Motorcyclists’ fatalities are overrepresented in the national statistics for years and the figure is predicted to rise further into the year 2020. In details, head injuries have contributed approximately 60% to the records, despite the use of safety helmets. New helmets performance has been well studied and widely accepted to reduce the head injury risks to motorcyclists by way of maximizing crash energy absorption. However in-service helmets energy management capability and information are limited. Therefore, this work attempts to further explore the knowledge and seek clarification of in-service helmet energy absorbing performance by performing experimental tests relative to standards protocols. A set of in-service helmets were collected from the public through an exchange basis and impact-tested twice per sites, at 4 sites, in accordance to MS1:1996 test protocols. The main data obtained was headform centre of gravity acceleration values, in terms of g. The results indicated that energy absorbing performances of most in-service helmets were able to meet standard requirements, regardless of their service ages. A few samples, however, demonstrated out of tolerance performances especially in the successive impact test at the same sites. Appearance of microcrack in the impact foam may have contributed to these values.

Side impact crash test simulates a road crash wherein the side of a vehicle is being impacted, either perpendicularly or at an angle, by the front-end of another vehicle of about similar mass. In Malaysia, this crash configuration is the second leading cause of fatality and injury in road crashes after frontal collision. Extensive research have been carried out worldwide in order to mitigate occupant injury in side impact collision through provision of side impact protection system in vehicle such as side impact airbags and side door bars. As a result, various global regulations and consumer test requirements concerning side impacts have been established to evaluate the effectiveness of the said protection system. Recently, the Malaysian government has implemented the United Nation’s regulation pertaining to side impact protection (UN Regulation 95) for new passenger vehicles in the country. Hence, as a newly established automobile safety rating programme in the region, the ASEAN New Car Assessment Programme (ASEAN NCAP) has a plan in the pipeline to implement UN R95 side impact crash test tentatively in its future assessment scheme. A mobile deformable barrier (MDB) was developed as a preparation towards implementing the ASEAN NCAP’s side impact crashworthiness evaluation. This paper describes characteristics and requirements of the UN R95 as well as the development of the MDB according to the regulation. Several tests and improvements were conducted to ensure the MDB is reliable and having high repeatability for testing.

Statistics show that child traffic injuries are a public health problem globally, including Southeast Asia (SEA) region. With an overall value of road traffic death rate among children of 7.4 per 100,000 populations has put SEA as the second region to have the highest death rate after Africa. Due to this alarming figure, many safety interventions and inventions have been introduced and implemented to mitigate child injuries resulted from road traffic accidents. One of them is the establishment of crashworthiness rating programme for new passenger cars to evaluate the resulted child injuries via destructive tests. The New Car Assessment Programme for Southeast Asia region (ASEAN NCAP) established to elevate vehicle safety standards, raise consumer awareness and encourage market for saver vehicles in the dedicated region. Currently the programme assessed and rated passenger cars based on performance of adult and child occupant protection in frontal offset crash tests. Since its introduction, ASEAN NCAP has crash tested 28 popular passenger cars throughout its development phases. During these phases, there has been improvement on the rating of child occupant protection (COP) with the increase of number of cars getting 4-star. This paper presents the results of ASEAN NCAP tests for the development phases in term of COP rating as well as provides explanation on the related assessment.

Abstract:Road accidents involving bus in Malaysia is very alarming. National statistics showed that bus accident cases increased significantly at 48% between the year 2006 and the year 2008. This study focuses on design of bus concerningon ergonomics factors to eliminate injury that may pose to bus passenger either in collision or non-collision event. Data sourcethat used for this paper were obtained from bus a carried out at PUSPAKOM. This study managed to assess 224 samples and collected measurement for items stated in UN R36. Several design issues that can potentially contribute to passenger injury such as doors, seats, handrail and steps are highlighted and discussed in this paper. Findings from this paper revealed that current regulation already address the critical measurement to ensure passenger safety is taking care while in the bus. However, some related items seem to be obsolete and need to be revised accordingly. IntroductionRoad traffic accidents and injuries are well-known problems in developing countries such as Malaysia. Statistics by the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP) show that the average number of fatalities due to road traffic accidents is more than 6,000 per year. On top of that, the road mishaps involving commercial transportation had also increased significantly since 2000 [1]. Road accidents that involved buses in the public service vehicle category alone, had recorded a considerable increase of 48% within two years (2006 -2008). These statistics should not be taken lightly since the increase in accidents involving commercial vehicle is significantly alarming and becoming one of the national road safety interests.Generally, bus accident can be classified into two major events -non-collision and collision. The non-collision event can be defined so when the bus is not crashing with other vehicle or object and generally related to bus design [2]. A study done by Kirk et al. (2001)[3] had revealed that the proportion of bus passengers being killed or seriously injured in non-collision incident in the Great Britain is 64.3%. Whereas in Germany, the similar non-collision incident was 50%,with 70% of those cases were due to braking and 725 of the causalities were passengers older than 55 years. Furthermore, elderly female passengers are the most vulnerable group to be killed or severely injured, and the majority of them were travelling in short distance buses. On another note, study by Lagwiederet al. (1985)[4] showed that head injury is the most frequent with 27%, followed by injuries to chest with 19.2%. There are several prevailing issues contributing to the injuries in non-collision incident such as such general interior design, heavy braking, operational and/or scheduling, as well as drivers' problems. However, due to lack of studies, these particular problems are still unknown in the Malaysia bus industries per se. Thus, this study aims to look at the issue of general interior design that presumably increases the risk in non-collision bus occupant injuries in Malaysia. The focuses in this st...

ASEAN New Car Assessment Program (ASEAN NCAP) is a newly established automobile safety rating program in the Southeast Asia region, which the primary objective is to provide consumers with vehicle safety information and concurrently acknowledge manufacturers’ effort in elevating vehicle safety level. This information is comprehensively gathered through scientific and objective testing procedures in full scale crash test simulation. To ensure consistency and high repeatability, ASEAN NCAP operates standardized test and assessment protocols which utilize high-tech equipment and sensors, data acquisition system and also human surrogates (instrumented “dummies”). A point system is derived for marking purposes and a star rating scheme is designed to reflect the level of safety afforded to occupants. To cater for variation in crash configurations, occupants’ sizes and kinematics as well as other potential risks during crash impacts, a point deduction system (penalty-based) named as “modifiers” were introduced. Hence, this work attempts to describe the modifiers, their basis and justifications for inclusion in the safety rating scheme. A few case studies are demonstrated in this paper to enhance the understandings of modifiers concept.