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Pedestrian collisions are primarily a disease of urban streets and intersections, where both pedestrian and automobile traffic are in high volume. City engineers and planners are plagued with the problem of mitigating the number of pedestrian/vehicle collisions while maintaining traffic flow. In an attempt to study the problem in depth, city engineers in Helsinki, Finland placed a camera in a bus station clock tower overlooking a busy downtown intersection in February of 1991. The camera was placed at the intersection to study pedestrian and vehicle behavior at the intersection and to quantify the speeds of the respective parties. Since its installation, the camera has witnessed fifteen pedestrian/vehicle accidents. Detailed measurements of the intersection were taken for analysis of the accidents. The intersection was also calibrated with the camera in place for use of the digitizing system.

Pedestrian crash kinematics have been well documented for automobile versus pedestrian collisions. However, there is not significant amount of data concerning impact of pedestrians with a high profile vehicle. A series of pedestrian crash tests using full-sized vans was performed to add to the existing database of forward projection pedestrian collisions and to compare the crash test data to existing forward throw equations. The aim of this study was to examine the trajectory behavior of the pedestrian in a forward projection impact and the effect of different friction-value surfaces when applying a pedestrian model to the data. In performing the tests, the pedestrian dummy was stabilized using an 18.2 kg tensile strength monofilament wire hanging from a cantilever beam. The impacting vans were instrumented with a triaxial accelerometer triggered at impact with the dummy. Several testing surfaces were used, ranging from dry asphalt to a skidpad with > 1/16th inch depth of water.

Recent models of General Motors (GM) and selected Ford vehicles may be equipped with an event data recorder (EDR) that records information in the airbag sensing and diagnostic module (GM-SDM) or restraint control module (Ford-RCM). These systems have become a resource to the accident reconstructionist in the analysis of collisions involving data recorder equipped vehicles, as typically the data can be downloaded via the Vetronix Crash Data Retrieval (CDR) System. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of the CDR System in pedestrian accidents. A series of impacts using a pedestrian dummy and SDM equipped vehicles were performed. After each test, the SDM was downloaded via the CDR system and the data evaluated. The dummy and vehicle kinematics were documented and the vehicle impact response was compared with the SDM recorded velocity change and impact speed.