Estimation of seatbelt and frontal-airbag effectiveness in trucks : U.S. and Chinese perspectives.

Details

• Creators:
  Hu, Jingwen ; Blower, Daniel
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Michigan. Transportation Research Institute
• Corporate Contributors:
  University of Michigan. Sustainable Worldwide Transportation
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Medium trucks
  • Heavy duty trucks
  • Truck crashes
  • Seat belts
  • Air bags
  • Crash injuries
  • Rollover crashes
  • Truck drivers
  • Injury rates
  • Truck accidents--United States
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  UMTRI-2013-2
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; China
• Corporate Publisher:
  University of Michigan
• Abstract:
  The objectives of this study were (1) to estimate the effectiveness of seatbelts and driver ; airbags for mitigating medium- and heavy-truck driver injuries, and (2) to discuss the ; implication of these estimates with respect to truck-driving conditions in the U.S. and China. ; U.S. data showed that fatal or serious injuries of truck drivers are caused mainly by ; rollover, collision with a light vehicle or another truck, or collision with fixed objects. ; Rollover crashes account for most serious injuries, and pose the highest injury risk per crash. ; By controlling for the difference in crash-type distributions between trucks and light vehicles, ; seatbelts were estimated to be about 58% effective in reducing truck-driver injuries— ; comparable to the value for light vehicles. Airbags’ effectiveness was calculated to be about ; 6% for unbelted truck drivers and 4% for belted truck drivers—lower than that for light ; vehicles, primarily because of the higher proportion of rollover injuries sustained by truck ; drivers. ; The main relevant difference between truck-driving conditions in the U.S. and China is ; the seatbelt-use rate of truck drivers: greater than 70% in the U.S., but likely less than 10% in ; China. This difference would likely reduce the true effectiveness of seatbelts. Therefore, it is ; important to encourage Chinese truck drivers to wear seatbelts, because the effectiveness of ; seatbelts at high use rates is much greater than that for airbags. In addition, the lower truck ; traveling speeds in China would likely result in a lower percentage of truck rollover crashes ; than in the U.S. Consequently, the effectiveness of both seatbelts and airbags in reducing truck ; driver injuries may be slightly higher in China than in the U.S.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/25639/dot_25639_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 331.15 KB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c08f08009376238f5d9fbffc73c5c3f099d54aa86e9d5397d8f3e5262d2e4fa755d6022aaa534937faa0c75ad03cca764173e2e678d9684ec7af85d1e10384c6