At the AAAM conference this month, I presented an overview of findings from the first large-scale study of road vehicle passenger behavior. This was an update on a presentation I gave at the 2020 SAE Government-Industry meeting. The AAAM presentation is based on a publication in Traffic Injury Prevention focused on non-nominal postures. Currently, most evaluation and optimization of restraint systems is performed using crash test dummies (or computational versions of these dummies) seated in nominal postures, usually in the middle seat position with a seat back angle between 23 and 25 degrees. We have previously shown that abrupt vehicle maneuvers can shift passengers out of nominal positions, but the current research shows that passengers are sitting with their torsos rotated or leaned left or right more than 20% of the time. Non-nominal head postures, particularly looking down, are even more common. Although highly reclined postures were rare, passengers usually sat toward the rear of the seat track regardless of body size. The safety implications of these findings will be explored in future research.
October 2020
Front Passenger Posture and Naturalistic Behavior
