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The injury outcome of a front-front two-vehicle crash will be a function of crash-specific, vehicle-specific, and occupant-specific parameters. This paper focuses on a preliminary methodology that was used to evaluate the potential for benefits in making vehicle-specific changes to improve the compatibility of light vehicles across the fleet. In particular, the effect on injury rates of matching vehicle frontal stiffness was estimated. The front-front crash data for belted drivers in the lighter vehicles in the crash from ten years of NASS-CDS data were examined. The frontal stiffness of each vehicle was calculated using data taken during full frontal rigid barrier tests for the U.S. New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), and only crashes coded in the CDS as “no override” were considered.

This paper presents results from an exploratory analysis of pre-crash sensing countermeasures. This analysis consists of a technology review, development of a methodology to estimate safety benefits based on the total harm concept, identification of crashworthiness scenarios and their harm units, and estimation of safety benefits for brake assist and driver seat position adjustment. Using 1996-2003 Crashworthiness Data System databases, crashworthiness scenarios and harm units of passenger cars are identified from a crash analysis of all single event frontal impacts by combining codes from six variables: frontal impact offset, air bag deployment, seat belt use, driver weight, seat track position, and Delta V. Preliminary results show that brake assist and driver seat position adjustment have the potential to reduce the total harm of passenger cars involved in rear-end crashes.

This paper presents recent results of on-going research to build new maps of driver performance in car-following situations. The novel performance map is comprised of four driving states: low risk, conflict, near crash, and crash imminent - which correspond to advisory warning, crash imminent warning, and crash mitigation countermeasures. The paper addresses two questions dealing with the approach to quantify the boundaries between the driving states: (1) Do the quantified boundaries strongly depend on the dynamic scenario encountered in the driving environment? and (2) Do the quantified boundaries vary between steering and braking driver responses? Specifically, braking and steering driver performances are examined in two car-following scenarios: lead vehicle stopped and lead vehicle moving at lower constant speed.

This paper analyzes off-roadway crash countermeasure systems in support of the United States (U.S.) Department of Transportation's Intelligent Vehicle Initiative. Off-roadway crashes transpire when a moving vehicle departs the travel roadway and then experiences its first harmful event. This paper defines off-roadway crashes and describes their pre-crash scenarios and crash contributing factors. This information is then utilized to develop countermeasure concepts and concomitant functional requirements to warn drivers of imminent road edge crossing or vehicle control loss on straight or curved roadways. A technology survey follows to assess the status of state-of-the-art technologies within the categories of vehicle-based, infrastructure-based, or cooperative vehicle-infrastructure systems. This paper concludes with forecasts of the progression of future countermeasure systems towards the realm of cooperative technologies.

Rear-end collision warning systems are both an available and an evolving technology. The goal of these systems is to alert the driver of a dangerous situation, with sufficient time to take evasive action and avoid a collision. Their development, analysis, and evaluation requires considering the envelope of opportunity available to a driver - once an alert is issued - to avoid a collision. This paper simplifies the envelope of opportunity analysis and presentation. Previous work in this area focuses on establishing the relevant kinematic equations of motion and obtaining case-specific plots of the envelope of opportunity. We have plotted the envelope of opportunity using the reaction time and the reciprocal of the following vehicle acceleration.

A systems modeling approach is presented for assessment of harm in the automotive accident environment. The methodology is presented in general form and then applied to evaluate vehicle aggressivity in frontal crashes. The methodology consists of parametric simulation of several controlled accident variables, with case results weighted by the relative frequency of each specific event. A hierarchy of models is proposed, consisting of a statistical model to define the accident environment and assign weighting factors for each crash situation case, and vehicle and occupant models for kinematic simulation of crash events. Head and chest injury results obtained from simulation are converted to harm vectors, in terms of probabilistic Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) distributions based on previously defined risk analyses. These harm vectors are weighted by each case’s probability as defined by the statistical model, and summed to obtain a total estimate of harm for the accident environment.

This paper describes the concept of using state space boundaries to evaluate the safety effects of longitudinal collision avoidance systems from data produced in field operational tests. The boundaries are represented in terms of the relative range and range rate between a lead vehicle and the vehicle hosting the collision avoidance system. Phase plane diagrams are used to illustrate the state space boundaries. Parameters of curves representing the boundaries were selected such that the boundaries would be fairly well distributed over the range vs. range-rate space with the ones closer to the horizontal axis (range = 0) being indicative of a relatively higher hazard potential. The application of these state space boundaries is examined with data available from a recently completed field operational test sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Dynamically-distinct precrash scenarios in rear-end collisions were identified in a recent study conducted by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, of the United States Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration, in conjunction with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) using NHTSA's General Estimates System (GES) crash database from 1992 through 1996. Precrash scenarios represent vehicle dynamics immediately prior to a collision. This paper provides a statistical description of the five most frequently-occurring rear-end precrash scenarios in terms of vehicle and driver characteristics, using the 1996 GES database.