The quantitative recording of injuries as a main interest in the biomechanical research raises considerable problems when combined with physical measuring data. The injury scales used up to now, especially the AlS, are therefore exposed to considerable. criticism. In the development of injury scales one principally has to distinguish between criteria of energy dissipation and life threateninq. Both cannot be agreed upon in one scale degree. The age factor influences both the energetical injury tolerance and the prognosis. Therefore, when neglecting the age one has to reckon with faults in the expected correlation to physical data. That is very much true if the used scaling does not differentiate between energy dissipation and life threatening.
Through use of multiple regression analysis the influence of age on the results derived from tests on 212 belt protected cadavers which had been exposed to front collision was examined and scaled quantitatively. The according to OAIS criteria determined injury severity in the collision velocity range of 30 to 60 km/h revealed a 4.3 x greater influence due to age as to collision velocity.