Real-World Analysis of Fatal Rear-End Crashes

In March 2011, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published its Vehicle Safety Rulemaking and Research Priority Plan 2011 – 2013, which described the projects that are the agency’s priority in the rulemaking and research areas in those calendar years. Programs that are priorities or will take significant agency resources included the development of performance criteria and objective tests to support the identification of effective advanced safety technologies that provide a warning of an impending forward collision and/or automatically brake the vehicle. In support of the Forward Collision Avoidance and Mitigation project listed in the priority plan, an analysis of real-world crash data was conducted to determine the scope of the crash problem and examine the factors that contribute to rear-end crashes in light vehicles. A review of the 2003 – 2012 National Automotive Sampling System-Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS) was conducted for rear-end crashes involving a fatal occupant. For each crash identified, a review of the accompanying investigation was conducted using a methodology similar to that described by Bean, et al. [2009]. The authors were then able to identify crash characteristics associated with occupants sustaining fatal injuries in rear-end crashes. For each case, primary and secondary factors were assigned as crash attributes which contributed to the fatal injuries to an involved occupant. This review suggests that fatal rear-end crashes are generally attributed to excessive speed at the time of impact. In order to address these crashes with a forward collision avoidance system, a crash alert warning must be timely and any automatic emergency braking must be aggressive to significantly reduce the impact speed to mitigate the severity or prevent the crash from occurring.