SEVERITY MEASURES IN SIDE-IMPACTS WITH NARROW ROADSIDE STRUCTURES

Vehicles that run off the road and then slide sideways into fixed obje cts along the roadside are an important accident scenario that has bee n often overlooked in developing roadside hardware. This paper combine s the results of the 1991 side-impact crash testing program conducted at the Federal Outdoor Impact Laboratory (FOIL) with those of previous side impact crash tests on energy absorbing, slipbase and transformer base poles to develop new injury measures related to the thoracic and head body regions. Regression models that link the crash test perform ance to the probability of occupant injury in the field are presented. These models predict the TTI and the HIC using vehicle-based observab le parameters that can be measured in crash tests. The predicted TTI a nd HIC can then be used to estimate the probability of injury based on injury distributions developed in human tolerance research. These veh icle-based criteria, while preliminary, demonstrate a method that coul d be used to hypothesize about the survivability of similar real-world collisions.