A database of comprehensive injury costs was developed using data from finalised personal injury claims where a single injury was sustained. A method of combining costs for cases with multiple injuries was developed. Injury Assessment Functions were used to predict the probability of head, chest and lower limb injury from measurements taken from Hybrid III dummies in Australian New Car Assessment Program full frontal and offset tests. Costs for injury to each body region were obtained by summing the product of the probability of injury and the cost of injury for each level of injury and body region. These costs were then combined for each of driver and passenger position and for each vehicle. Results showed a wide range of costs in the initial ANCAP tests in 1992 and 1993, with a considerable reduction in subsequent testing, in both full frontal and offset tests. Injury costs in offset tests were lower than in frontal tests and were higher for passengers than drivers. (A)
Abstract