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Motor Vehicle Impact Injury Mechanisms in Children

There are a number of issues relating to the use of child restraint systems in motor vehicles. Seats are often not used correctly, i.e. are wrongly placed or fastened, or are inappropriate for the weight and height of the child. In addition there have been a number of cases where air bags had the unintended effect of injuries which resulted directly from their deployment during an accident. Similarly the use of safety belts without booster seats has resulted in direct injuries. The study will allow a monitoring of the performance of FMVSS213 and the identification of problems in the current standards.

In order to determine priorities and issues in Crashworthiness research, data must be collected about types of crashes and the resulting injuries that occur on the highways of the United States. Other organizations within R&D collect and analyze such statistics. Among these data collection activities are the programs within the National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) such as the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS), the General Estimates System (GES), and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), and approximately 12 years worth of data from 26 states on crashes. CIREN is acquiring a wealth of more detailed injury data in conjunction with crash investigations using Level 1 trauma centers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC, the William Lehman Injury Research Center in Miami, Florida, the National Study Center for Trauma and EMS/ R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, Maryland, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center in Seattle, Washington, the San Diego County Trauma System in San Diego, California, the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the University of Alabama at Birmingham in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Inova Regional Trauma Center at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia.

Read more from the NHTSA article Motor Vehicle Impact Injury Mechanisms in Children