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Influence of Airbags and Seatbelt Pretensioners on Ais1 Neck Injuries for Belted Occupants in Frontal Impacts
Technical Paper
2000-01-SC09
Annotation ability available
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Language:
English
Abstract
AIS1 neck injuries are the most frequent disabling injuries
among car occupants in road traffic accidents. Although neck injury
is mostly regarded as resulting from rear end collisions, almost
one third of all neck injuries occur in frontal impacts. Several
studies have shown the effect of airbags on injury and fatality
rates. However, studies of the effect of airbags on the risk of
injuries to different body regions are rare. Airbags and seatbelt
pretensioners may influence especially the risk of neck
injuries.
This paper presents influence of airbags and pretensioners on
reported neck injury risk in frontal impacts. Cars fitted with
airbags in combination with pretensioners and cars without have
been analyzed. Since 1992, approximately 150,000 vehicles on the
Swedish market have been equipped with crash pulse recorders to
measuring frontal impacts. This study includes results from 158
frontal impacts, where the crash pulses have been recorded using
crash pulse recorders and where the status of airbag deployments
was known. Only reported neck injuries, often denoted as short-term
disability to the neck, were considered in this study. Injury risk
functions for cars with and without airbags versus change of
velocity and mean and peak accelerations were analyzed.
It was found that airbags in combination with seat belt
pretensioners reduced the number of AIS1 neck injuries in frontal
impacts with 41% +/- 15.2%. In impacts at a change of velocity
between 1 and 30 km/h, airbags and pretensioners was found to
reduce the neck injury risk with 59% +/- 18.6%.