THE POTENTIAL EFFECTIVENESS OF ADAPTIVE RESTRAINTS

This study quantifies the effectiveness of current European car driver restraint systems in frontal crashes, notably steering wheel mounted airbags and seat belts (some pretensioned) compared to the previous generation of vehicles fitted with standard lap and diagonal seat belts alone. This data is then used to analyse and predict the potential effectiveness in terms of injury mitigation of future adaptive restraints for frontal impacts only. Adaptive restraint systems were found to be likely to provide upto 41% and 25% reductions in Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS) 2+ and MAIS 3+ injury respectively, when compared with the previous generation of vehicles with seat belted drivers only. The study presents a method to predict the potential benefits of a change in vehicle restraint technology based on the UK's current injury car crash population. However, the project does not specify the technical criteria or details of such a future adaptive restraint system. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E206514.

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