Citation

Nordhagen R. Accid. Reconstr. J. 2006; 16(6): 19-28, 64.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, Accident Reconstruction Journal)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

When a vehicle loses lateral control and begins to yaw, there exist the possibility for the rear of the vehicle to strike a narrow object, such as a utility or light pole, post, fence, or tree. In this work, all such narrow objects are treated as "poles." Because such a small percentage of accidents, injuries, and fatalities are from rear poles specifically, very little research has been published in this area. When various traditional methods for frontal pole impact reconstruction were applied to a rear pole test, impact speed was overpredicted by 24-47%, illustrating the need for development of a technique that can more accurately calculate the impact speed of rear pole accidents. This paper discusses and summarizes research published by the Society of Automotive Engineers in 2006 dealing with calculation of impact speed and reconstructing other factors related to rear pole crashes.