Despite a popular view that pedestrian and cyclist safety cannot be significantly improved due to the mass and stiffness disparity between unprotected humans and mo-torised vehicles [1, 2], researchers have known since the 1970s that vehicle design has a significant effect on the severity and distribution of pedestrian injuries arising from vehicle impact [3–7]. Since then, hundreds of articles have addressed this topic. In contrast, there has been far less focus on the influence of vehicle design on cyclist injuries and although it is possible that there are some conflicting requirements for cyclist safety compared to pedestrian safety [8], the more general consensus is that pedestrian friendly measures on car fronts will also reduce injuries to cyclists [9]. In this chapter the focus is therefore on the influence of vehicle shape on pedestrian injuries but, where cyclist specific research findings are available, references to cyclists are made. The most established findings on vehicle design are presented with frequent reference to the injury data (Chapter 2), the impact kinematics (Chapter 3), injury criteria (Chapter 5), and the fundamental impact theory (Chapter 7) and modelling methods from the literaure (Chapter 8) are used to demonstrate research findings. The chapter concludes with a description of the current state-of-the-art of pedestrian protection as assessed using the pedestrian subsystem impactors (Chapter 6). Real-world vehicle pedestrian accidents range from large trucks striking young children to compact city cars striking large adults, and assessment of vehicle design for pedestrian safety must take account of this variability. This will be done by defining the principal vehicle related geometric parameters (bumper and bonnet leading edge height etc) relative to the height of critical anatomical landmarks (knee, hip, etc.) for a standing pedestrian.
The Influence of Vehicle Design on Pedestrian and Cyclist Injuries
2009-01-01
38 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
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