Side impacts with fixed roadside objects appear to cost society more than $3 billion each year. Reducing the severity of this type of accident would clearly have a beneficial economic effect. Presented in this paper are the results of an investigation of the 1980-1985 Fatal Accident Reporting System and the 1982-1985 National Accident Sampling System data bases. These data bases are used to extract a variety of characteristics of side-impact accidents with fixed roadside objects. Most side impacts with roadside objects involve tall, narrow objects such as trees, utility poles, and luminaires. Young drivers account for the majority of side-impact accidents with roadside objects and such accidents typically occur late at night or early in the morning. These fixed-object collisions have characteristics that differ from those of vehicle-to-vehicle, side-impact collisions. Development of effective countermeasures for side-impact collisions with fixed objects requires an appreciation of their unique characteristics.
Abstract