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Estimation of seatbelt and frontal-airbag effectiveness in trucks : U.S. and Chinese perspectives.
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Abstract
- The objectives of this study were (1) to estimate the effectiveness of seatbelts and driver<br />airbags for mitigating medium- and heavy-truck driver injuries, and (2) to discuss the<br />implication of these estimates with respect to truck-driving conditions in the U.S. and China.<br />U.S. data showed that fatal or serious injuries of truck drivers are caused mainly by<br />rollover, collision with a light vehicle or another truck, or collision with fixed objects.<br />Rollover crashes account for most serious injuries, and pose the highest injury risk per crash.<br />By controlling for the difference in crash-type distributions between trucks and light vehicles<br />seatbelts were estimated to be about 58% effective in reducing truck-driver injuries—<br />comparable to the value for light vehicles. Airbags’ effectiveness was calculated to be about<br />6% for unbelted truck drivers and 4% for belted truck drivers—lower than that for light<br />vehicles, primarily because of the higher proportion of rollover injuries sustained by truck<br />drivers.<br />The main relevant difference between truck-driving conditions in the U.S. and China is<br />the seatbelt-use rate of truck drivers: greater than 70% in the U.S., but likely less than 10% in<br />China. This difference would likely reduce the true effectiveness of seatbelts. Therefore, it is<br />important to encourage Chinese truck drivers to wear seatbelts, because the effectiveness of<br />seatbelts at high use rates is much greater than that for airbags. In addition, the lower truck<br />traveling speeds in China would likely result in a lower percentage of truck rollover crashes<br />than in the U.S. Consequently, the effectiveness of both seatbelts and airbags in reducing truck<br />driver injuries may be slightly higher in China than in the U.S.
Details
- Database :
- OAIster
- Notes :
- United States, China, PDF, English
- Publication Type :
- Electronic Resource
- Accession number :
- edsoai.on1047981962
- Document Type :
- Electronic Resource