OCCUPANT SAFETY AND DAMAGEABILITY CONSIDERATIONS RELATED TO THE 1974 AUTOMOBILE BUMPERS

This paper reports on research which examined the effectiveness of 1974 automobile bumpers in terms of occupant safety and automobile damageability. Static and dynamic tests were performed by attaching a height measuring device on the front and rear bumpers of 1974 domestic automobiles. The static test results showed effective bumper height match. The dynamic test results showed that 21% of bumpers could mismatch when the rear (colliding) vehicle is pitched due to braking and 77% of bumpers could mismatch when both vehicles are pitched due to braking. Occupant safety is discussed in terms of both the positive and negative effects of the new bumpers for all collision speeds. The effect on override/underride collision frequency and passive restraint (air bag) system activation is examined. The tradeoffs of decreased frequency of damage to vehicles and increased costs to replace the new bumpers when they are damaged in high speed collisions are discussed. Conclusions are that any resultant gain in occupant safety as a result of the new bumpers is debatable and that there are no significant overall economic gains at this time. In addition, existing regulations that will become operative in the near future do not appear to provide an effective solution because of the multiplicity of factors which are involved.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • Presented at the Conference of the SAE Automobile Engineering Meeting, 21-25 October 1974, Toronta, Canada.
• Corporate Authors:

  Society of Automotive Engineers

  485 Lexington Avenue
  New York, NY  United States  10017
• Authors:
  • Appleby, M R
• Publication Date: 1974

Media Info

• Features: Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 5 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bumpers; Crashworthiness; Dynamic tests; Height; Rear end crashes; Static tests; Underride override crashes; Vehicle occupants; Vehicle safety
• Old TRIS Terms: Vehicular safety
• Subject Areas: Highways; Passenger Transportation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00080398
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Highway Safety Research Institute
• Report/Paper Numbers: SAE 740989
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Feb 27 1975 12:00AM