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Child crash injury protection in severe rear impact chiefly depends on how well the rear survival space bounded by the vehicle structure is maintained. Previous research and studies have shown the ill effects of front seatback collapse intruding into the rear child survival space from front with minor or no intrusions from the rear. This paper shows the child injury pattern and fatal injury mechanism for a rear impact crash with a severe compartment intrusion from the rear without any front seat occupant. Furthermore, it compares the injury outcome with a similar crash and severe intrusion in the presence of the front occupant employing a full-scale vehicle-to-vehicle crash test. A detailed real-world crash investigation is conducted to identify the injury mechanism and is compared with the outcome of similar severity rear impact vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests producing different injury patterns.

Prevention of passenger ejection from motor coach seats in the case of rollover and frontal crashes is critical for minimizing fatalities and injuries. This paper proposes a novel concept of affordably retrofitting 3-point seatbelts to protect passengers during these significant crash scenarios. Currently, the available options involve replacement of either the entire fleet, which takes time to avoid extremely high costs, or all seats with new seats that have seatbelts which is still expensive. Alternatively, this paper presents the development of an innovative product that can be installed in seat belt-ready bus structures at a fraction of the cost. The efficacy of the design is studied using finite element analysis (FEA) to meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) 210 standards for conditions involved in frontal and side impacts.

The passive safety performance of a child seat is modulated by the design features of the child seat and the vehicle interior. For example, in the rear-facing configuration, the child seat impacting front structures increases the head injury risk during a frontal crash. Therefore, this study evaluates the effectiveness of the load leg countermeasure in improving the child seat's overall kinematics and its capability to prevent the secondary impact on the vehicle interior structure in a severe frontal crash scenario. An in-depth, real-world crash investigation involving a properly installed rear-facing child seat impacting the center console was selected for the study where the infant sustained a severe brain injury. In addition, this crash is employed to choose the crash parameters for evaluating the effectiveness of the load leg countermeasure in a similar scenario.