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After an accident has occurred, there are a minimal number of low speed crash tests to assist the accident reconstructionist/engineer in determining the speed of a vehicle from little or no visible vehicle damage. Injuries are being documented by individuals as occurring in relatively low speed collisions. Yet, the impact speeds that have been taught to cause little or no damage do not suggest that injuries should have occurred at these correspondingly low G-forces. No comparison of the injury versus vehicle speed will be done in this paper; that is left to the biomechanical engineers and physicians. The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of low speed impacts and the corresponding damage or shock isolator movement to the vehicle. For the purpose of this paper a low speed collision is an in line impact at a speed below 6 m/s.

A search of the automotive collision trauma literature reveals that over the last 35 years shows that there have been less than ten published Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) articles describing the collision effects and resulting human occupant kinematics in low speed side impact collisions. The aim of this study was to quantify the occupant response for both male and female occupants for a battery of low-speed side impacts with various impact speeds and configurations. Eight volunteers were used in a series of twenty-five staged side impact collisions with impact speeds ranging from approximately 2 km/h to 10 km/h and impact configurations to the front, middle and rear side portions of the vehicle. A NHTSA FMVSS 301 moving barrier was used as the impacting vehicle. A stiff bumper was constructed to fit the front of the barrier and was attached at a normal passenger vehicle bumper height. Occupant and vehicle responses were monitored by accelerometers and high-speed video.