Search Results

The total number of persons severely and fatally injured in road traffic accidents has reduced considerably in recent decades. However, the number of motorcyclists involved in accidents has not reduced to the same extent, and some countries have even recorded an increase. The aim of this study is to analyse the circumstances of motorcycle accidents in Germany involving vehicles with a cubic capacity of over 125 cm3 with particular reference to severely or fatally injured riders. An analysis is to be made of the characteristics and patterns of injuries suffered by the most severely injured motorcyclists and proposals developed for injury prevention. The study included accident data from 464 motorcycle accidents collected in Hanover and Dresden between 2010 and 2015 by an academic research team in the course of the GIDAS project (German In-Depth Accident Study). This data represents a statistically representative sample from real accidents occurring in Germany.

This study deals with the question whether or not a “braking with maximum deceleration” represents a specific physical load situation for the occupants of a car. For this purpose, a literature study was performed to determine the relevance of symptoms concerning whiplash-associated disorders (WAD) of car occupants who were involved in traffic accidents with low accident severity. Additionally, test drives with full braking cars were conducted to determine the load situation of the neck for human test persons. Dummies were used too, which were equipped with measuring components at the head and thorax to identify the effective acceleration/deceleration and to compare these values to scientific approved characteristic deceleration values and to the existing neck injury criteria. Finally, the likelihood of occurrence of symptoms in terms of a neck injury was evaluated from the medical and biomechanical point of view.

Estimating the potential benefit of advanced safety systems by simulation has become increasingly important during the last years. All over the world OEMs and suppliers carry out benefit estimations by simulations via computer models. Such simulations should, of course, be based on real world scenario such as the pre-crash phase of real world accidents. Several methodologies for building up accident scenarios have been developed in the past. This paper shows a new method for generating pre-crash scenarios directly from the reconstruction of the accident by using the software PC-Crash1. The new method was developed by the Medical University Hannover (MHH) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation Dresden (Fraunhofer IVI). It is based on transferring all information (participant-, vehicle-, environment- and motion-data) from the reconstruction file into a scenario-database.

During most pedestrian-vehicle crashes the car front impacts the pedestrian and the whole body wraps around the front shape of the car. This influences the head impact on the vehicle. Meanwhile the windscreen is a major impact point and tested in NCAP conditions. The severity of injuries is influenced by car impact speed; type of vehicle; stiffness and shape of the vehicle; nature of the front (such as the bumper height, bonnet height and length, windscreen frame); age and body height of the pedestrian; and standing position of the pedestrian relative to the vehicle front. The so called Wrap Around Distance WAD is one of the important measurements for the assessment of protection of pedestrians and of bicyclists as well because the kinematic of bicyclists is similar to that of pedestrians. For this study accidents of GIDAS were used to identify the importance of WAD for the resulting head injury severity of pedestrians and bicyclists.

The overall number of severely injured participants and fatalities in road traffic accidents has decreased enormously during the last decades especially in Europe, but casualties in the group of riders of motorcycles have only decreased in a smaller percentage. In countries of Asia the numbers of motorcycle casualties are increasing regarding the popularity of motorcycle riding. The aim of this study is to analyze the current accident situation of motorcycles in Germany with severely injured and killed riders of motorcycles with cubic capacity > 125 cm3 in Germany, to identify the characteristics in injury mechanisms and accident constellations to find countermeasures to be suggested for worldwide accident avoidance and injury reduction. The study was carried out on the basis of accident data of 1,493 drivers of motorcycles involved in traffic accidents in Germany.

This study deals with the risk of injury to the bicyclist's head and the benefits of wearing a bicycle helmet in terms of reduction of injury severity or even injury avoidance. The accident data of 4,245 injured bicyclists as a randomized sample, collected by a scientific research team within the GIDAS project (German In-Depth Accident Study) were analyzed. Given that head injuries result in approximately 40% of bicycle-related crashes, helmet usage provides a sensible first-level approach for improving incidence and severity of head injuries. The effectiveness of the bicycle helmet was examined using descriptive and multivariate analysis for 433 bicyclists with a helmet and 3,812 bicyclists without a helmet. Skull fractures, severe brain injuries and skull base fractures were up to 80% less frequent for bicyclists wearing a helmet.

