Citation

Snyder RG. Proc. Am. Assoc. Automot. Med. Annu. Conf. 1969; 13: 131-164.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1969, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Current population studies indicate that there are over 40 million children in the United States under age 13, representing 1/5 of the total population. Automobile accidents are reported to be the leading cause of death from age one through 24 years; not until age 25 do cancer and heart disease edge past the motor-vehicle as the major agent of death. Most investigators consider automobile accidents also to be the most common cause of childhood injuries with estimates of up to 1 million a year reported. The National Safety Council reported 2700 deaths of children under age 14 (6% of total deaths) and 190,000 injuries of children between ages 5 and 14 years. These figures indicate that more concern for effective protection of children against abrupt impact trauma is necessary. The objective of the free-fall work reported in this study is to provide some data relative to child impact tolerances which may be applied to the design of improved protection of child occupants in automotive vehicles.

Although a considerable amount of study has been directed at determining human voluntary limits to impact acceleration forces, involuntary limits are poorly defined, and experimental tolerance values have been limited to studies of young physically fit male subjects. As a result while some knowledge of impact trauma mechanisms and tolerances is available pertaining to the adult, objective criteria related to the infant and child are not known, either experimentally or clinically. Such information is of especial concern for automotive safety design, particularly with respect to occupant restraint and interior impact protection.