Pedestrian injury analysis: field data vs. laboratory experiments

Abstract

This study aims to present all of the injuries sustained by 17 post-mortem human surrogates(PMHS)tested in vehicle-pedestrian impact experiments and explore the injuries, their sources, mechanisms and clinical relevance by comparing them to injuries sustained by 24 PMHS from previous literature and by the pedestrians that were entered into a recent in-depth database of vehicle pedestrian crashes. The 17 PMHS were tested in lateral impact by one of five late model production vehicles at 40 km/h in a controlled laboratory setting and all of their injuries were examined in detail.

The Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network CIREN) program enrolled 67 US vehicle‐pedestrian crash cases between 2002 and 2007, and in-depth analysis of the pedestrians’injuries, injury mechanisms and sources was conducted by a team of biomechanical engineers, crash investigators and trauma physicians. The PMHS tests resulted in greater frequency and severity of spinal injuries, pelvic injuries and knee injuries than in the case studies, partially due to age and bone quality of the PMHS, and partially due to the effect of active musculature. Both the PMHS and the case studies showed that sustaining a knee or leg injury in one lower extremity protects against sustaining a concomitant leg or knee injury to the same lower extremity.