Neck Injury Protection: Potential Cost Savings and Improved Seat Evaluation

Seats with whiplash protection systems have shown to vary considerable in their real world protection performances. The objective of this study was to suggest a method for an improved evaluation of the seat performance in order to estimate the benefit for the European society. Different seat configurations were tested i.e. different head restraint heights, backrest inclinations, and rear impact pulses for occupant models of both genders through computer simulation. All simulated test configurations are represented by a relative share of drivers. By suggesting improving certain seat configurations the benefits for occupants were calculated by weighing factors. It is estimated that the benefit would represent a roughly 19% reduction of neck injuries applying this approach. With an estimated number of nearly 800,000 neck injuries sustained in rear end impacts in the EU27 in 2010 at an estimated average cost of e3,719 per case, an annual reduction of around 150,000 cases for the European society equaling approx. e 560 million can be expected.

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