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Emergency situations rarely occur in a driver's experience and the braking and steering manoeuvres that are then required are usually outside the routine physical behaviour ranges. Immediate reactions are automatic and are therefore unlikely to include physical movements that go beyond these limits. It has always been difficult, however, to prove this because simulators could not create total realism, accident studies do not show brake pedal behaviour and realistic experiments are unethical and dangerous. This paper reviews what is known about driver braking behaviour together with accident studies. Experiments performed by Lucas are described in which pseudo-realistic accident situations are created and braking behaviour modelled.

This study evaluated the response of restrained post-mortem human subjects (PMHS) in 40 km/h frontal sled tests. Eight male PMHS were restrained on a rigid planar seat by a custom 3-point shoulder and lap belt. A video motion tracking system measured three-dimensional trajectories of multiple skeletal sites on the torso allowing quantification of ribcage deformation. Anterior and superior displacement of the lower ribcage may have contributed to sternal fractures occurring early in the event, at displacement levels below those typically considered injurious, suggesting that fracture risk is not fully described by traditional definitions of chest deformation. The methodology presented here produced novel kinematic data that will be useful in developing biofidelic human models.