety best practices. METHODS The first component of the program was 20 observational teen seat belt surveys conducted by volunteer students in a high school parking lot over a 38-month period before and after the mo...

Although seat-belts are the most effective means of preventing severe injuries and deaths from road accidents, drivers and passengers in many developing countries neglect to wear them. This study aimed to measure the rate of use of seat-belts and factors affecting their use in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. In direct observations of 7718 vehicles at randomly selected sites in Tehran, 77.9% o...

Modern car seats are often equipped with adjustable lumbar supports for reducing fatigue and improving ride comfort in different driving conditions. Studies on the effect of lumbar support on seat dynamic performance and ride comfort are not often seen. This experimental study was designed to investigate how lumbar support affects static and dynamic characteristics of the driver seat of a sport...

This paper investigates the effects of mandatory seat belt laws on driver behavior and traffic fatalities. Using a unique panel data set on seat belt usage in all U.S. jurisdictions, we analyze how such laws, by influencing seat belt use, affect the incidence of traffic fatalities. Allowing for the endogeneity of seat belt usage, we find that such usage decreases overall traffic fatalities. The...

This study examined the psychosocial and behavioral correlates of seat-belt use among 1,728 10th-graders in four Northern California high schools. Parent and friend seat-belt use patterns were most highly correlated with student seat-belt use (r = 0.66 and r = 0.61, respectively) and together accounted for 46% of the variation in use. These relationships held across differences in sex, ethnicit...

The position and orientation of a vehicle occupant’s pelvis are important for seat design and the provision of safety belts. However, the direct measurement of pelvis location in a vehicle seat is difficult due to interference from the vehicle and its seat structure, as well as driver factors such as abdomen adiposity. An optimization method was developed to locate the driver’s pelvis based on ...