Reduction of injury severity involving guardrails hy the use of additional w-beams, impact attenuators and

Koch, Hubert; Schueler, Florian

Affiliations

¹Institut fuer Zweiradsicherheit e. V.

²Institut fuer Rechtsmedizin der Ruprecht-Karls-Universitaet, Heidelberg, Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

Motorcycle collisions with guardrails are a severe safety problem. Especially hitting the posts lead to severe injuries of riders and pillion riders. A total number of 150 fatalities out of 1,000 per year is estimated for the Federal Republic of Germany. To avoid fatalities and to reduce the severity of injuries these solutions are presented:

fitting of the so-called "Sigma-Post" instead of the mentioned "IPE-100"
fitting of an additional W-beam
fitting of special impact attenuators to guardrail posts

Biomechanical tests prove the effectiveness of impact attenuators, of which approximately 20,000 have been fitted to guardrails in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1984/85.

Although not yet valid and reliable, field tests seem to prove the effectiveness of both the additional W-beam and the impact attenuators in terms of reducing the injury severity. Additional W-beams seem to reduce the number of accidents, too.

Finally the results of the cost-benefit studies are presented, which prove that under certain, realistic conditions the implementation of protective measures is to be considered positive.

Cited Works (1)

Year	Entry
1980	The Abbreviated Injury Scale 1980 Revision. Morton Grove, IL: Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM); 1980.

Cited By (2)

Year	Entry
1996	Präckel J, Bachmann V, Breuer B. An university’s view on motorcycle safety: recent research results and future perspectives. In: Proceedings of the 15th International Technical Conference on the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV). May 13-16, 1996; Melbourne, Australia.1197-1211.
1998	Sala G, Astori P. New concepts and materials for passive safety of motorcyclists. In: Proceedings of the 1998 International IRCOBI Conference on the Biomechanics of Impact. September 16-18, 1998; Göteberg, Sweden.425-436.