SPEED ESTIMATION IN HEAD-ON VEHICLE/POLE IMPACTS - UPDATE: OCTOBER, 1995

Head-on collisions of autos into narrow fixed objects such as trees and utility poles are a common occurrence that the accident reconstructionist has to deal with. Unfortunately, little pole impact data has been available to the reconstructionist and most of the available pole impact crush/energy/speed equations have been based on limited data. Accuracy of speed estimations suffered as a result. The results of several NHTSA tests have become available herein. Some appears on pages 22-27 of this issue and more appears in the Sept./Oct. 1993 issue and May/June 1995. Other pole impact test results appeared in SAE paper 920605 by Nystrom and Kost. This data was evaluated collectively to analyze the responses of different makes/models to narrow fixed object impacts, and to evaluate the accuracy of different crush/energy/speed equations.