An assessment of real world steering wheel intrusion characteristics and their implications for head and face injuries to restrained drivers in frontal impacts

Frampton, R. J.; Mackay, G. M.; Parkin, S.

Affiliations

¹Accident Research Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, U. K

Abstract

Field study accident data were analysed to determine the effect of the steering wheel on head/face injuries to restrained drivers in frontal impact. 50% of restrained drivers had sustained injury to those regions and the steering wheel was shown to play a major part in the causation of those injuries. Facial contusion and laceration was the most common injury for those drivers sustaining only minor injury to the head/face from the wheel. Of those sustaining more major injury, the head became the more important body region. When collision severity was considered, the likelihood and severity of head/face injuries from direct wheel contact was shown to increase with the Equivalent Test Speed and those injuries were much more likely than not at speeds above 40 km/h. Wheel rearward and upward displacement and thus compromise of the head ride down envelope was also seen to increase with collision severity. However, for speed changes up to 50 km/h only 2.3% of wheels showed residual displacement upward and/or rearward greater than 12 cm, with the implication that most of the steering systems in the sample had restricted wheel displacement close to the present and proposed legislative standard. The role of wheel intrusion into the head ride down envelope was shown to have an important bearing on the likelihood of head/face injury. For the same collision severity, substantially more restrained drivers sustained head/face injury under conditions of moderate and high compromise of that envelope than those experiencing negligible compromise. As this was the case even at the lower collision severities, it is suggested that real benefits in head/face injury reduction would follow if rearward and/or upward wheel displacement were reduced still further than that permitted and proposed for the Barrier Test. Future consideration of the relationship between collision severity, wheel displacement and head/face injury severity is recommended, taking account of front impact distribution and individual characteristics of drivers and steering systems.

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Cited By (3)

Year	Entry
1993	Thomas P, Bradford M. The nature and source of the head injuries sustained by restrained front seat occupants in frontal collisions. In: Proceedings of the 1993 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 8-10, 1993; Eindhoven, The Netherlands.29-40.
1999	Canaple B, Cesari D, Drazetic P. Identification of head injury mechanisms associated with reconstruction of traffic accidents. In: Proceedings of the 1999 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 23-24, 1999; Sitges, Spain.37-51.
2017	Simms CK. The need for accident investigation: Murray Mackay’s work presented at Conferences of the International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury from 1973 to 2013. In: Proceedings of the 2017 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Injury. September 13-15, 2017; Antwerp, Belgium.xii-xxi.