This study investigates the effect of pre-collision occupant posture on the injury outcome during collisions. The variability in the postural orientation of the driver, during emergency vehicle manoeuvres, was recorded in a volunteer survey on a car driving simulator, through videos of occupants, in a virtual frontal collision scenario with a truck. The main result was that none of the subjects adopted the standard driving position used in crash experiments. The typical response to this type of emergency event was to brace rearward into the seat and to straighten the arms against the steering wheel, or, to swerve to attempt to avoid the impacting vehicle. Giving a sharp turn of wheel led 20% of the subjects to have one arm in front of the steering wheel at the time of crash. Since airbags are usually mounted in the hub, this may represent a rather risky position. The influence of this out-of-position (OOP) on injury outcome was extensively investigated with Hybrid III dummy but was restricted by a limited insight on upper extremity skeletal injury patterns. (Author/publisher)
Abstract