Assessment of injury severity of nearside occupants in pole impacts to side of passenger cars in European traffic accidents - analysis of German and UK in-depth data

The national accident statistics demonstrate that the situation of passenger car side impacts is dominated by car to car accidents. Car side to pole impacts are relatively infrequent events. However the importance of car side to pole impacts is significantly increasing with fatal and seriously injured occupants. For the present study the German in-depth database GIDAS (German In-Depth-Accident Study) and the UK database CCIS (Co-operative Crash Injury Study) were used. Two approaches were undertaken to better understand the scenario of car to pole impacts. The first part is a statistical analysis of passenger car side to pole impacts to describe the characteristics and their importance relevant to other types of impact and to get further knowledge about the main factors influencing the accident outcome. The second part contains a case by case review on passenger cars first registered 1998 onwards to further investigate this type of impact including regression analysis to assess the relationship between injury severity and pole impact relevant factors

Priorities for enhanced side impact protection in regulation 95 compliant cars

This paper summarises the main results of an analysis of accident data conducted for the European Enhanced Vehicles Committee (EEVC) WG13 "Side Impact" to inform the further development of side impact test procedures for cars. The analysis of data from three countries was coordinated by EEVC WG 21 “Accident Studies”. The national datasets of the UK, France and Sweden from the year 2005 were analysed containing a total of 411,311 cars. In each country side impacts typically represented 33% of all fatalities but less than 25% of casualties of all severities. Struck-side occupants represented typically 60% of all side impact casualties regardless of injury severity while the remainder of the casualties were seated away on the non-struck-side. Amongst single vehicle side impacts, collisions with poles were most commonly specified, although there was considerable variation between countries. In multi-vehicle crashes the collision partner was a car in about 75% of cases. The relative involvement of each type of collision partner varied by casualty severity and in both the UK and France there were similar numbers of fatalities in collisions with poles as with cars. A comparison of injury risks suggested the risk of serious injury in newer cars struck by other newer cars was similar to older, pre-Regulation 95, cars struck by older cars. This indicates the improvements in side protection since the introduction of Regulation 95 may have been at least partially offset by increases in front stiffness of cars due to the introduction of Regulation 94 and EuroNCAP. The paper presents other details on the circumstances of side impacts and the different driver populations involved in loss-of control and intersection collisions. It links to two other papers concerning car-to-car and car-to-pole side collisions using in-depth data

A European fatal crash database

A lack of representative European accident data to aid the development of safety policy, regulation and technological advancement is a major obstacle in the European Union. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety and is also needed to support the development of further actions by stakeholders. This short-paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to partly fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect fatal crash data under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using retrospective detailed police reports (n=1,300). The typical level of detail recorded was a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of fatal crashes to be interpreted to provide information on a range of causal factors and events surrounding the collisions

Recommendations for establishing Pan European transparent and independent road accident investigations

A set of recommendations for pan-European transparent and independent road accident investigations has been developed by the SafetyNet project. The aim of these recommendations is to pave the way for future EU scale accident investigation activities by setting out the necessary steps for establishing safety oriented road accident investigations in Member States. This can be seen as the start of the process for establishing road accident investigations throughout Europe which operate according to a common methodology. The recommendations propose a European Safety Oriented Road Accident Investigation Programme which sets out the procedures that need to be put in place to investigate a sample of every day road accidents. They address four sets of issues; institutional addressing the characteristics of the programme; operational describing the conditions under which data is collected; data storage and protection; and reports, countermeasures and the dissemination of data

The development of a European fatal accident database

A lack of representative European accident data to aid the development of safety policy, regulation and technological advancement is a major obstacle in the European Union. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety and is also needed to support the development of further actions by stakeholders. A recent analysis conducted by the European Transport Safety Council identified that there was no single system in place that could meet all of the needs and that there were major gaps including indepth crash causation information. This paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to partly fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect fatal crash data under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using retrospective detailed police reports (n=1,300). The typical level of detail recorded was a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of fatal crashes to be interpreted to provide information on a range of causal factors and events surrounding the collisions. This has major applications in the areas of active safety systems, infrastructure and road safety, as well as for tailoring behavioural interventions

Proposing a framework for pan European transparent and independent road accident investigation

