In road traffic accidents, a car-seat and its occupant can be subjected to various crash pulses in the case of a rear impact. This study investigates the influence of crash pulse shape on seat-occupant response and evaluates the corresponding risk of whiplash injury. For this purpose, a rigorously validated seat-occupant system model is used to study different carseat designs and crash pulses. ...

The study of neural pre-stimulus or "anticipatory" activity opened a new window for understanding how the brain actively constructs the forthcoming reality. Usually, experimental paradigms designed to study anticipatory activity make use of stimuli. The purpose of the present study is to expand the study of neural anticipatory activity upon the temporal occurrence of dichotomic, statistically u...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of motorcycle to car transitioning and urbanisation on traffic injury rates in Thailand. DESIGN Analysis of two consecutive surveys of a large national cohort study. SETTING Thailand. PARTICIPANTS The data derived from 57,154 Thai Cohort Study (TCS) participants who provided relevant data on both the 2005 and 2009 surveys. P...

Over 30 000 fatalities related to the road transport system are reported anually in Europe. Of these fatalities, the largest share is car occupants, even though significant improvements in vehicle safety have been achieved by the implementation of in-crash restraints and pre-crash driver support systems. Integration of pre-crash and in-crash safety systems has a potential to further reduce car ...

In previous research, significant effects of weather conditions on car crashes have been found. However, most studies use monthly or yearly data and only few studies are available analyzing the impact of weather conditions on daily car crash counts. Furthermore, the studies that are available on a daily level do not explicitly model the data in a time-series context, hereby ignoring the tempora...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the contribution of driver sleepiness to the causes of car crash injuries. DESIGN Population based case control study. SETTING Auckland region of New Zealand, April 1998 to July 1999. PARTICIPANTS 571 car drivers involved in crashes where at least one occupant was admitted to hospital or killed ("injury crash"); 588 car drivers recruited while driving on public road...

OBJECTIVE Passenger cars often are at a disadvantage when colliding with light trucks (sport utility vehicles [SUVs] and pickups) due to differences in mass, vehicle structural alignment, and stiffness. In 2003, vehicle manufacturers agreed to voluntary measures to improve compatibility, especially in front-to-front and front-to-side crashes, with full adherence to be achieved by September 2009...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the association of driver sleepiness with the risk of car crashes. METHODS A population-based case-control study was conducted in Shenyang, a northeastern city in China, between November 2001 and July 2002. The case group comprised 406 car drivers involved in crashes, and 438 car drivers recruited at randomly selected sites, and on the day of week, and the time of day wh...

The aim of the FIMCAR project (Frontal Impact Compatibility and Assessment Research; co-funded by the European Commission within the 7 Framework Programme) was to develop and validate a frontal impact assessment approach that considers self and partner protection. Regarding the results of the FIMCAR accident analysis, one major issue of frontal impact compatibility is structural interaction. No...