The authors of the study presented in this scientific paper reviewed all available biomedical and other scientific literature using neck injury criterion and NIC as search terms. They also conducted human volunteer, full scale, rear impact crash tests using late model American and Japanese vehicles. Some conclusions made are as follows: (1) Review of world epidemiological literature, as well as the published crash testing results using human subjects, suggests that the threshold for neck injury in rear world occupants is a delta V (velocity change) of 5 mph or less, with the largest proportion of all crash injuries occurring at under 12.4 mph; (2) The current NIC has both construct and face validity, but has not been adequately validated in a real world population; and (3) if the intention of a NIC is to provide a quantitative measure which can be used by safety engineers, designers, and researchers, then it seems reasonable to attempt to consider the level of acceptable, acute non-serious injury as part of a a safety standard. This may require a lowering of the current NIC value. The conclusions should be considered preliminary.
Abstract