Citation

Qin X, Wang K, Cutler C. Transp. Res. Rec. 2013; 2386: 95-102.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences USA, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.3141/2386-11

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In recent years, the reduction of injury crashes has been heralded as a great success. Improvements in federally mandated safety standards and advancements made by automotive industries to enhance vehicle safety can be partially credited with the decline. Now the national strategy on highway safety is to move toward zero deaths. From this vision zero perspective, one of the appropriate strategies is to manage kinetic energy in crashes and collisions--that is, to minimize the energy transferred to the human body--because the kinetic energy is responsible for occupant injuries and fatalities. Vehicle damage conditions are an unbiased indicator of kinetic energy in collisions, and injury severity is the ultimate measure of occupant risk. In this study, vehicle damage and occupant injury models were developed for single-vehicle and multiple-vehicle crashes. The results of these models provide a complete view of crash severity determinants and how they affect occupant injuries and vehicle damage. Some factors have a consistent impact across both injury severity and vehicle damage; others are contradictory. Combining information from both occupants and vehicles is valuable for an impartial evaluation of specific components in highway design; this combining also provides an accurate assessment of the impacts of occupant characteristics, driver behavior, and error on the resulting bodily injuries.