Ambulance crashworthiness and occupant dynamics in vehicle-to-vehicle crash tests: Preliminary report

There are no dynamic safety testing standards specifically for ambulance vehicles in the USA. These vehicles have also been identified to have high crash injury and fatality rates per mile, with a majority of the fatalities involving either an intersection or a frontal crash. This study is an interim report on work in progress which demonstrates occupant safety and crashworthiness of ambulance vehicles in vehicle to vehicle intersection type crash tests. The ambulance vehicles were configured with instrumented ATDs to represent 95th percentile male, 5th percentile female and 3 year child occupants. A ‘real world’ configuration of these ATDs and some medical equipment was established for a frontal and side impact crash test. The findings demonstrated life threatening safety hazards for all occupants. Also measured crash pulses for both the vehicle and the interior components were obtained. The urgent need for improvements to ambulance crash safety standards and designs are discussed.