Heavy-Vehicle Crash Data Collection and Analysis to Characterize Rear and Side Underride and Front Override in Fatal Truck Crashes.

摘要

For crash years 2008 and 2009, the Trucks Involved in Fatal Accidents (TIFA) survey, conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), collected a set of information related to underride guards and rear underride in the crashes. The information covered two areas. The first area covered the physical dimensions of the rearmost unit of all the trucks in the crashes. For straight trucks, this is for the rear of the truck itself. For combination vehicles, the dimensions collected were for the back end of the last trailer in the combination. The information collected characterizes the physical structure of the rear of the vehicle, to determine the opportunity for underride. The second area covered information about the nature and extent of any underride that may have occurred in cases where the rear of the truck was struck in the crash. In addition, two other tasks were accomplished. The first additional task was to estimate impact speeds for fatal rear-end crashes by light vehicles where there was sufficient information. The data collected here includes estimated relative velocity, the mass of the striking vehicle, and the front geometry of the striking vehicle.