Two-impact crashes - implications for occupant protection technologies

The widespread and increasing use of deployable devices for improved occupant protection has created new opportunities to design vehicles for multiple impact accidents. It is therefore of topical interest to understand how often multiple impacts occur; which order and combination of impacts (front, side, rear) are most frequent; whether the first, second or subsequent impact is most severe; whether occupants are injured on the first, second or subsequent impacts. In-depth accident files from the UK Co-operative Crash Injury Study 1992-2001 were reviewed, focussing on restrained occupants with MAIS 3+ injury severity where the vehicle received (exactly) two impacts in the course of the accident. The accident data shows that the first impact is the most severe in about 75% of these cases and indicates that injuries are very highly associated with the more severe impact. For the covering abstract see ITRD E825082.