Injury severity of restrained front seat occupants in car-to-car side impacts

✍ Scribed by E. Miltner; H.-J. Salwender

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 728 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0001-4575
• DOI: 10.1016/0001-4575(94)e0019-h

✦ Synopsis

The influence of a number of factors, including age and particularly seating position, on the injury severity of restrained occupants was examined for 41 front-seat occupants seated adjacent to the impact (near side) and 38 sitting opposite the impacted side (far side) in car-to-car side collisions (center of impact: front door and B-pillar). Above an energy equivalent speed of 40 km/h all near-side occupants and about half of the far-side occupants sustained severe injuries. A logistic regression analysis showed that within range of 30-60 km/h (delta u 20-60 km/h) the probability of severe injuries increased dramatically from approximately 20% to more than 90%; in these cases, far-side occupants had the same injury probability as near-side occupants only when the speed was 10 km/h higher. The main cause of death for 27 occupants seated on both sides was polytrauma, this was accompanied in two-thirds of the cases by serious head injuries. The second most frequent cause of death was head injury.