Considerations in Determining Vehicle Handling Requirements

This paper examines the many facets of vehicle handling and relates handling to real life conditions. Included in the paper is a description of driver-vehicle handling qualities in terms of safety and performance. The mechanics of accidents as well as the primary and secondary driving events influencing the accident situation are analyzed. The importance of the unexpected event is brought into focus and discussed. Subjective evaluation, performance task testing and response measurement methods are reviewed and compared in terms of merit in developing desirable vehicle handling characteristics. New test methods for measuring effects of braking and acceleration in cornering are described and illustrated with experimental results. The results of preliminary studies attempting to find correlation between objective measurements and subjective evaluation are shown.