A research was carried out on the relevance and the risk of ejection in road accidents, in three regions of Northern Italy, during a period of 12 months. The results show that ejection is a significant cause of death. In particular some fatalities occurred in collisions with safety barriers. To investigate this occurrence, four full scale tests and a number of sled tests have been performed, on collisions with high containment barriers (H3). It was found that, in standard impact tests on high containment barriers, partial ejection of the head through the side windows occurs systematically. This represents a high risk, when the car is sliding along the barrier at high speed. In the collision with an approved safety barrier, a vehicle should contain safely inside the head of occupants. The tests show also that stratified glass may be an effective countermeasure, even in the most severe cases. For the covering abstract see ITRD E825082.
Abstract