Abstract
Human tolerance testing has established criteria for the risk of serious-to-fatal injury to specific body regions. Using these criteria, injury potential in motor vehicle crashes has been assessed in sled and full-scale car-crash tests using volunteers, anthropomorphic dummies, and cadavers. Based on these criteria, vehicle compliance testing is aimed to protect occupants from serious-to-fatal injury. However, there exists no threshold or minimum crash severity (e.g., delta V) that establishes a “no injury” v. “injury” condition. This study addresses efforts to establish such a condition and identifies confounding factors, the most confused of which may be injury pattern, severity, and symptom duration. Volunteer data was compiled from measurements made during non-injurious daily activities and compared to loading experienced by similarly-instrumented volunteers in low-speed sideswipe, angled-side, broadside, rear-end, and front-end impacts. These results support the use of daily activity data for comparisons of loading and provide additional data to establish non-injurious crash severities in low-speed motor vehicle accidents. However, for different types of impacts, additional work is still required to establish accepted thresholds above which “injury” is probable.
