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It is well established that properly worn seat belts reduce the incidence of severe neck injuries in car accidents in general. However, for certain configurations of nearside lateral collisions this statement has not been substantiated beyond any doubt by the published field accident data. In order to further evaluate this question, the samples of two accident investigation programs, one from Switzerland and one from France, were combined and analysed accordingly. They contain a total of 810 wearers of three point belts OAIS* > = 2, 98 of which are cases of lateral nearside impacts. In 10 % (N = 10) of this subset neck injuries of AIS >=1 were registered. 7 of those 10 cases were of a degree of AIS>=2 whereby 2 of them could directly be attributed to an immediate belt contact.

So far, analysis of real-world crashes has not made it possible to evaluate the occupant change of velocity in side impact. This change of velocity is the most pertinent of the lateral-collision violence parameters when occupants are exposed to intrusion by car bodies. The present paper describes a method for calculating this parameter, and includes a description of the data that must be collected concerning real-world crashes in order to enable its application. The validity of this method is demonstrated by its application to a series of experimental collisions. The results are highly correlated to the values resulting from the integration of the accelerations found for the pelvis and thorax. The method is then applied to 60 real-world car-to-car side collisions from the accident survey.

In 1344 car-to-car side collisions, the risk of serious or fatal injury to the occupants of struck vehicles seem to increase proportionally to the difference in mass ratios in favor of the striking vehicle. However, in-depth analysis of 63 collisions during which the impact occurred on the side panel of the passenger compartment reveals that the difference in mass ratios is not the principal determinant of injury severity. The frequency and severity of injuries correlates better with the amount of intrusion of the side panel, a type of intrusion which occurs almost systematically, and even at low impact speed, when the bumper and structure in front of the side rail of the striking car override the rocker panel of the struck car.

The 3-point static belts that are installed in Renault and Peugeot vehicles are equipped with a force limiter near the upper anchorage. This system is made up of several bands of textiles that tear successively for the increasing levels of force exerted by the occupant. One can thus associate, for each person in the accident, the degree of the thoracic AIS and the value of the support force, expressed in daN. This relationship is established for 92 belted occupants who were involved in frontal impacts. In addition it is indicated which are the distributions of impact violence parameters incurred and which are the distributions of ages in order to determine the statistical meaning of the required results. The levels of tolerance observed in this sample are compared to thoracic injuries observed on belted cadavers exposed to equivalent violent impacts.

One studies the conditions in which occurred side impacts having led to death of 369 car occupants. This sample is representative of the population of fatal collisions having occurred on French roads, in 1980. 28 % of killed were victims of collisions against another private car, 34 % struck a fixed obstacle, 21 % undergone a collision against a truck. The other types of collisions account for 17%. The performances to be reached in order to spare an important number of victims are of a high level. This is measured in function of the distribution of impact violences and occupants' ages.

Since July 1, 1973, the wearing of seat belts by front seat occupants is compulsory in France. This requirement is respected by 60 to 90% of motorists, depending on the type of road. If seat belts were not worn, a 55% increase in fatalities for front seat occupants would be observed. On the other hand, if seat belts were worn by occupants in all seats 100% of the time, fatalities would be reduced by another 30%. Improvements of the seat belt over the past ten years have had a significant influence in the following areas: - Incentives for wearing the belts - Limitation of belt stretch and spool-out - Reduction of the number of submarining cases. In this paper, emphasis is put on the levels of performance which no other sytem has been able to attain, or even equal, and which result in practically guaranteeing protection against the risk of ejection, especially in a side impact or rollover.

The goal of this paper is to examine the validity of the Crashworthiness Rating Method (part of the New Car Assessment Program -NCAP - created by NHTSA) with reference to real-life accident data. A program was set up to verify the quality of predictive characteristics of vehicle models' real passive safety protection based on 35 mph crash tests against a 0° barrier. The Crashworthiness Rating Method was applied in the French context because seat belt use has been mandatory in France for over 10 years, and we have access to real-life accident files whose size and categories (type of vehicle model, crushed area, obstacle struck, seat occupied, age, and use of seat belt) allowed us to select cases appropriately and thoroughly. Additionally, the vehicle models which are representative of the French vehicle fleet were tested as if they were part of the NCAP.