This paper describes the correlation of a person's age to the risk of injury occurrence and the corresponding injury severity in traffic accidents. A representative sample of belted drivers was analyzed by using data from the German In-Depth-Accident Study (GIDAS) to investigate the influence of age on injury severity and special injuries to different body regions. The study focused on two age groups: 17-30 year old (younger drivers) and older drivers 50 year old and older (50+). The injury risk was described as a function of delta-v and injury risk curves based on Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS). Furthermore, individual parameters like age and body mass index (BMI) as well as age and mass of the vehicle were considered. The statistical analysis was carried out using descriptive and multivariate statistics. This paper presents an overview of injury patterns of belted drivers and the probability of these drivers being injured in different accident scenarios.

The potential impact of real world accident scenarios on fuel cell vehicles equipped with a compressed hydrogen storage system is analyzed from a component point of view. Even though hydrogen compressed gas tanks can sustain very high loads, in this study a simplification is made. It is investigated to what extent different real world accident scenarios with conventional vehicles have caused deformation of the vehicle in the area where a hydrogen tank would have been integrated in a fuel cell vehicle. The study is based on accident data from the GIDAS (German In-Depth Accident Study) database. Deformation matrices for each passenger car in the database are defined over a deformation grid largely independent of vehicle type and shape. The matrices are combined to statistically analyze the occurrence of deformations in selected regions of a vehicle.

Vehicle traffic accidents have been extensively studied in various countries, but any differences in traffic accidents the studied areas have not yet been adequately investigated. This paper aims to make a comparison study of head injury risks and kinematics of adult pedestrian accidents in Changsha, China, and Hannover, Germany, as well as correlate calculated physical parameters with injuries observed in real-world accidents of the two cities. A total of 20 passenger cars versus adult pedestrian accidents were collected from the two areas of study, including 10 cases from Changsha and 10 cases from Hannover. Virtual accident reconstructions using PC-Crash and MADYMO software were performed. The in-depth study focused on head injury risks while kinematics were conducted using statistical approaches. The results of the analysis of the Chinese data were compared with those of the German data.

Accident documentations on GIDAS (German In-Depth-Accident Study) from 1999 to 2005 are used for this study dealing with the effectiveness of the side airbag protection for car occupants. An analysis of real world accidents was carried out by ARU-MUH (Accident Research Unit - Medical University Hannover). The data were collected based on the spot documentation in time after an accident event. Based on the accident sampling process, the results of this study are representative for the German traffic accident situation. In order to determine the influence and the effectiveness of airbags, only those accident configurations with comparable conditions on impact direction are used for the study, therefore only cases with impact to the compartment, a delta-v-range 5 to 50 km/h and for struckside seated belted occupants were selected.

The value of on scene in-depth accident research studies has been recognized internationally and many countries worldwide have such teams. Since such detailed information is essential for improving the safety of cars, a strong collaboration with automakers developed. This resulted in Germany in a joint project between FAT (Forschungsvereinigung Automobiltechnik -Automotive Industry Research Association) and BASt (Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen -Federal Road Research Institute). The project started on July 1999 and is called “GIDAS” (German In-Depth Investigation Accident Study). The paper is describing the methodology of this project with statistically orientated procedure of data sampling on the one hand and will give an overview of procedures for the determination of impact speed on the basis of an on scene investigation on the other hand.

Crash information, e.g. driving and impact speed, have to be determined from traces on the scene, as well as from examination of deformation patterns in order to assess the impact condition and the movement trajectories of the impacted body of bicyclists and pedestrians after car collision. Experts use the following information to calculate speed: Information on final position of vehicles, deformation pattern on vehicles, traces found on the road, such as braking and sliding marks, throw distances of pedestrians and cyclists and injury pattern, all these issues are given possibilities for reconstruction of the movement of the human body. While in car to car crashes the speed calculation is based on the momentum analysis and on energy balance hypothesis of classical physics, the calculation for pedestrian and bicycle accidents have to be based on traces only. The paper describes the possibilities of the use of throw distance as a reconstruction method.