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Accident data have shown that the pedestrian injuries resulting from contact with the ground are serious and may even be worse than the injuries resulting from the primary contact with the vehicle. The landing mechanisms, including the pedestrian trajectory and subsequent sequential body region contacts to the ground, are the basis for understanding the ground impact injuries of pedestrians. However, the landing mechanisms of pedestrian are too complicated to be categorized via investigation of the collision information after an accident has occurred. Nowadays, pedestrian kinematics after vehicle impacts can be observed from the accident videos that have been recorded by road monitoring and driver recorders. This study was aimed at investigating the pedestrian landing mechanisms and analyzing the influencing factors.

The number of traffic deaths in Japan was 4,863 in 2010. Pedestrians account for the highest number (1,714, 35%), and vehicle occupants the second highest (1,602, 33%). Pedestrian protection is a key countermeasure to reduce casualties in traffic accidents. A striking vehicle's impact velocity could be considered a parameter influencing the severity of injury and possibility of death in pedestrian crashes. A collision damage mitigation braking system (CDMBS) using a sensor to detect pedestrians could be effective for reducing the vehicle/pedestrian impact velocity. Currently in Japan, cars equipped with the CDMBS also have vision sensors such as a stereo camera for pedestrian detection. However, the ability of vision sensors in production cars to properly detect pedestrians has not yet been established. The effect of reducing impact velocity on the pedestrian injury risk has also not been determined.