During the past twenty years, computer databases containing systematically recorded descriptions of on-road vehicle accidents have become an established resource for vehicle safety engineers. Until recently, however, use of these data sources for crashworthiness analysis has been limited to those engineers who have both ready access to large computer systems and sufficient skill in computer programming methods. In this paper, the authors describe a robust data analysis software application they have jointly developed. This program runs on a personal computer and summarizes data residing in specially-prepared subsets of the National Crash Severity Study (NCSS), National Accident Sampling System (NASS), and the Fatal Accident Reporting System (FARS) databases. (A)
Abstract