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In September 2009 the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a report that investigated the incidence of fatalities to belted non-ejected occupants in frontal crashes involving late-model vehicles. The report concluded that after exceedingly severe crashes, the largest number of fatalities occurred in crashes involving poor structural engagement between the vehicle and its collision partner, present in crashes characterized as corner impacts, oblique crashes, impacts with narrow objects, and heavy vehicle underrides. By contrast, few if any of these 122 fatal crashes were full-frontal or offset-frontal impacts with good structural engagement, excepting crashes that were of extreme severity or the occupants that were exceptionally vulnerable. The intent of this research program is to develop a test protocol that replicates real-world injury potential in small overlap impacts (SOI) and oblique offset impacts (Oblique) in motor vehicle crashes.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is conducting a research program to investigate the use of the 40 percent offset deformable barrier (ODB) crash test procedure to reduce death and injury, in particular debilitating lower extremity injuries in frontal offset collisions. This paper presents the results of 22 ODB crash tests conducted with 50th percentile male and 5th percentile female Hybrid III (HIII) dummies fitted with advanced lower legs, Thor-Lx/HIIIr and Thor-FLx/HIIIr, to assess the potential for debilitating and costly lower limb injuries. This paper also begins to investigate the implications that the ODB test procedure may have for fleet compatibility by evaluating the results from vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests.