An Analysis of Injury Type and Distribution of Belted, Non-Ejected Occupants Involved in Rollover Crashes

Previous research has described the frequency of injuries to body regions suffered by belted, non-ejected occupants of vehicles involved in rollover crashes. While these studies have characterized the crash and occupant outcomes based on contact of the belted occupant with the vehicle interior, these studies have not delved into the specific types of injuries within the body regions. Atkinson et al. (2000) described in detail head and neck injury types resulting from rollover crashes in order to determine what injuries should be predicted in rollover simulations. Ridella and Eigen (2008) investigated injury mechanisms in belted, rollover-involved occupants from the NHTSA’s Crash Injury Research Engineering Network (CIREN) database, but could not project their conclusions to the national level. The aim of this study is to determine distributions of specific injury types in rollover crashes of belted, non-ejected occupants from recent years of the National Automotive Sampling System - Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS) database.