A widely accepted injury scale is urgently needed by medical engineering automotive accident investigation teams. An informal committee of physicians, engineers and other researchers has developed two scales.

The Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) combines and details several existing scales including the DeHaven-Cornell scale, the commonly used police scale, and others. Injuries which are usually not fatal are rated with a 1 to 5 scale. Several scaling criteria were combined but with varying weights to establish the AIS rankings.

The Comprehensive Research Injury Scale (CRIS) was developed to separate the criteria used in injury scaling. Five separate criteria are used:​ Energy Dissipation (ED), Threat-To-Life (TL), Permanent Impairment (PI), Treatment Period (TP), and Incidence (IN). The ED scale ranks energy dissipation in injury production, and will be of major value to vehicle designers concerned with human tolerance for injury. TL and PI, in part, scale the economic effects of the injury.

Anthropometric measurements easily determined by physicians are included in the AIS. Weight, height, total leg length, and tibial length are recorded. From this data, sitting height, knee height, and hip-to-knee distances may be determined.