Unlike the rail, civil aviation and maritime transport modes, there is currently no standard process for investigating road accidents within Europe. There is, therefore, a wide range of road accident investigation procedures and protocols in place across Europe. However, as countries work towards meeting both their own road safety targets and those set by the European Commission, it may be that existing investigation practices are no longer suited to facilitating the decision making processes of road safety policymakers or practitioners. SafetyNet is a European Commission supported project, which is building a European Road Safety Observatory to facilitate the formulation of road safety policy in the European Union. Work package 4 of SafetyNet is developing recommendations for a Transparent and Independent pan-European approach to road accident investigation. These recommendations propose the establishment of an independent body for undertaking transparent and independent accident investigations where necessary, or the implementation of these investigations in existing national safety orientated accident investigation activities, in each of the EU Member States. This body would gather and manage accident investigation data and use this data to further progress road safety within the EU. To define the framework in which this body might operate, ‘Best practice’ from existing investigative organisations across Europe was examined in order to produce a set of draft recommendations which focused on four categories of issues: 1. Institutional, referring to the structure and functioning of the body responsible for road safety investigations; 2. Operational, detailing how the body carries out investigations; 3. Data, addressing issues surrounding the storage, retrieval and analysis of data generated by investigations; and 4. Development of Countermeasures, dealing with how investigation conclusions should be presented, used and disseminated. A consultation exercise was then undertaken in order to gather the expert opinion of European road safety stakeholders and to further develop the recommended framework. This highlighted a number of key questions about the Draft Recommendations including: • Is the proposed level of transparency and independence appropriate for road accident investigations? • Is one type of investigative activity appropriate for all types of accidents ranging from the most severe or ‘major’ accidents to the large number of more minor accidents that occur everyday? The major conclusion was that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is not appropriate for the investigation of road accidents and therefore multiple sets of recommendations are required. This paper discusses how the four categories of recommendations combine to form a framework where the data gathered during road accident investigations can be used to develop road accident countermeasures which will assist in casualty reduction throughout Europe

The development of a European fatal accident database

A lack of representative European accident data to aid the development of safety policy, regulation and technological advancement is a major obstacle in the European Union. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety and is also needed to support the development of further actions by stakeholders. A recent analysis conducted by the European Transport Safety Council identified that there was no single system in place that could meet all of the needs and that there were major gaps including indepth crash causation information. This paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to partly fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect fatal crash data under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using retrospective detailed police reports (n=1,300). The typical level of detail recorded was a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of fatal crashes to be interpreted to provide information on a range of causal factors and events surrounding the collisions. This has major applications in the areas of active safety systems, infrastructure and road safety, as well as for tailoring behavioural interventions

The development of a multidisciplinary system to understand causal factors in road crashes

The persistent lack of crash causation data to help inform and monitor road and vehicle safety policy is a major obstacle. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety stakeholders and is needed to support the development of further actions. A recent analysis conducted by the European Transport Safety Council identified that there was no single system in place that could meet all of the needs and that there were major gaps including in-depth crash causation information. This paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect crash causation information under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using two quite different sets of resources: retrospective detailed police reports (n=1300) and prospective, independent, on-scene accident research investigations (n=1000). Data categorisation and human factors analysis methods based on Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method (Hollnagel, 1998) were developed to enable the causal factors to be recorded, linked and understood. A harmonised, prospective “on-scene” method for recording the root causes and critical events of road crashes was developed. Where appropriate, this includes interviewing road users in collaboration with more routine accident investigation techniques. The typical level of detail recorded is a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of crashes to be interpreted to provide information on the causal factors. This has major applications in the areas of active safety systems, infrastructure and road safety, as well as for tailoring behavioural interventions. There is no direct model available internationally that uses such a systems based approach

Future research directions in injury biomechanics and passive safety research

There has been an increasing trend within the safety environment for funding to be directed towards applied research or towards research developing commercially-exploitable systems. Funding mechanisms such as the EU’s 6th Framework Programme and many national programmes focus on research of likely immediate social benefit, reflecting the use of public finances. These programmes will continue to play an important role in funding safety research, but they typically do not have guidelines specifically directed towards fundamental research questions. Additionally, impartial advice is not always available to help programme managers identify research priorities. This review of biomechanics and passive safety research is intended for use by researchers who may be contemplating research in certain areas and wish independent guidance on specific research questions. It is also intended for use by research funding groups and programme managers who would like impartial guidance on basic research to be supported. It covers engineering research directed at improving vehicles and safety systems for all types of road user. It includes the main research and development tools such as dummy development and humanoid modelling and the important area of crash injury data

The development of a multidisciplinary system to understand causal factors in road crashes

The persistent lack of crash causation data to help inform and monitor road and vehicle safety policy is a major obstacle. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety stakeholders and is needed to support the development of further actions. A recent analysis conducted by the European Transport Safety Council identified that there was no single system in place that could meet all of the needs and that there were major gaps including in-depth crash causation information. This paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect crash causation information under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using two quite different sets of resources: retrospective detailed police reports (n=1300) and prospective, independent, on-scene accident research investigations (n=1000). Data categorisation and human factors analysis methods based on Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method (Hollnagel, 1998) were developed to enable the causal factors to be recorded, linked and understood. A harmonised, prospective “on-scene” method for recording the root causes and critical events of road crashes was developed. Where appropriate, this includes interviewing road users in collaboration with more routine accident investigation techniques. The typical level of detail recorded is a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of crashes to be interpreted to provide information on the causal factors. This has major applications in the areas of active safety systems, infrastructure and road safety, as well as for tailoring behavioural interventions. There is no direct model available internationally that uses such a systems based approach