A means of assessing the passive safety of automobiles is a desirable instrument for legislative bodies, the automobile industry, and the consumer. As opposed to the dominating motor vehicle assessment criteria, such as engine power, spaciousness, aerodynamics and consumption, there are no clear and generally accepted criteria for assessing the passive safety of cars.

The proposed method of assessment combines the results of experimental safety tests, carried out according to existing legally prescribed or currently discussed testing conditions, and a biomechanical validation of the loading values determined in the test.

This evaluation is carried out with the aid of risk functions which are specitied for individual parts of the body by correlating the results of accident analysis with those obtained by computer simulation.

The degree of conformance to the respective protection criterion thus deduced is then weighted with factors which take into account the frequency of occurrence and the severity of the accident on the basis of resulting costs.

Each of the test series includes at least two frontal and one lateral crash test against a deformable barrier, as well as one lateral crash test between two vehicles of the type being tested, thus taking into account both self-protection and protection of the other involved party.

The computer-aided analysis and evaluation of the ‘simulation results enables a vehicle-specific overall safety index as well as partial and individual safety values to be determined and plotted graphically.

The passive safety provided by the respective vehicle under test can be defined for specific seating positions, special types of accident, or for individual endangered parts of the body.