After frontal impacts, side impacts are the second largest cause of vehicle occupant trauma. Technical improvements have reduced potential effects of frontal impacts. Attention has turned to side impact crash protection where challenges exist to implement effective improvements. A holistic approach needs to be taken where the side impact problem is treated not just as a closed 'hard engineering' vehicle design problem, but as a 'soft engineering' system design problem also taking into account transport infrastructure issues. This paper reviews side impact epidemiology from both crash causation and injury causation perspectives. Literature is reviewed and a comparison of various vehicle and transport infrastructure countermeasure costs and benefits is provided. A holistic perspective of the side impact problem is presented. (Author/publisher) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E207978.
Samenvatting