Lateral impact injuries with side airbag deployments—A descriptive study

Abstract

The present study was designed to provide descriptive data on side impact injuries in vehicles equipped with side airbags using the United States National Automotive Sampling System (NASS). The database was queried with the constraint that all vehicles must adhere to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards FMVSS 214, injured occupants be in the front outboard seats with no rollovers or ejections, and side impacts airbags be deployed in lateral crashes. Out of the 7812 crashes in the 1997-2004 weighted NASS files, AIS ≥ 2 level injuries occurred to 5071 occupants. There were 3828 cases of torso-only airbags, 955 cases of torso-head bag combination, and 288 inflatable tubular structure/curtain systems. Side airbags were not attributed to be the cause of head or chest injury to any occupant at this level of severity. The predominance of torso-only airbags followed by torso-head airbag combination reflected vehicle model years and changing technology. Head and chest injuries were coupled for the vast majority of occupants with injuries to more than one body region. Comparing literature data for side impacts without side airbag deployments, the presence of a side airbag decreased AIS = 2 head, chest, and extremity injuries when examining raw data incidence rates. Although this is the first study to adopt strict inclusion-exclusion criteria for side crashes with side airbag deployments, future studies are needed to assess side airbag efficacy using datasets such as matched-pair occupants in side impacts.

Severe-to-fatal head injuries in motor vehicle impacts

“…Using 2000 NASS files, although another study concluded that side airbags may be effective in mitigating head injuries, <1% of occupants were in vehicles with side airbags (Bazarian et al, 2004). In a study using 1999-2004 NASS files, a need was underscored to assess airbag efficacy (Yoganandan et al, 2007). Although side airbags are more common in the fleet, efficacy analysis in the present dataset is not possible because of few side airbag deployments (7 out of 75).…”

Crash Characteristics and Injury Patterns of Restrained Front Seat Occupants in Far-side Impacts

“…Fundamental field data used during the development of the original FMVSS and its recent update are based on nearside occupants (FMVSS-214, 1990; Kuppa et al, 2003; Yoganandan and Pintar, 2005a). Studies to analyze injuries to nearside occupants were conducted using US databases such as the National Automotive Sampling System - Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS) and Crash Injury Research Engineering Network (Augenstein et al, 2000; FMVSS-214, 1990, 2008; Gabler et al, 2005a; Yoganandan et al, 2007b). Research simulating these impacts in a laboratory setting has been based on subjecting intact Post Mortem Human Surrogates (PMHS) to contact monolithic or segmented load walls with varying initial/end conditions and impact velocities, from which biomechanical response corridors of different regions of the torso have been derived using forces, accelerations and deformations (Maltese et al, 2002; Pintar et al, 1997; Yoganandan and Pintar, 2005a, 2005b; Yoganandan et al, 2008; Yoganandan et al, 2007a).…”

Airbags

“…Combined torso and curtain airbags. Researchers on airbags describe the use of combined torso and curtain airbags ( Figure 10) for the protection of both the torso and the head of the occupant [39,58]. The majority of the combination airbags are activated 59] describes an airbag mounted on the ceiling of the car to restrain the head of the occupant.…”

“…The occupant's shoulder and pelvis are the most appropriate areas for biomechanical loading and the loading on the thorax should be minimised [38]. Although side-impact airbags reduce the injuries in side impacts, they also have shown to cause some injuries to the occupants [39,40]. There are two major types of side-impact airbags commonly used in modern cars, namely, side torso airbags and side curtain airbags.…”