Pedestrian fatalitie s represent a disproportionately high percentage of the annual highway traffic toll. Efforts to date have not produced successful countermeasures to reduce the injuries sustalned by the pedestrian from a dynamic interaction with a vehicle. A study of pedestrian kinematics during actual impact with an automobile was found to be necessary.

A series of eight full-scale experiments simulating pedestrian-vehicle impacts was carried out using an extensively instrumented anthropomorphic dummy and four equally well instrumented unembalmed cadavers. The vehicle used was a full-size U.S.-made automobile. Over 50 channels of data were acquired in each of the impacts. These teats sought to establish body segment kinematics, including linear and angular acceleration. Impact characteristics during initial contact with the vehicle were studied in relation to those during subsequent ground contact. Further experiments were performed to determine force deflection characteristics of vehicle-pedestrian contact, anthropometric (inertial) properties of human body segments, and spring and viscous coefficients of the joints and joint stops.

The data accrued in these experiments lend themselves to subsequent utilization as baseline Information for further related investigations, such as the validation of a gross motion simulator (i.e., mathematical model). The models, such as the CALSPAN 3-D crash victim simulator, can be used as design tools to reduce the lethality of the automobile exterior for impacts against pedestrians.