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Late model passenger cars and light trucks incorporate occupant protection systems with airbags and knee restraints. Knee restraints have been designed principally to meet the unbelted portions of FMVSS 208 that require femur load limits of 10-kN to be met in barrier crashes up to 30 mph, +/- 30 degrees utilizing the 50% male Anthropomorphic Test Device (ATD). In addition, knee restraints provide additional lower-torso restraint for belt-restrained occupants in higher-severity crashes. An analysis of frontal crashes in the University of Michigan Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (UM CIREN) database was performed to determine the influence of vehicle, crash and occupant parameters on knee, thigh, and hip injuries. The data sample consists of drivers and right front passengers involved in frontal crashes who sustained significant injuries (Abbreviated Injury Scale [AIS] ≥ 3 or two or more AIS ≥ 2) to any body region.

A method has been developed to identify and document the locations of rib fractures from two-dimensional CT images obtained from occupants of crashes investigated in the Crash Injury Research Engineering Network (CIREN). The location of each rib fracture includes the vertical location by rib number (1 through 12), the lateral location by side of the thorax (inboard and outboard), and the circumferential location by five 36-degree segments relative to the sternum and spine. The latter include anterior, anterior-lateral, lateral, posterior-lateral, and posterior regions. 3D reconstructed images of the whole ribcage created from the 2D CT images using Voxar software are used to help identify fractures and their rib number. A geometric method for consistently locating each fracture circumferentially is described.

Based on an analysis of the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) database from calendar years 1995-2000, over 30,000 fractures and dislocations of the knee-thigh-hip (KTH) complex occur in frontal motor-vehicle crashes each year in the United States. This analysis also shows that the risk of hip injury is generally higher than the risks of knee and thigh injuries in frontal crashes, that hip injuries are occurring to adult occupants of all ages, and that most hip injuries occur at crash severities that are equal to, or less than, those used in FMVSS 208 and NCAP testing. Because previous biomechanical research produced mostly knee or distal femur injuries, and because knee and femur injuries were frequently documented in early crash investigation data, the femur has traditionally been viewed as the weakest part of the KTH complex.