The US Side Impact Accident Causation Analysis and Potential Applications for Pre-Crash Safety

With significant benefits achieved with frontal/side and rollover passive safety systems and additional improvements coming on board with frontal active safety, it is natural to consider extension of similar systems to side impact. Side impact crash causation, vehicle kinematics and occupant restraints benefits with early deployments were studied to quantify the problem and evaluate potential benefits. Using NASS/CDS & FARS 2000-2006 database, the top 10 crash conditions (AIS 2+ injury and fatalities) were identified and selected cases were subjected to accident reconstruction tools to better understand the vehicle kinematics prior to contact. This approach provides an initial view of potential 'zones' on the vehicle where active systems can best be deployed to improve detection while reducing potential for false alarm. Also, a preliminary analysis through simulation and testing of early deployment of conventional passive systems compared to standard crash sensing shows a potential for significant injury reductions. The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0057.pdf For the covering abstract see ITRD E145407.