Search Results

Successful development of a product requires the consideration and balancing of many design parameters. Proposals to modify designs that have been fully implemented and put into production are often made by people who were not involved in the original design process. Such proposals, commonly focusing on a specific aspect of the product, must be evaluated in the context of the overall product and its intended use by consumers; a design change may improve performance in one area but compromise performance in another, or even introduce new problem areas. As a case in point, several proposals have been made for operator protection systems with the claim that they would reduce the frequency and severity of injuries associated with All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) operation. For example, Johnson, Carpenter, Wright & Nelson (1991) considered selected accident modes and proposed a set of design changes involving a rollover protection system (ROPS) and significant vehicle modifications.

This paper describes an experimental and epidemiological investigation of the potential application of a specific rollover occupant protection system, consisting of a rollover protective structure and occupant restraint (collectively referred to hereafter as ROPS), to all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). The ROPS investigated in this paper was proposed by Dahle [1987] as a means to improve the safety of ATV operation. Crash tests were performed with an unhelmeted instrumented dummy on 4-wheel ATVs equipped with the prototype Dahle ROPS (hereafter referred to as D-ROPS); the test results established that the D-ROPS design exhibited the potential for serious injury or death in lateral rollover, rearward pitchover, collision, and oblique frontal impact accident scenarios. Review of ATV-associated 1986 fatality reports from the U.S.