In September of 1996, United States Congress directed the National Highway Traftic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to conduct a feasibility study toward establishing a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) for frontal offset crash testing. Congress stated that these activities should reflect ongoing efforts to enhance ir ternational harmonization of safety standards. The offset crash test work described herein is part of NHTSA’s undertaking in response to the Congressional directive. This paperp resents NHTSA’s initial results of offset testing where the test vehicle moves at a speed of 60 kmph into a fixed deformable barrier that overlaps 40 percent of the front of the vehicle. This test procedure essentially replicates that required by the European Union’s (EU) Directive 96/79 EC, “On the Protection of Occupants of Motor Vehicles in the Event of a Frontal Impact and Amending Directive 70/156/EEC,” which was adopted in December of 1996.

Previous testing with this particular frontal offset procedureh as suggestedth at the lower legs of the dummies show loads that exceed possible injury limits. One goal of this testing activity is to determine if the offset test at 60 kmph provides additional benefits beyond the FMVSS No. 208 full frontal barrier test at 48 kmph. In addition, the agency has been petitioned to use smaller size dummies in its testing to look for aspects of safety that are not evaluated by the traditional 50th percentile male Hybrid III dummy.

To facilitate the potential for adding the 5th percentile to frontal testing and to evaluate the offset test with the 50th and 5th percentile dummies, a series of eight crash tests was performed. In the eight crash tests, all the dummies were restrained with the safety belt systems. The three cars used in the crash testing were the Dodge Neon, Toyota Camry, and Ford Taurus.