In the light of more active safety systems and autonomous driving controversial discussions are going on about the role of restraint systems. Although current belt and airbag systems reach a good safety level, many challenges were generated by consumer tests, legislation, and urban vehicles but also by the occupant's diversity in terms of age and anatomy. Thus, passive safety measures will not only remain necessary, they have to be further improved. To derive appropriate future measures the following research questions have to be answered:
For the analyses, data from GIDAS is used. The database contains approximately 30.000 accidents from on- scene investigations. Every accident is reconstructed and besides numerous technical parameters, the database contains detailed medical and personal data. To get an impression of accidents in other countries, additional data of the IGLAD database is used. At first, the current situation is analysed based on descriptive statistics. The influence of several restraint systems (e.g. belts with and without pretensioners and load limiters) on the occupant’s injury severity is analysed. As the injury severity of car occupants is influenced by many parameters, multivariate logistic regressions are used to identify their relevance and to point out differences between several restraint systems.
The analysis shows that, besides others, the occupant’s age has an effect on the injury severity. The demographic change in many countries will put an even higher emphasis on elderly people in accidents. In general, the benefit of load limiters and pretensioners can be proved. However, not every person will equally benefit from these measures. The study reveals differences between several age groups as well as between front and rear seat occupants.
The study shows how current restraint systems perform in actual accidents and which benefits have been achieved by recent developments. The performance is not obtained from dummy tests but from real accidents with real persons. A strong need for adaptive systems is deduced from the analysis. A good performance in dummy tests is not necessarily linked to a high benefit in the real world. Especially elderly people tend to be more severely injured even in less severe crashes. Here, adaptive restraint systems may help, especially by using the available space for the occupant’s forward displacement to reduce loads on the thorax and abdomen. Furthermore, reversible systems will become more important when AEB systems become a standard in future vehicles.
One limitation is the use of GIDAS data that only reflects the German situation. The use of the IGLAD database leads to a higher number of countries, but the case numbers are smaller here.