100 YEARS OF AUTOMOBILE-INDUCED ORTHOPEDIC INJURIES

As the automobile has evolved over its first 100 years, many changes h ave improved its safety and have resulted in lower fatality rates. To a great extent, physicians have provided the thrust for these improvem ents. Now, as more people survive automobile accidents, injuries to th e musculoskeletal system take on importance as causes of individual di sability and social cost. The patterns of automobile-induced orthopedi c injuries continue to change. This article reviews the first 100 year s of these injury patterns and relates their occurrence to specific au tomobile design features and oversights. Because any one automobile ac cident is likely to injure only a few people at most, trends and patte rns are much more difficult to ascertain than for mass transit vehicul ar accidents. For this reason, physician awareness of contemporary inj ury patterns is the first step toward safer automobile design.