Driver and His Right Front Passenger in Automobile Accidents

A sample of nearly 1,000 recent injury-producing automobile accidents was drawn, containing only cars in which the front seat was occupied by the driver and his right front passenger. The frequency, degree, crude anatomy, and causation of injury to these two occupants, each in the same accident, is examined and compared. It is shown that under exactly the same accident circumstances the passenger is injured more often and, on the average, more seriously than his driver. An attempt is made to explain why and how this difference comes into existence, and an examination of the relationship between the crude anatomy of injury and the causative factors in the car seems to offer useful clues. The general answer appears to be in that the passenger is more free to be hurled about the car than the driver who is more or less braced by the steering assembly.