Frequency and risk of cervical spine distortion injuries in passenger car accidents: significance of human factors data

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Temming, J.¹; Zobel, R.¹

Frequency and risk of cervical spine distortion injuries in passenger car accidents: significance of human factors data

Proceedings of the 1998 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact

Affiliations

¹Volkswagen AG, Corporate Research, D - 38436 Wolfsburg
Abstract

The parameters: gender, age, height and weight of occupants in passenger cars in relation to cervical spine distortion injuries in traffic accidents have been analyzed on the basis of the VW-Accident-Database.

Occupant gender has proved to be the most important of the human factors parameters under investigation. The risk of suffering neck distortion injuries is about twice as high for women than for men in the database examined.

Regarding the age of occupants, highest risk rates were found in age groups from 18 to 47 years. Risk rates were lower in age groups below and above this range. Occupant height obviously had less effect on the risk of neck distortion injuries. However, apart from side impacts, injury risk slightly increased with increasing height. Occupant weight turned out to be the least important of the parameters investigated.

Effects of the human factors data on cervical spine distortion injuries are modified by different types of passenger cars collisions. With regard to the number of injuries to belted occupants, front impacts rank first, followed by multiple impacts, rear impacts and side impacts. With regard to injury risk, rear impacts rank first, followed by multiple impacts, front impacts and side impacts.

It has been shown that the most frequent occurrences of any parameter may be found in a value range different than the maximum risk of being injured. Therefore, frequency figures regarding occurrences must not be assumed to be equivalent to risk rates.

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