The German database GIDAS was queried to find all cases between 1999 and 2010 where a bicyclist or pedestrian was injured when impacted by a car front. The injury source was determined for each severe injury whether it was the car or its surroundings.

The most common severe (AIS3+ and fatal) injury/source combination for bicyclists was the head-towindshield area (27%) followed by leg-to-vehicle front, while for pedestrians the same combinations occurred most frequently but leg-to-vehicle front (41%) was most common. For both bicyclists and pedestrians most head injuries from the windshield area were caused by the structural parts, but the bicyclists’ head impact locations were more commonly from higher impact locations.

The results of this study indicate that car-mounted countermeasures designed to mitigate pedestrian injury have the potential to be effective even for bicyclists if redesigned to also protect higher frame parts of the windshield. Both bicyclist and pedestrian crashes should be evaluated to see whether current hood and windshield countermeasures designed to mitigate head injury could also mitigate chest injury.