Development of an Australian design rule for seat belts in heavy omnibuses

Gascoyne, Alan R.; Seyer, Keith A.

Affiliations

¹Federal Office of Road Safety, Australia

Abstract

In 1989, it was agreed that a new Australian Design Rule (ADR) 66/00 [1] based on ECE Regulation 80 be implemented. This ADR would require improved seat and seat anchorage strength and padding aimed at both cushioning and restraining the occupant without the use of seat belts, This requirement would offer protection in crashes with heavy vehicles at urban speeds, or with lighter vehicles at highway speeds.

However, two tragic bus crashes at highway speeds towards the end of 1989 focussed attention on the provision of lap sash seat belts in long distance coaches.

This led to the development of ADR 68/OO-Occupant Protection in Buses which would require lap sash seat belts integrated into the bus seat and aimed at providing protection at deceleration levels up to 20g.

This paper describes the research and testing done to develop a test procedure to design and test seats to comply with the ADR. The work included a sled test series using Hybrid III instrumented dummies to record injury levels and an analysis of dummy kinematics.

Cited By (1)

Year	Entry
2005	Griffiths M, Paine M, Moore R. Three point seat belts on coaches: the first decade in Australia. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). June 6-9, 2005; Washington, DC.