Objective: To reduce the number of severe injuries sustained by cyclists in crashes with vehicles, it is important to understand which kinds of injuries are occurring to identify what should be assessed by means of virtual testing. Method: A detailed analysis of injuries was made based on Swedish and Dutch accident data. The most frequently injured body regions and the most frequent single injuries of these body regions were analysed. Results: Cyclists most frequently injured their heads, upper and lower extremities, and bone fractures as well as brain injuries were identified as one of the most important injuries. Conclusions: For the virtual assessment of cyclist protection, injury predictors for long bone, skull and pelvic fractures as well as brain injuries are required in Human Body Models.
This study has analyzed sex-specific differences in pedestrian and cyclist accidents involving passenger cars. The most frequently injured body regions, types of injuries, which show sex-specific differences and the general accident parameters of females and males were compared. Accident data from three different European countries (Austria, Netherlands, Sweden) were analyzed. The current analysis shows that for both, females and males, pedestrian and cyclist injuries are sustained mainly to the body regions head, thorax, upper extremities and lower extremities. The results show that the odds for sustaining skeletal injuries to the lower extremities (incl. pelvis) in females are significantly higher. It was observed in all datasets, that the odds of females being involved in a rural accident or an accident at night are lower than for males. Elderly pedestrian and cyclist (≥60YO) tend to sustain more severe injuries (AIS2+ and AIS3+) than younger pedestrian and cyclists (<60YO) in some of the datasets. The findings of this study highlight the differences in males and females in both, accident scenarios and sustained injuries. Further investigations are needed to distinguish between gender- and sex-specific differences causing the different injury patterns.
To improve mobility in cities in line with environmental goals, in urban traffic, trams represent an increasingly important means of transport. Due to the close interaction with other road users, this makes collisions with trams fairly frequent. This study has investigated accidents between trams and vulnerable road users resulting in personal injury, aimed at identifying priorities for simulating collisions between trams and pedestrians to assess passive safety measures. Tram accident data collection established throughout Europe from multiple sources and with varying degree of details, have been combined and analysed. These analyses comprise risk assessments per km-driven and general tram accident partner and site type evaluations, with more detailed analyses on accident site distance to the closest tram stop and injured body regions, respectively. In total, 7,535 tram-pedestrian accident resulting in 8,802 pedestrian injuries, collected in the year 2000–2021, was analysed. Accident risk ranges from 0.934 accidents per number of tram (million) km-driven, for slight injuries to 0.063 for fatal injuries. Pedestrians represent a large proportion of tram accident collision partners, especially for severe and fatal accidents. In accidents between trams and pedestrians, 3% of reported injuries are fatal, 23% severe and 74% minor. Generally, low-speed accidents close to tram stops often leading to minor injuries were observed to be of significant importance (<20m to the GPS location of a stop). Analysis of accidents was done bases on gender of the pedestrian showing overall similar involvements in accident with slight difference for various age groups and sites. Regardless of injury severity, the most frequently injured body region in accidents involving a tram is the head. Likewise, injuries sustained to the thorax, especially for higher injury severities are of high relevance, followed by injuries to the lower extremities. Based on this study, recommendations for developing reasonable tram-pedestrian accident scenarios for virtual testing can be derived for further optimisation of pedestrian safety of trams.
Novel seat positions enabled by self-driving cars have been investigated in various studies in recent years. However, there is little research on the effect of increased rearward seat adjustments. To predict challenges associated with the possibility to move the seat further backwards in the car than currently possible as driver, appropriate methods have to be defined. A detailed human body model, a THUMS v4.1 in particular, tissue-based injury risk evaluation methods, a generic vehicle interior and a Latin hypercube design of experiments taking the variability of real-world crashes into account was established. In a first step, 200 simulations at current representative seat positions and a driving occupant posture were performed. The results were then compared to field data from an accident database to evaluate the accuracy of the method. The predictions exceeded the injury risks for the abdomen, head, and upper extremities, while underestimating the risk for thoracic and lower extremity injuries. A good match was observed for injuries of the neck and spine. In a second step, the 200 simulations were run again, but with the seat adjusted rearwards significantly. In this seat configuration, with the exception of the head and the upper extremities, increased injury risks were predicted for all body regions. The highest increases affected the lower extremities (+28%)—predominantly pelvic fractures—and the neck (+9%). In addition, (partial) submarining occurred in almost 50% of cases with the rearward adjusted seat—as opposed to none in the conventional seat position. The established method could be used in future studies to design safety measures addressing these identified potential safety risks.
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