CRASH ATTRIBUTES THAT INFLUENCE THE SEVERITY OF ROLLOVER CRASHES. IN: OCCUPANT AND VEHICLE RESPONSES IN ROLLOVERS

Rollover crashes continue to be a growing source of motor vehicle injuries and deaths in the United States. This chapter on crash attributes that influence the severity of rollover crashes is from a comprehensive textbook on occupant and vehicle responses in rollovers. The authors of this chapter examine statistics from the NASS/CDS, a national sample of crashes in the United States. A condition for entry in the database is that one light vehicle must be damaged sufficiently that it is towed from the crash scene. The authors evaluated rollover crash severity metrics and then recommend additional data elements to assist in determining rollover severity. For belt occupants and unbelted ejected occupants in single vehicle crashes, the number of roof impacts is an appropriate severity indicator. Additional severity measures such as the delta-V for the pre-rollover crash event are required in addition to the rollover severity measures. For crashes that involve another vehicle prior to rollover, the injury risks are about 1.5 times higher than for single vehicle rollovers. Risks of severe or fatal injuries in rollovers may be increased by collisions with fixed vertical objects such as trees and walls during the process of the rollover. The authors conclude that additional data elements may be required to identify these cases and provide added predictors for the crash severity measurement.