The report describes a series of nine barrier crash tests performed on behalf of the federal office of road safety to investigate frontal impacts on forward- control vehicles, or vans. Existing safety requirements for vans and current frontal impact protection standards in australia and overseas are discussed as a background to the test programme. Two of these standards, australian design rule (adr) 10b and united nations' economic commission for europe (ece) regulation 33 were assessed in detail to help determine their suitability as a standard to be applied to vans. The report also considers the effect of bull- bars on occupant protection. Additional data gathered in the course of testing is presented but the relevance of these results to van safety is not discussed. The report concludes that the application of adr 10b and ece regulation 33 will result in an improvement in the occupant safety of vans in a frontal impact. However, as a further stage, both these standards may be made more effective for vans if some of their test parameters are reviewed. (Author/publisher)
Abstract