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In low speed collisions (under 15 mph) that involve a heavy truck impacting the rear of a passenger vehicle, it is likely that the front bumper of the heavy truck will override the rear bumper beam of the passenger vehicle, creating an override/underride impact configuration. There is limited data available for study when attempting to quantify vehicle damage and crash dynamics in low-speed override/underride impacts. Low speed impact tests were conducted to provide new data for passenger vehicle dynamics and damage assessment for low speed override/underride rear impacts to passenger vehicles. Three tests were conducted, with a tractor-trailer impacting three different passenger vehicles at 5 mph and 10 mph. This paper presents data from these three tests in order to expand the available data set for low speed override/underride collisions.

This paper reports testing and analysis of the braking and swerving capabilities of on-road, three-wheeled motorcycles. A three-wheeled vehicle has handling and stability characteristics that differ both from two-wheeled motorcycles and from four-wheeled vehicles. The data reported in this paper will enable accident reconstructionists to consider these different characteristics when analyzing a three-wheeled motorcycle operator’s ability to brake or swerve to avoid a crash. The testing in this study utilized two riders operating two Harley-Davidson Tri-Glide motorcycles with two wheels in the rear and one in the front. Testing was also conducted with ballast to explore the influence of passenger or cargo weight. Numerous studies have documented the braking capabilities of two-wheeled motorcycles with riders of varying skill levels and with a range of braking systems.

When a vehicle with protruding wheel studs makes contact with another vehicle or object in a sideswipe configuration, the tire sidewall, rim and wheel studs of that vehicle can deposit distinct geometrical damage patterns onto the surfaces it contacts. Prior research has demonstrated how relative speeds between the two vehicles or surfaces can be calculated through analysis of the distinct contact patterns. This paper presents a methodology for performing this analysis by visually modeling the interaction between wheel studs and various surfaces, and presents a method for automating the calculations of relative speed between vehicles. This methodology also augments prior research by demonstrating how the visual modeling and simulation of the wheel stud contact can extend to almost any surface interaction that may not have any previous prior published tests, or test methods that would be difficult to setup in real life.