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EDR's were first installed in 1994 and are now installed in 99% of new light vehicles sold in the US. In the US EDR’s are not required, but vehicles with EDR’s made after 9/1/2012 must meet minimum standardized content requirements of 49 CFR, Part 563 including speed, throttle, brake on/off and Delta V.  Data must be retrievable with a publicly available tool.  Only a few manufacturers install EDR’s worldwide currently, but the EU and China are adopting regulations to require them in the next few years.  

Crash reconstruction is a scientific process that utilizes principles of physics and empirical data to analyze the physical, electronic, video, audio, and testimonial evidence from a crash to determine how and why the crash occurred. This course will introduce this reconstruction process as it gets applied to various crash types - in-line and intersection collisions, pedestrian collisions, motorcycle crashes, rollover crashes, and heavy truck crashes. Methods of evidence documentation will be covered. Analysis methods will also be presented for electronic data from event data recorders and for video.

Many technical projects, most vehicle and component testing, and all accident reconstructions, product failure analyses, and other forensic investigations, require photographic documentation. Roadway evidence disappears, tested or wrecked vehicles are repaired, disassembled, or scrapped, and components can be tested for failure. Photographs are frequently the only evidence that remains of a wreck, or the only records of subjects before or during tests. Making consistently good images during any inspection is a critical part of the evaluation process. 

Safety continues to be one of the most important factors in motor vehicle design, manufacturing, and marketing.  This course provides a comprehensive overview of these critical automotive safety considerations: injury and anatomy; human tolerance and biomechanics; occupant protection; testing; and federal legislation. The knowledge shared at this course enables participants to be more aware of safety considerations and to better understand and interact with safety experts. This course has been approved by the Accreditation Commission for Traffic Accident Reconstruction (ACTAR) for 18 Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

Photographs and video recordings of vehicle crashes and accident sites are more prevalent than ever, with dash mounted cameras, surveillance footage, and personal cell phones now ubiquitous. The information contained in these pictures and videos provide critical information to understanding how crashes occurred, and  analyze physical evidence. This course teaches the theory and techniques for getting the most out of digital media, including correctly processing raw video and photographs, correcting for lens distortion, and using photogrammetric techniques to convert the information in digital media to usable scaled three-dimensional data.

This title includes the technical papers developed for the 2023 Stapp Car Crash Conference, the premier forum for the presentation of research in impact biomechanics, human injury tolerance, and related fields, advancing the knowledge of land-vehicle crash injury protection. The conference provides an opportunity to participate in open discussion about the causes and mechanisms of injury, experimental methods and tools for use in impact biomechanics research, and the development of new concepts for reducing injuries and fatalities in automobile crashes.

This course introduces basic tire mechanics, including tire construction components based on application type, required sidewall stamping in accordance with DoT/ECE regulations, tread patterns, regulatory and research testing on quality, tire inspections and basic tire failure identification. The course will provide you with information that you can use immediately on-the-job and apply to your own vehicle. This course is practical in nature and supplemented with samples and hands-on activities.

This course highlights the technologies enabling ADAS and how they integrate with existing passive occupant crash protection systems, how ADAS functions perceive the world, make decisions, and either warn drivers or actively intervene in controlling the vehicle to avoid or mitigate crashes. Examples of current and future ADAS functions, and various sensors utilized in ADAS, including their operation and limitations, and sample algorithms, will be discussed and demonstrated. The course utilizes a combination of hands-on activities, including computer simulations, discussion and lecture.

For automotive engineers involved in crash reconstruction and analysis, a knowledge of basic accident reconstruction principles and techniques is essential, but often insufficient to answer all of the questions posed by design engineers, regulators, and lawyers. This course takes participants beyond the basics of accident reconstruction to physical models and analysis techniques that are unique to the reconstruction of single-vehicle rollover crashes.

Purpose: This award recognizes volunteers for their outstanding contributions in the planning, development, and dissemination of technical information for SAE engineering events, meetings or professional development programs. Established in 1979, this award honors Forest R. McFarland who was an outstanding session organizer and very active with various leadership roles on SAE committees. Criteria: Contributions may include support or organization of technical meetings, conferences, and professional development programs at SAE events or outstanding facilitation of the exchange of technical information.   Eligibility: Individuals - Three years must pass before an individual prior awardee is eligible for another McFarland. Members of the Selection Committee - Committee Members are not eligible for the award while serving on the committee, and two years must pass before former members are eligible to receive a McFarland.

