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It is well known that older vehicles’ headlight assemblies degrade with exposure to the elements and can become cloudy or crazed. It is also known that the degradation decreases the amount of useful light projected forward, which can drastically reduce night time or down-road visibility. Testing has been performed to measure the available light projected by old degraded headlamp assemblies and new replacement assemblies, to quantify the decrease in emitted light caused by the degradation. The work has been extended to quantify the improvement in available light when the degraded lenses are treated with commercially available restoration products. Five different vehicle headlamp assemblies representing four different manufacturers were tested measuring the illumination at a given distance with a modified Extech® illuminance meter.

A common low speed motor vehicle collision scenario occurs in heavy traffic situations between two or more vehicles which were stopped in traffic prior to the collision. While information regarding the pre-collision spacing of the involved vehicles can be very useful to an accident reconstructionist, witness perceptions and statements regarding the distance between the stopped vehicles, prior to the collision, can be inaccurate. Physical evidence regarding precollision spacing is also unavailable in most cases. A study was conducted of several selected intersections in three major metropolitan areas in the United States of America. Publicly available aerial photography, rectified and scaled, was used to perform a statistical analysis of the distance between stopped passenger vehicles at busy traffic signalized intersections.

Evaluation of the severity of low speed motor vehicle crashes has been the subject of significant research for more than 25 years. These crashes typically result in little if any damage to the vehicles involved and therefore the ability to determine the threshold of damage would be very useful in analysis of such cases. One such threshold, which has been used by accident reconstructionists, is the manufacturer’s published bumper rating in compliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) for vehicle bumpers. The rationale is that if there is any damage to the bumper system of the vehicle in question, the impact must have had a severity greater than the rated bumper speed. This paper examines the FMVSS bumper standards upon which the published bumper ratings are reportedly in compliance, historical low speed testing damage results, and engineering considerations of bumper damage in low speed impacts.

Four full scale vehicle rollover tests, about the roll axis (X-axis), were staged using a sled attached to a large truck. Each vehicle was fitted with a nine-accelerometer array that approximated the center of gravity and two single axis accelerometers attached to the roof adjacent to the A-pillar/roof junction. The acceleration data was retrieved for three tests; however, the data recorder malfunctioned on the remaining test. Data was collected at 1000 hertz and processed to determine the linear and rotational acceleration with respect to each of the three vehicle coordinate axes. Rollover video and scene data were also collected to correlate vehicle rollover motion with the accelerometer data.

Seventeen rear-end impacts with a nominal 8 km/hr change in velocity to five human subjects in four positions were conducted. The four seated positions consisted of the Normal position, with the torso against the seat back, looking straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel, and feet on the floor; the Torso Lean position, with the torso leaned forward approximately 10 degrees away from the seat back; the Head Flex position, with the head flexed forward approximately 20 degrees from normal; and the Head Flex / Torso Lean position, with the head flexed forward approximately 20 degrees from normal and the torso leaned forward approximately 10 degrees from normal position. Relative to the Normal position, it was found that in both positions involving the torso lean, the peak head acceleration for the subject's head was reduced during the head-restraint impact.

The equations of rotational motion used to calculate pre-impact vehicle speeds using the rotational displacement of the vehicles following a collision are well known. The technique uses the rotational momentum exchange during impact and the principle of conservation of rotational energy to calculate the post impact vehicle angular velocity from the energy dissipated during the vehicle's rotation to a stop (product of torque and rotational displacement). Integral to the calculation of the stopping torque on the vehicle is the determination of the effective rotational coefficient of friction (fr) between the tires and the roadway. The interactions of the road with the tires to produce the rotational coefficient of friction (fr) are more complex and less understood than those of linear coefficient of friction (deceleration factor). A derivation of the post impact equations of motion and the kinematics of vehicles in rotation are examined.