A substantial portion of the motor vehicle-related injuries in the United States are sustained by pedestrians; pedestrians comprise about 16 percent of the total number of traffic fatalities cach year. It has been determined that an important classification of pedestrian injuries is thoracic injuries in children struck by the vehicle face. The NHTSA is currently conducting a research program to investigate child pedestrian thoracic injuries. The planned approach to solving the problem involves three phases. The first phase is to reconstruct actual pedestrian accidents using a child thoracic surrogate device. Therefore, such a surrogate device had to be developed. This paper describes the development of a lamity of child lateral thoracic impact surrogate devices representing 3, 6, 9, and 12 year old children. The masses of the devices are adjustable such that the thoraces of all ages of children between 2 and 13 years old can be simulated. The devices have all performed favorably thus far.
The next step in the first phase of the program is to use the child thoracic surrogates to perform the reconstruction tests. This testing, which has already begun, involves reproducing actual pedestrian accident cases in which children sustained thoracic injuries resulting from contact with the vehicle face. From these tests, an injury criterion can be determined for the thoracic surrogates and a methodology for reproducing pedestrian accidents in the laboratory can be verifiably developed.
The second phase of the program will then involve testing a representative sample of current production cars and determining their potential for causing or preventing pedestrian injuries. The final phase of the NHTSA pedestrian injury study will be to incorporate the knowledge gained from the first two phases into developing practical vehicle face designs which will alleviate thoracic injuries to struck pedestrians