SIDE IMPACTS AND LAP-SASH BELTS

In-depth studies in New South Wales of car crashes involving the death of a seat belt wearer led to the conclusion that well designed lap/sash belt systems provide very good protection in frontal crashes and rollovers except where a truck tray or some other object originally outside the subject's car enters the space occupied by the wearer's head. Side impacts with other cars and fixed roadside objects present the main problem, even to seat belt wearers, by producing impact of the head with invading objects or with unyielding parts of the subject's car. When a fatality occurs in such crashes, it is nearly always at the seating position immediately at the point of impact. Death usually involves head injury. Utility poles were the roadside objects most often involved in the death of seat belt wearers. In car-to-car side impacts which, like pole impacts, often arose from loss of control by the driver of the side-impacted car, head impact with the intruding door (especially the window ledge) appeared to be a relatively frequent mechanism of fatal injury. In truck-to-car crashes, the bonnet was often pushed into head space, with fatal results.(a) /TRRL/

  • Corporate Authors:

    New South Wales Dept of Motor Transport, Australia

    Traffic Accident Research Unit, Rothschild Avenue Roseberry
    Sydney, New South Wales 2018,   Australia 
  • Authors:
    • Herbert, D C
    • Wyllie, J M
    • Corben, C W
  • Publication Date: 1975

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 78 p.

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 00157361
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Source Agency: Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL)
  • Report/Paper Numbers: Report No. 5/75 Monograph
  • Files: ITRD, TRIS, ATRI
  • Created Date: Oct 13 1977 12:00AM