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To determine accurately the number of serious injuries at EU level and to compare serious injury rates between different countries it is essential to use a common definition. In January 2013, the High Level Group on Road Safety established the definition of serious injuries as patients with an injury level of MAIS3+(Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale). Whatever the method used for estimating the number or serious injuries, at some point it is always necessary to use hospital records. The aim of this paper is to understand the implications for (1) in/exclusion criteria applied to case selection and (2) a methodological approach for converting ICD (International Classification of Diseases/Injuries) to MAIS codes, when estimating the number of road traffic serious injuries from hospital data. A descriptive analysis with hospital data from Spain and the Netherlands was carried out to examine the effect of certain choices concerning in- and exclusion criteria based on codes of the ICD9-CM and ICD10. The main parameters explored were: deaths before and after 30 days, readmissions, and external injury causes. Additionally, an analysis was done to explore the impact of using different conversion tools to derive MAIS3 + using data from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain. Recommendations are given regarding the in/exclusion criteria and when there is incomplete data to ascertain a road injury, weighting factors could be used to correct data deviations and make more real estimations.

The objective of this study was to assess the influence of longitudinal barriers located on the median strips and hard shoulders of toll motorways on crash severity in vehicles running off the roadway. The study was based on crashes involving injury and property damage only, recorded from 1996 to 2010 on a French toll motorway network of about 2000 km. In run-off from the roadway onto the hard shoulder, injury risk was halved by a longitudinal barrier. A specific one-sided W-beam guardrail (“GS4”) appeared to be the best solution for cars, and even for LUVs and trucks. This does not affect the advisability of specific guardrails for bridges or of concrete barriers, when narrow working widths are required. In run-off onto median strips, a specific guardrail (“GS2”) appeared to be the most efficient, followed by the three other metal guardrails currently installed. Concrete barriers, however, are much more effective in preventing complete crossing of the median, which is uncommon and mainly involves trucks, but often with very serious consequences. Longitudinal barriers make an important contribution to highway-user safety, providing a “forgiving” infrastructure in the event of a vehicle going off the road, provided that there are very few motorized two-wheel vehicles using the roadway.

In car-pedestrian accidents, lateral bending and shearing kinematics have been identified as principal injury mechanisms causing permanent disabilities and impairments to the knee joint. Regarding the combined lateral bending and shearing contributions of knee joint kinematics, developing a coupled knee injury criterion is necessary for improving vehicle countermeasures to mitigate pedestrian knee injuries.The advantages of both experimental tests and finite element (FE) simulations were combined to determine the reliable injury tolerances of the knee joint. First, 7 isolated lower limb tests from postmortem human subjects (PMHS) were reported, with dynamic loading at a velocity of 20 km/h. With the intention of replicating relevant injury mechanisms of vehicle-pedestrian impacts, the experimental tests were categorized into 3 groups by the impact locations on the tibia: the distal end to prioritize pure bending, the middle diaphysis to have combined bending and shearing effects, and the proximal end to acquire pure shearing. Then, the corresponding FE model was employed to provide an additional way to determine exact injury occurrences and develop a robust knee injury criterion by the variation in both the lateral bending and shearing contributions through a sensitivity analysis of impact locations.Considering the experimental test results and the subsequent sensitivity analysis of FE simulations, both the tolerances and patterns of knee joint injuries were determined to be influenced by impact locations due to various combined contributions of lateral bending and shearing. Both medial collateral ligament and cruciate ligament failures were noted as the onsets of knee injuries, namely, initial injuries. Finally, a new injury criterion categorized by initial injury patterns of knee joint was proposed by coupling lateral bending and shearing levels.The developed injury criterion correlated the combined joint kinematics to initial knee injuries based on subsegment tests and FE simulations conducted with a biofidelic lower limb model. This provides a valuable way of predicting the risk of knee injury associated with vehicle-pedestrian crashes and thereby represents a further step to promote the design of vehicle countermeasures for pedestrian safety.

This paper describes the modelling approach using MADYMO 2D at INRETS (The French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research). A mathematical dynamic model of the pedestrian leg in lateral impact was developed (M.MATYJEWSKI) to test car fronts in order to estimate the severity of the knee joint lesions and to predict the risk of leg injuries in car/pedestrian accidents. Results of this model were compared with those obtained with an instrumented mechanical leg used in the bumper impact test. A train passenger behaviour during a crash at low speed was developed (J.BLOCH and F.MINNE) to improve the function of the fusible area at each carriage extremities. Results of this model were compared with those obtained during a real scale crash test. The kinematic of a 3 -year old child in a childseat on a passenger car seat is analysed (R.BIARD and J.L.CHANIAC) during a frontal impact. Experimental results from sled tests serve as a basis for the validation of the model.