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This paper presents an analytic approach to determining the optimized ride-down rate-the relative amount of occupant kinetic energy dissipated in vehicle structure deformation, and attempts to address the question of how the desired ride-down rate could be realized in vehicle design. In this paper the ride-down rate is divided by a critical ride-down rate value into two areas: a positive-effect-area where an increase of ride-down rate will lead to a decrease in the occupant injury level, and a negative-effect-area where an increase in ride-down rate could lead to an increase in the occupant injury level. The critical ride-down rate is found to occur at around 50% for a sedan class vehicle frontal crash into a rigid barrier at 56 km/h of NCAP test setup. The critical ride-down rate can also be estimated with various constraints such as occupant injury levels, vehicle categories and crash modes.