Citation

Haeusler R. Proc. Am. Assoc. Automot. Med. Annu. Conf. 1965; 9: 16-24.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1965, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In the crash injury research study brought to the automotive industry's attention some twelve years ago, an Indiana State Police group under Elmer Paul revealed the full seriousness of the problem of the unlatching and opening of car doors, in the course of collision and rollover specifically. In those accidents involving fatal or near-fatal injury, every second car had at least one door come open. This was general rather than being related to a few specific makes and models. Furthermore, the opening of the door greatly increased the risk of occupant ejection from the car, and occupants so ejected suffered several times as great a risk of fatal or dangerous injury as did those occupants who stayed in the car. Development of the new door latches was undertaken promptly and production changeover to the new designs was begun during the 1955 model year and completed for all car models manufactured (Figure 1) in this continent during the 1956 model year. The interlocking type of latch thus adopted had been tested at proving grounds under both collision and rollover conditions and had been shown to be capable of consistently keeping doors closed throughout the test sequence. There was one proviso, however, at least in our case, and I'm referring now specifically to Chrysler Corporation's test in this connection, although I don't believe we were different in this respect; as before, the motorist's cooperation was needed by having him lock all the doors by pushing down the inside lock buttons.

The new latch could be expected to provide high resistance to tear-apart forces developed laterally and longitudinally in the course of the accident; however, it could also be expected to release the door readily when the proper signal was given, as when the outside door handle or button or other latch device was pushed, pulled, twisted, or otherwise operated. Our rollover tests had shown that such action could take place while the side of the car was scraping along the ground. This strongly suggested that door release could occur in similar fashion during a sideswipe. Furthermore, our rollover testing provided confirmation that such inadvertent release was prevented if all doors were locked, and this would be reconfirmed many times in the course of proof testing of successive new car models in similar fashion.