A Comparison Study on Vehicle Traffic Accident and Injuries of Vulnerable Road Users in China and Germany

The vehicle traffic accidents have been widely studied in different countries, but the difference of nature of traffic accidents in different countries was not adequately investigated for set suitable protective strategy in different area. This study aimed to identify the occurrence, type and mechanisms of the traumatic injuries of the vulnerable road users (VRUs) in vehicle collisions in China and Germany. The accident data (in the years 2000 to 2005) were collected from traffic police and hospital in Changsha, China as well as from GIDAS database documented in Medical University Hannover, respectively. An indepth study was carried out based on the collected data by using approaches of statistics analysis and virtual reconstructions. The results from analysis of Chinese data were compared with results from analysis of German data. The injury severities were determined using AIS code and ISS values. The results were presented in terms of cause of injuries, injury distributions, injury patterns, injury severity. The VRUs accidents were identified as vital issue in urban traffic safety and therefore a high priority should be given to this road user group in research of safe urban transportation. It was discussed with regard to accident data collection, accident sampling and injury distributions, the factors influenced the injury outcomes etc. The data sources reflects the real situations of vulnerable road users in traffic accidents in Changsha and Hannover and may not in the whole countries of China and Germany. This study will contribute to the determination of different nature of vehicle traffic accidens between motorized and motorizing areas, which will form a firm background for making safety counter-measures.