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This study deals with the risk of injury to the bicyclist's head and the benefits of wearing a bicycle helmet in terms of reduction of injury severity or even injury avoidance. The accident data of 4,245 injured bicyclists as a randomized sample, collected by a scientific research team within the GIDAS project (German In-Depth Accident Study) were analyzed. Given that head injuries result in approximately 40% of bicycle-related crashes, helmet usage provides a sensible first-level approach for improving incidence and severity of head injuries. The effectiveness of the bicycle helmet was examined using descriptive and multivariate analysis for 433 bicyclists with a helmet and 3,812 bicyclists without a helmet. Skull fractures, severe brain injuries and skull base fractures were up to 80% less frequent for bicyclists wearing a helmet.

Vehicle traffic accidents have been extensively studied in various countries, but any differences in traffic accidents the studied areas have not yet been adequately investigated. This paper aims to make a comparison study of head injury risks and kinematics of adult pedestrian accidents in Changsha, China, and Hannover, Germany, as well as correlate calculated physical parameters with injuries observed in real-world accidents of the two cities. A total of 20 passenger cars versus adult pedestrian accidents were collected from the two areas of study, including 10 cases from Changsha and 10 cases from Hannover. Virtual accident reconstructions using PC-Crash and MADYMO software were performed. The in-depth study focused on head injury risks while kinematics were conducted using statistical approaches. The results of the analysis of the Chinese data were compared with those of the German data.

During most pedestrian-vehicle crashes the car front impacts the pedestrian and the whole body wraps around the front shape of the car. This influences the head impact on the vehicle. Meanwhile the windscreen is a major impact point and tested in NCAP conditions. The severity of injuries is influenced by car impact speed; type of vehicle; stiffness and shape of the vehicle; nature of the front (such as the bumper height, bonnet height and length, windscreen frame); age and body height of the pedestrian; and standing position of the pedestrian relative to the vehicle front. The so called Wrap Around Distance WAD is one of the important measurements for the assessment of protection of pedestrians and of bicyclists as well because the kinematic of bicyclists is similar to that of pedestrians. For this study accidents of GIDAS were used to identify the importance of WAD for the resulting head injury severity of pedestrians and bicyclists.

The total number of persons severely and fatally injured in road traffic accidents has reduced considerably in recent decades. However, the number of motorcyclists involved in accidents has not reduced to the same extent, and some countries have even recorded an increase. The aim of this study is to analyse the circumstances of motorcycle accidents in Germany involving vehicles with a cubic capacity of over 125 cm3 with particular reference to severely or fatally injured riders. An analysis is to be made of the characteristics and patterns of injuries suffered by the most severely injured motorcyclists and proposals developed for injury prevention. The study included accident data from 464 motorcycle accidents collected in Hanover and Dresden between 2010 and 2015 by an academic research team in the course of the GIDAS project (German In-Depth Accident Study). This data represents a statistically representative sample from real accidents occurring in Germany.