CRASHWORTHINESS SAFETY FEATURES IN ROLLOVER CRASHES. IN: OCCUPANT AND VEHICLE RESPONSES IN ROLLOVERS

This chapter on crashworthiness safety features in rollover crashes, is from a comprehensive textbook on occupant and vehicle responses in rollovers. The authors quantify some of the opportunities for crashworthiness countermeasures in rollover crashes, usually analyses of NASS/CDS (a national sample of crashes in the United States) data. Rollovers account for about 9% of passenger car crashes and 26% of light truck crashes. Belt use in rollover crashes is about 51%, compared with 62% in planar crashes. The use of safety belts offers a dramatic reduction in injury rates for rollover crashes. The authors note that improvements in safety belts offer large opportunities in safety. Approximately 52% of the residual harm to belted occupants might be addressed by safety belt improvements that further limit the excursion of the body. For the unbelted occupants, ejection prevention devices (such as the inflatable head protection systems) can address about 39% of the injury harm. These inflatable head protection systems can also be beneficial to occupants wearing seatbelts, addressing the injuries from contacts with the upper interior and exterior.