| Lead vehicle stopped (LVS) impacts, near-side impacts (NSI), and impacts that occur while changing lanes on a highway (CLH) are top contributors to traffic and health care expenditures. They represent a combined 22% of the total economic cost and 18% of the functional years lost out of NHTSA's 37 pre-crash scenarios. It is important to better understand how these crashes occur, so that evolving autonomous vehicle technologies may be tailored towards injury mitigation in crash-imminent scenarios. Additionally, as autonomous vehicle technologies increase in prevalence and usage, out of position seating and distracted driving behaviors may also increase. In order to analyze injury patterns in real-world crashes, the public portal of Crash Injury Research Engineering Network (CIREN) was surveyed for LVS impacts, NSI, and CLH related impacts. The review found that the thorax and lower extremity body regions were most often severely injured (<0.05) in LVS impacts. In NSI, the head and thorax were found to be most frequently severely injured (P<0.05). In CLH crashes, the thorax was found to be most frequently severely injured. Autonomous vehicle behaviors have the potential to augment passive and active safety systems to potentially decrease the occurrence of injuries by improving a vehicle's response to the crash scenario. In all three scenarios, secondary impacts, and suboptimal rebounding of the occupant around the cabin might be minimized using smart braking and veering, as well as improved active and passive safety feature deployment timing and duration. |
