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Automotive vehicle crash safety requirements have steadily become more stringent over the last decade. Automobiles of tomorrow have to comply with a host of requirements in various crash modes in order to be considered roadworthy. In the first section of the paper, the current major requirements, some important requirements that are imminent, and desirable requirements in the near future are briefly discussed. Until recently, crash requirements have been focused mostly on the vehicle structure rather than the occupant protection, with the exception of frontal crash. Scarcity of in-depth interpretation of accident data, lack of biofidelic injury assessment devices (“crash dummies”) and the necessity for test repeatability had kept the testing procedures simple. Often, crash testing involved statically loading the vehicle to measure the structural strength, without consideration of the dynamic behavior of the structure or the structure/occupant interaction.