This study aims at determining, with the maximum precision, the performance of the 3 point safety belt in different accident configurations, and more particularly in frontal collisions. For this purpose, two matched samples were taken from a file of 3000 accidents, analysed by a multidisciplinary study group. These samples of 100 front seat occupants wearing seat belts, and 100 not wearing seat belts were made up in such a manner that, for every belted occupant, corresponds an occupant not wearing a belt, the one and the other being in equivalent circumstances, using the following factors: Make and type of the vehicle Seat occupied Age (as far as possible) Direction of impact Violence of the impact (same class of ▵V and mean γ) Possible intrusion of passenger compartment Possible overload caused by a rear seat occupant Using this method of comparison, one can appreciate the effectiveness of the 3 point belt and explain the variations of effectiveness that appear in normal case studies.

THE FREQUENCY AND SEVERITY OF LESIONS SUSTAINED BY THE OCCUPANTS OF CARS IMPACTED LATERALLY depend upon the main following factors: impact localization, intrusion into passengers' compartment, car speed variation, direction of occupant trajectory, objects contacted by the various body areas. 296 lateral impacts are being described hereunder by means of factors below. Consequences are drawn therefrom as to the coming improvement of occupant protection taking account of the current state of the art in Biomechanics and automobile technique. IN COMPARISON WITH THE PROGRESS achieved with a view to improving occupant protection against frontal impact, the knowledge available on the lateral impact and the methods for reducing the severity thereof are very poor. In as much as the results achieved in biomechanics up to this date are known, there is still much to do in this field. Mc Elhaney (1)* already stressed the fact in 1971 after Snyder (2).

Much progress has been made in many countries during recent years in detailed research into road accidents. The analysis facilities used by research workers to describe in a common language the severity of injuries and the deformation the vehicles undergo are improving. Assessment of the constraints to which the occupants of crashed vehicles are exposed is still too approximate, despite the fact that this is essential to interpret the progress achieved in the field of safety and to make decisions concerning the future. The methods used to analyze and classify accidents must reside on unquestionable physical basis. This is why Renault and Peugeot have discarded the Equivalent Test Speed method, replacing it by the Speed Variation method (ΔV) and, more recently, analysis based on two parameters, namely the speed variation and the mean deceleration of the undistorted part of the vehicle.

From a file of real-world accidents analyzed by the Peugeot SA/Renault accident investigation team, 572 frontal impacts with a ΔV of more than 35km/h were extracted. These were described and classified on the basis of a large number of criteria that make it possible to compare the degree of representativeness of an oblique test and of a perpendicular test. This exhaustive descriptive method makes it possible to provide an objective basis for discussions concerned with the procedures of a homologation test.

Data about severe coach accidents are still limited. More knowledge in this field is required to define safety priorities that designers and manufactures need to consider in future vehicles. Despite the good safety level of coaches, some spectacular accidents nevertheless occur causing serious injuries and death to the users, and these are often brought to the public's attention by the media. This survey is based on all the fatal coach accidents that occurred in France between 1978 and 1984. The paper describes the causes and accident configurations and analyzes the injury mechanisms. Countermeasures are discussed, and possible ways of minimizing occupant injuries, related to strength of front end structures, seat back improvements, window retention, and fire protection, are suggested

In 1972, the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act assigned to the Department of Transportation the mission of evaluating methods designed to yield a determination of a vehicle's damage susceptibility, degree of crashworthiness and ease of diagnosis and repair. Crashworthiness was defined as the protection a passenger vehicle affords its passengers against personal injury or death as a result of a motor vehicle accident. In 1978, NHTSA established a rating system for application to automobiles. The testing began on 1979 vehicles. The data of six years of tests has been acquired. The results of the New Car Assessment Program are reviewed