Previous accounts used different terms – whiplash injury, hyperextension injury, acceleration injury, soft tissue neck injury, cervical strain, cervical sprain – to describe the lesion that may occur after and the consequences of a typical car accident: a rear-end motor vehicle collision. When a vehicle is struck from the rear, the occupants rarely have any warning and do not brace the muscles ...

The vehicular collision can lead to serious casualties and traffic congestions, especially multiple-vehicle collision. Most recent studies mainly focused on collision warning and avoidance strategies for two consecutive vehicles, but only a few on multiple-vehicle situations. This study proposes a coordinated brake control (CBC) strategy for multiple vehicles to minimize the risk of rear-end co...

Rear-end collisions account for almost 30% of automotive crashes. Rear-end collision avoidance systems (RECASs) may offer a promising approach to help drivers avoid these crashes. Two experiments performed using a high-fidelity motion-based driving simulator examined driver responses to evaluate the efficacy of a RECAS. The first experiment showed that early warnings helped distracted drivers r...

OBJECTIVE A driving simulator was used to compare the effectiveness of increasing intensity (looming) auditory warning signals with other types of auditory warnings. BACKGROUND Auditory warnings have been shown to speed driver reaction time in rear-end collision situations; however, it is not clear which type of signal is the most effective. Although verbal and symbolic (e.g., a car horn) war...

Whiplash injuries are common following rear-end collisions. During such collisions, initially relaxed occupants exhibit brisk, stereotypical muscle responses consisting of postural and startle responses that may contribute to the injury. Using prestimulus inhibition, we sought to determine if the startle response elicited during a rear-end collision contributes to head stabilization or represen...