Measurement of Vehicle Head Restraint Geometry

Soft tissue neck injury has become the most frequent type of injury sustained in motor vehicle accidents. Most of these injuries occur in rear-end impacts. Consequently, vehicle head restraint geometry has become an important issue in vehicle design and injury prevention. Vehicle crashworthiness and safety ratings are published by auto insurers around the world including ICBC, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (Canada), the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (U.S.A.) and the New Car Assessment Program (Australia). These vehicle ratings include head restraint ratings based on static measurements of head restraint geometry. The authors developed a device for measuring head restraint geometry used in these ratings, and detail the results of measurements for 40 current vehicles in North America.