The number of registrations of off-road vehicles in Europe increases. Till now, there is only little knowledge about the passive safety of this vehicle type. Therefore, we investigated the passive safety and especially partner protection in side collisions.
Side impact crash tests to an average compact car with a heavy and a lighter off-road vehicle as impacting car were performed. The loadings of the EURO-SID dummy in the compact car are compared with dummy loadings obtained from crash tests where the same type of car was impacted by the movable barrier according to the European side impact test procedure. In the second part of the investigation, the protection of the occupants of off-road vehicles in side collisions is investigated. Therefore, the two types of off-road vehicles were tested according to the European side impact test procedure. Further, a side impact crash test involving two off-road vehicles was performed.
As a result, the intrusion and the dummy loadings in the car struck by off-road vehicles were considerably higher than in the case in which the European side impact barrier hit the car. The off-road vehicles tested according to the European side impact test procedure performed well in the tests. The high seating position of the dummy is of big advantage for the protection afforded in this kind of accident.