The occupants of passenger vehicles struck in the side by another vehicle are more likely to be fatally injured than are occupants of the striking vehicle. The fatality risk in a side struck car is higher still when the striking vehicle is a pickup or utility vehicle rather than a passenger car of the same mass. This suggests that there are other factors inherent to pickup and utility vehicle design in addition to mass that contribute to this increased risk. In this paper, results are presented from a series of six 90-degree front-to-side crash tests conducted with both vehicles moving. The side-struck vehicle, a Mercury Grand Marquis with a BioSID (biofidelic side impact dummy) in the driver position was moving at 24 km/h (15 mi/h) in all tests.The striking vehicles, moving at 48 km/h (30 mi/h) in al! tests, included: a passenger car, a baseline pickup with greater front-end stiffness than the car but of comparable mass and ride height, a pickup with increased mass, a pickup with increased ride height, a pickup with increased mass and ride height, and a pickup with increased mass, ride height, and stiffness. The effects of these varations in striking vehicle characteristics were evaluated in terms of the struck and striking vehicles' deformation patterns and accelerations, and dummy injury measures and kinematics. The findings suggest that variations in vehicle front-end geometry and associated localized stiffness differences critically affect the outcomes for occupants of the struck vehicle.
Samenvatting