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The relation between impact severity and risk of injury is a fundamental issue in terms of comparing vehicles and occupant protection systems. Normally, such risk functions would have to be based on reconstruction of crashes, limiting the possibility to generate risk functions down to individual car models. In this study, an alternative way to derive risk functions was developed and used. In the present method, risk functions were derived using matched pairs of crashes, varying mass relations in a controlled way, and generating risk versus relative change of velocity. The data used were police reported crashes in Sweden during 1994-2000. The results show, that there are major differences in injury risk functions between individual car models. The results are of major importance for the development of car model safety rating and for the evaluation of new car safety technology. The method is also of importance in understanding possible scenarios of sub optimization.

The evaluation of new safety systems in cars is based not only of the accident severity and type, but also on the behaviour of the interior of the vehicle in terms of intrusion and other interior deformations. It is also essential that contact points can be found explaining injuries to occupants and also showing possible restraint use. It is however complicated to measure interior deformations, especially in three dimensions and with non-specialists going out to the crashed car. It is also complicated to find contact points for non-specialists not always knowing the injuries of the occupants at the time of the interior inspection of a crashed car. In this paper, methods for distant evaluation of crashed car interiors with photogrammetrical and video cameras allowing three dimensional measurements and the possibility to judge interior contacts. With such methods, data collection can be performed by non-specialists with a high quality of the analysis.

Small children cannot use adult restraint systems in passenger cars. Their size, anatomy, tolerance to trauma and their social behaviour are factors that must be considered when designing child restraint systems (CRS). Surprisingly, and differently from adult restraint systems, CRS are not designed in the same way indicating that in different parts of the world, the analysis of the best protective systems is not the same. In the Nordic countries the tradition has been long in protecting children up to the age of 3 years by rearward facing systems. As they have proven to be very effective, it is important to share the experience with countries where less effective restraint systems for small children are used. In this paper, several aspects of rearward facing systems are presented.