Injury severity of restrained front seat occupants in car-to-car side impacts.

The influence of a number of factors, including age and particularly seating position, on the injury severity of restrained occupants was examined for 41 front-seat occupants seated adjacent to the impact (near side) and 38 sitting opposite the impacted side (far side) in car-to-car side collisions (center of impact: front door and B-pillar). Above an energy equivalent speed of 40 km/h all near-side occupants and about half of the far-side occupants sustained severe injuries. A logistic regression analysis showed that within range of 30-60 km/h (delta v 20-60 km/h) the probability of severe injuries increased dramatically from approximately 20% to more than 90%; in these cases, far-side occupants had the same injury probability as near-side occupants only when the speed was 10 km/h higher. The main cause of death for 27 occupants seated on both sides was polytrauma, this was accompanied in two-thirds of the cases by serious head injuries. The second most frequent cause of death was head injury.