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This is a summary of a paper which first appeared in the International Journal of Crashworthiness under the title: “Side Impact Protection - Occupants in the Far-Side Seat”, Vol. 3, No.2, pp 93-122. Readers are directed to the full paper for a more comprehensive discussion of the issues presented here. Much of the applied vehicle side impact occupant protection research to date has concentrated on occupants seated beside the struck side of vehicles. These occupants are defined as ‘near-side’ occupants. Real world crash evidence however has shown that occupants seated on the side away from the struck side, defined as ‘far-side’ occupants, are still subject to a risk of injury. This paper examines side impact epidemiology from an injury causation perspective, and endeavours to explain evidence indicating head injuries and seat belt related injuries constitute a significant proportion of all far-side impact injuries.

Previous studies have shown that both excessive linear and rotational accelerations are the cause of head injuries. Although the head injury criterion has been beneficial as an indicator of head injury risk, it only considers linear acceleration, so there is a need to consider both types of motion in future safety standards. Advanced models of the head/brain complex have recently been developed to gain a better understanding of head injury biomechanics. While these models have been verified against laboratory experimental data, there is a lack of suitable real-world data available for validation. Hence, using two computer models of the head/brain, the objective of the current study was to reconstruct four real-world crashes with known head injury outcomes in a full-vehicle crash laboratory, simulate head/brain responses using kinematics obtained during these reconstructions, and to compare the results predicted by the models against the actual injuries sustained by the occupant.