Purpose: This award recognizes an outstanding student leader of one or more SAE activities and, through the award, encourages a vision within the student to become an SAE leader during their adult career. Past SAE Executive Vice President Max E. Rumbaugh Jr. established this award with a generous gift in 2002 to realize his vision of encouraging and inspiring young SAE members to become engaged with SAE throughout their professional careers/lifetimes. Criteria: SAE student members will be nominated by their SAE faculty advisor who will provide a citation detailing the student's outstanding leadership skills during the past academic year.

Purpose: This award celebrates the successes of women in the engineering profession and recognizes their leadership and technical contributions in the aerospace, automotive and commercial vehicle sectors. It serves to broaden the awareness of the reach and impact of women working in mobility engineering, and opening doors for young girls interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) who wish to pursue engineering careers. Rodica Baranescu, Ph.D. made a generous gift in 2011 to establish this award. Dr. Baranescu is Past President of SAE International, an SAE Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.  As a mechanical engineer, she began her professional and academic career in her native country, Romania, before immigrating to the United States in 1980 and was later the first woman elected President of SAE International in 2000.

Abstract With population aging and life expectancy increasing, elderly drivers have been increasing quickly in the United States and the heterogeneity among them with age is also increasingly non-ignorable. Based on traffic crash data of Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2019, this study was designed to identify this heterogeneity by quantifying the relationship between age and crash characteristics using linear regression. It is found that for elderly driver-involved crashes, the proportion leading to casualties significantly increases with age. Meanwhile, the proportions at night, on rainy days, on snowy days, and involving driving under the influence (DUI) decrease linearly with age, implying that elderly drivers tend to avoid traveling in risky scenarios. Regarding collision types, elderly driver-involved crashes are mainly composed of angle, rear-end, and hit-fixed-object collisions, proportions of which increase linearly, decrease linearly, and keep consistent with age, respectively.

Injuries and fatalities among pedestrians, cyclists, scooterists, highway road workers, and safety and emergency personnel—often referred to as vulnerable road users (VRUs)—continue to rise at alarming rates worldwide. Emphasizing the urgent need for enhanced safety measures, this study, commissioned by the Vulnerable Road User Safety Consortium™ (VRUSC) and conducted by the Light and Health Research Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, evaluates the potential effectiveness of lighting and visual information systems in improving VRU safety. The white paper presents a synthesis of published research on lighting and markings from the perspective of both human drivers and machine vision systems. It identifies potential preliminary guidelines for the intensity, color, temporal, and spatial characteristics of lighting and visual information that can help prevent crashes involving VRUs.

To investigate the rollover phenomena experienced by all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) during their motion caused by input from the road surface, a combined simulation using CarSim and Simulink has been employed to validate an active anti-rollover control strategy based on differential braking for ATVs, followed by vehicle testing. In the research process, a nonlinear three-degrees-of-freedom vehicle model has been developed. By utilizing a zero-moment point index as a rollover warning indicator, this approach could accurately detect the rollover status of the vehicle, particularly in scenarios involving low road adhesion on unpaved surfaces, which are characteristic of ATV operation. The differential braking, generating a roll moment by adjusting the amount of lateral force each braked tire can generate, was proved as an effective method to enhance rolling stability.

Purpose: Created in 1986, the SAE Medal of Honor annually recognizes an individual who has demonstrated unwavering loyalty to SAE International’s mission of advancing mobility solutions for the benefit of humanity. Criteria: Those who have made significant and sustaining contributions throughout the course of their career to SAE which have contributed to SAE’s global success. Contributed to the SAE Community at Large through involvement as a member volunteer. Served as an industry partner and ambassador for SAE’s vision, mission, and values. Implemented, collaborated on, or developed mobility solutions on behalf of SAE for a better tomorrow. Created societal impact through their work on behalf of SAE. Two letters of recommendation are required.  Eligibility Requirements: Living, voting member of SAE International, who has not previously received the Award. Unique, significant contributions.