Research concerning vehicle occupant protection for lateral collision:​ accident analysis of lateral collision and vehicle characteristics in Japanese market

Esumi, Naoki; Satake, Katsuya; Ohmae, Haruo; Harigae, Takeshi; Ueno, Masanori

Affiliations

¹Ministry of Transport

²Japan Automobile Research Institute, Japan

Abstract

Lateral collision in automobile accidents are recognized as a serious accidents because very little space is available on the side of the vehicle, to absorb the energy of the impact. Test procedures for evaluating the capabilities of a vehicle for protecting the occupants in lateral collision have been applied in the United States since 1993, and are expected to be applied in Europe in 1998. In Japan, in the report of the Council for Transport Technology presented in 1992 on this subject, lateral collision occupant protection was adopted as a middle term study item and studies are in progress for finding an appropriate test procedure to be adopted in Japan.

This paper reports the results of analyses of lateral collision accidents in Japan. and also outlines the results studies of test conditions for a lateral collision testing procedure to be introduced into Japan.

Samples of lateral collision accidents were taken from traffic accident data of the National Police Agency for 1993 and from the data file of the Ministry of Transport for accidents from 1973 to 1992. Analysis of lateral collision accidents was implemented with respect to (1)frequency of accidents, (2)types of vehicles involved in the accidents, (3)distribution of impact velocities, (4)distribution of impact direction, (5)deformation of the collided vehicles, (6)location of occupant injury and the object damage and (7)seating location of the occupants in the vehicle, etc.

The results of the analysis of lateral collisions were compared with the test conditions for the lateral collision test procedures introduced in the US and Europe, specifically, for impact configuration, impact velocity, impact point, and the like. The conditions of the lateral collision testing procedures to be introduced into Japan were studied based on the results of this comparison. In addition, the effects of injury reduction expected when the test procedures would be introduced was estimated for lateral collision accidents in Japan

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Cited By (1)

Year	Entry
1998	Ueno M, Harigae T, Ohmae H, Uchimura T, Fujiwara E. Development of moving deformable barrier in japan: part 2. In: Proceedings of the 16th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 31–June 4, 1998; Windsor, Ontario, Canada.1827-1834.