Observations relating to rear seat belt performance in severe frontal collisions

摘要

As a follow-up study to the 1997 Warner et. al. paper [Warner, 1997] the authors evaluated the fatal injury rates for rear outboard seat occupants wearing two-point and three-point restraint systems. The study was updated to include an additional year of FARS data. Identification of restraint type worn by rear seat occupants was made using vehicle identification numbers for over 9600 occupants in vehicles contained in 1987-1996 FARS data. This study confirms the previous conclusion that in severe frontal collisions the fatal injury rates in the rear outboard seat environment for lap and lap/shoulder belts are about the same.