The progress of passive safety in car-to-car frontal collisions can be seen very clearly from the results of crash tests with old and new car models. The published federal accident statistics show an overall effort in passive safety, which is obvious by decreasing figures of killed and severely injured car occupants per year on German roads. But it is not possible to exclusively focus on car crashes with frontal collisions because the characteristics investigated in official statistics are not detailed enough. Therefore additional in-depth studies are necessary.

The paper shows results of car-to-car and car-tobarrier frontal impacts for old and new car models. Some results of evaluations using the federal German statistics show historical trends in a more general view. Interdisciplinary real-life crash studies are focused on car-to-car frontal collisions. Results of connecting assessments using vehicle deformation index (VDI), energy equivalent speed (EES), velocity change (delta-v) and occupant injuries (injury severity, AIS) for old and new cars certify an effort of passive safety.

Finally compatibility aspects “new car to old car” caused by different front-end stiffness and mass are discussed.