[An experimental study on driver identification of passenger car in vehicle to vehicle accidents].

A series of full-scale vehicle-to-vehicle oblique collision experiments was carried out for providing general data to clarify the question of seating positions. In all test, two unrestrained anthropometric dummies (Hybrid II) were seated on front seats in passenger cars as occupants. The bullet car collided against the target car running with 25 km/h, at 50 km/h, at impact angles of 120 degrees and 150 degrees. Five impact configurations between occupant regions and interior of vehicle were evaluated: head-face/windshield, head-face/A-pillar, chest-abdomen/instrument panel, upper body/inside door and lower extremities/instruments panel. Comparative occupant injuries and vehicle response data were obtained from electronic instrumentation, high-speed movie films and visual observations. No characteristic driver injuries was observed in oblique collision experiments. The crush characteristics of the vehicle interiors and occupant behavior had significant effect in determining the actual injury once contact occurred. The differences of injuries in occupants occurred depend on impact configurations of vehicles. Therefore, on the driver identification, it is important to clarify kinematics of occupants during the impact by an analytical reconstruction. The data and information can be used to determine who was driving in actual traffic accidents for the forensic medicine expert.