Benefit estimation of secondary safety measures in real-world pedestrian accidents

Liers, Henrik; Hannawald, Lars

Affiliations

¹Verkehrsunfallforschung an der TU Dresden GmbH (VUFO), Germany

Abstract

Pedestrian accidents play an important role in the area of traffic accident research. Especially in Asia, pedestrians account for large numbers of accident involvements. However, even in the US 12% of the traffic accident fatalities are pedestrians (FARS, 2008) and in Europe, every fifth person, which died in a traffic accident, is a pedestrian (EU-27, 2008).

For that reason, a study was carried out, dealing with the potential benefit of secondary safety measures for pedestrians. Thus, 669 real-world pedestrian accidents out of GIDAS (German In- Depth Accident Study) have been analyzed. The study considered the exact vehicle impact zones,the affected body regions and the injury causing parts of about 850 AIS2+ injuries. Furthermore, the relevance of the ground impact is estimated, which provides an indication about the possible benefit of primary and secondary safety systems.

On the basis of the detailed impact distribution and by using the developed injury shift method, several secondary safety measures can be estimated concerning their effectiveness. In this paper, the results for measures related to the Euro NCAP pedestrian rating tests are presented. It is calculated how well current vehicles perform in pedestrian protection. The benefit of different Euro NCAP point levels is estimated, including the limit value of 36 Euro NCAP. Furthermore, a correlation between the achieved number of Euro NCAP points and the expected real-world benefit is calculated. By using this correlation, the effect of improved secondary safety measures (e.g. due to increased requirements) can be projected to the future pedestrian accident scenario.

The analysis of injury causation in Euro NCAP test zones bases on a high number of real-world pedestrian accidents. The analysis focused on secondary safety measures which are necessary to meet the requirements of the Euro NCAP rating tests. The developed methodology further allows the evaluation of secondary safety systems like the pop-up bonnet or a pedestrian airbag. Furthermore, the results can be later compared to the benefit of primary safety systems like a brake assistant or sensor-based forward-looking systems.

Links

URL: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv22/22ESV-000300.pdf

Cited By (5)

Year	Entry
2015	Simms CK, Wood D, Fredriksson R. Pedestrian injury biomechanics and protection. In: Yoganandan N, Nahum AM, Melvin JW, eds. Accidental Injury: Biomechanics and Prevention. 3rd ed. New York: Springer; 2015:721-753.
2013	Ogawa S, Chen Q, Kawaguchi K, Narikawa T, Yoshimura M, Lihua S. Effect of visibility and pedestrian protection performance on pedestrian accidents. In: Proceedings of the 23rd International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 27-30, 2013; Seoul, South Korea.
2012	Mueller BC, Nolan JM, Zuby DS, Rizzo AG. Pedestrian injury patterns in the United States and relevance to GTR. In: Proceedings of the 2012 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 12-14, 2012; Dublin, Ireland.690-702.
2013	Mueller B, Farmer C, Jermakian J, Zuby D. Relationship between pedestrian headform tests and injury and fatality rates in vehicle-to-pedestrian crashes in the United States. Stapp Car Crash J. November 2013;57:185-199.
2021	Haus SH. Effectiveness of Automatic Emergency Braking for Protection of Pedestrians and Bicyclists in the U.S. [PhD thesis]. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; October 12, 2021.