In car-to-car collisions, vehicle properties such as mass, stiffness and structure have a large effect on the extent of injuries to the occupants These properties, especially vehicle mass, are examined using accident investigation data of the Ministry of Transport (MOT) in Japan.
In head-on collisions, vehicle mass has such a large effect on the injuries of the driver that there are few cases where the Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS) of the driver m the heavier vehicle is higher than that of the driver m the lighter vehicle In most accidents, the driver in the lighter vehicle is seriously injured, whereas the driver m the heavier vehicle is slightly injured The risk of injury to the driver during a collision is higher when he/she is driving a lighter vehicle and is struck by a heavier vehicle The crush depth of the vehicle is remarkably different for each vehicle in some cases When the crush depth of the lighter vehicle is larger than that of the heavier vehicle, the occupant in the lighter vehicle has the highest risk of serious injury
The effect of vehicle mass on the injury seventy to the occupant of the vehicle struck in a side collision is also examined. For the side collision, struck vehicle mass has a small effect on the injury seventy to the occupant in the struck vehicle, whereas the striking vehicle mass has a large effect on injury seventy