Since 1976, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has pursued biomechanical research concerning lateral impacts to automotive occupants. These efforts have included (a) the generation of an experimental database containing both detailed engineering and physiological responses of human surrogates experiencing lateral impacts, (b) the analysis of this database to develop both an injury index linking the engineering parameters to an injury severity level and response corridors to guide in the design of a test dummy, and (c) the development and refinement of a side impact test dummy suitable for use in safety systems development and evaluation. The progress of these efforts has been periodically reported in the literature [1-17]* and these references document the evolutionary trail NHTSA has followed over the duration of this research program.

The purpose of this paper is to state NHTSA’s current understanding of the ide impact phenomena by summarizing the currently available biomechanical data,explaining the process by which current injury index and mechanical response corridors were developed, and detailing the current status of NHTSA’s Side Impact Dummy (SID).