Deceleration Testing on Various Driving Surfaces for Off-Road Vehicle Operation

Recreational Off-Highway Vehicles (ROVs) also referred to as “side-by-side” vehicles are involved in accidents / crashes due to driver error. This can often be attributed to an operator’s inexperience and failure to differentiate vehicle handling characteristics from that of a traditional automobile. Decelerating is a commonly used method of avoiding or mitigating crash damage when effectively employed by an operator. Test data is available for deceleration capabilities of homologated vehicles on road surfaces. However, testing has not been widely performed and published for off-road vehicles on various surfaces. This work examines the dynamic performance of multiple classes of vehicle on various driving surfaces. Exemplars are used to gather practical deceleration performance data, which can be examined and compared to the performance of traditional roadgoing automobiles.