Abstract
Some of the current issues in the use of biomechanics for assessing and regulating the crashworthiness of vehicles are reviewed. It is concluded that a fundamental and wide ranging review of the current methods of assessing vehicle crashworthiness in the light of changing biomechanical knowledge would be timely. The recognition of variation in human response to crash forces must be incorporated into future rulemaking as reflected in evolving biomechanical knowledge, if protection for the actual population at risk in real world crashes is to be optimized.