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Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of death for children. Traditionally, restraint design has focused on the crash phase of the impact with an optimally seated occupant. In order to optimize restrain design for real-world scenarios, research has recently expanded its focus to non-traditional loading conditions including pre-crash positioning and lower speed impacts. The goal of this study was to evaluate the biofidelity of the large omni-directional child (LODC) ATD in non-traditional loading conditions by comparing its response to pediatric volunteer data in low-speed sled tests. Low-speed (2-4 g, 1.9-3.0 m/s) frontal (0°), far-side oblique (60°), and far-side lateral (90°) sled tests, as well as lateral swerving (0.72 g, 0.5 Hz) tests, were conducted using the LODC. The LODC was restrained using a 3-point-belt with an electromechanical motorized seat belt retractor, or pre-pretensioner. Motion capture markers were placed on the head, torso, and belt.

Previous research has suggested that the pediatric ATD spine, developed from scaling the adult ATD spine, may not adequately represent a child's spine and thus may lead to important differences in the ATD head trajectory relative to a human. To gain further insight into this issue, the objectives of this study were, through non-injurious frontal sled tests on human volunteers, to 1) quantify the kinematic responses of the restrained child's head and spine and 2) compare pediatric kinematic responses to those of the adult. Low-speed frontal sled tests were conducted using male human volunteers (20 subjects: 6-14 years old, 10 subjects: 18-40 years old), in which the safety envelope was defined from an amusement park bumper-car impact.

Driving simulators offer a safe alternative to on-road driving for the evaluation of performance. In addition, simulated drives allow for controlled manipulations of traffic situations producing a more consistent and objective assessment experience and outcome measure of crash risk. Yet, few simulator protocols have been validated for their ability to assess driving performance under conditions that result in actual collisions. This paper presents results from a new Simulated Driving Assessment (SDA), a 35- to-40-minute simulated assessment delivered on a Real-Time® simulator. The SDA was developed to represent typical scenarios in which teens crash, based on analyses from the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey (NMVCCS). A new metric, failure to brake, was calculated for the 7 potential rear-end scenarios included in the SDA and examined according two constructs: experience and skill.

Far-side side impact loading of a seat belt restrained occupant has been shown to lead to torso slip out of the shoulder belt. A pretensioned seat belt may provide an effective countermeasure to torso rollout; however the effectiveness may vary with age due to increased flexibility of the pediatric spine compared to adults. To explore this effect, low-speed lateral (90°) and oblique (60°) sled tests were conducted using male human volunteers (20 subjects: 9-14 years old, 10 subjects: 18-30 years old), in which the crash pulse safety envelope was defined from an amusement park bumper-car impact. Each subject was restrained by a lap and shoulder belt system equipped with an electromechanical motorized seat belt retractor (EMSR) and photo-reflective targets were attached to a tight-fitting headpiece or adhered to the skin overlying key skeletal landmarks.