The Effect of Frontal Collision Delta-V and Restraint Status on Injury Outcome

The risk of sustaining injury in frontal collisions is correlated to collision severity as well as other factors such as restraint usage and airbag deployment. Eleven years (1997 to 2007) of National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) data from the Crashworthiness Data System (CDS) were analyzed to identify accidents involving passenger vehicles that have experienced an impact with a principal direction of force (PDOF) between 11:00 and 1:00, indicating a frontal collision. The Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) was used as an injury rating system for the involved vehicle occupants who were at least sixteen years old and were seated in the outboard seating positions of the front row. These data were further analyzed to determine injury risk based on factors such as delta-V, restraint system use, and airbag deployment. Each body region (head, face, spine, thorax, abdomen, upper extremity, and lower extremity) was considered separately. Delta-V is an indicator of crash severity in the absence of intrusion into the occupant compartment. For collisions below 60 kph, occupants utilizing airbags and seatbelts have a reduced risk of sustaining AIS 3+ injuries across the body regions examined. Of the occupants considered, 0.6% of the occupants experienced a frontal collision of a delta-V greater than 60 kph. For these occupants, determining the effects of restraint status on injury risk for different body regions is complicated by the small number of crashes that occur at this severity. The NASS-CDS data examined for this study support previous research and show that the use of seatbelts and airbags is correlated to a smaller risk of injury in frontal collisions.