At the end of the nineteen sixties, when safety requirements were introduced in the usa, the commission of the european economic community set up a group to investigate research themes. Six priority research themes were defined during the period 1976-1978. The overall objectives of the programme can be stated in the following way. To obtain a greater knowledge of (1) the accident kinematics in specified impact directions (2) the populations at risk and their tolerance to impact loading (3) the parameters critical for injury production (4) the injury criteria (5) the human substitutes and their suitability for assessment of injury risks, and (6) the simulation of accident conditions. A number of laboratories in seven different european countries participated in these research themes by carrying out some forty different projects which are briefly described and commented on in this paper.
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