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Abstract
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About 7,800 pedestrians are killed annually in the United States and an estimated 300,000 are injured. There are 21 pedestrian fatalities each day, and these constitute 20% of the national auto fatality toll. It has been estimated that 4% of the automobiles coming off the production line (every 25th auto) will strike a pedestrian at some time.
Relatively little systematic attention has yet been given to life saving and injury prevention for pedestrians by changes in vehicle design. In automobile design, some obvious pedestrian-injury agents such as hook-like door handles, protruding hinges and the more outstanding ornamental spears have been abandoned. In some cases rounded front surfaces have replaced sharp edges. Beyond such corrections (which have been by no means universal), the most frequent opinion is, "It's a 4,000 pound auto and a 150 pound pedestrian, and how can you change that?" or simply, "Aren't you just going to redistribute the injuries?"
It is our thesis that pedestrian injury causation and prevention, although complex, is susceptible to logical analysis; that further methods of reducing pedestrian injuries and fatalities through vehicle design are still capable of being developed; that some of the general principles for such design are visible, and that specific designs can be prepared and tested for performance.
Conclusion: An attempt has been made to classify the sources of pedestrian injury as they relate to the vehicle and to the circumstances of collision. General methods of design which may reduce the different sources of injury have been suggested, and an initial logic for combining the possible improvements has been explained. Tests considered helpful in finding improvements for existing designs and for testing of completely new theoretical designs have been explained.
No estimate can be made of how effective such designs would be. Without an exemplary over-all design such a prediction is not possible. However, it may be noted that the approach includes nearly the whole spectrum of pedestrian injury causation, and that a logic attempting to tie together the observable facets has at least been attempted.
The tests suggested are not technically difficult, and indeed, have been performed by the American public daily, without supervision or cogent observation, for more than 40 years. Systematic approaches to automobile design for pedestrian injury prevention are not impossible; they may only require concentrated attention and development. |