IRCOBI: Passenger Head Locations

At the annual IRCOBI conference in Porto, I presented two short communications based on our work in the Biosciences group. Using data from two previous studies, I presented a statistical model of front-passenger head location. A large amount of work from our lab and others has quantified driver head location, and to a lesser extent head locations in second-row, fixed seats, but no prior studies have presented empirical data on front passenger head location. I combined seat position and seat back angle data from a recent naturalistic study conducted in 75 vehicles with volunteer data from a lab study. For this injury biomechanics conference, I compared the head locations of the ATDs used in crash testing with the actual passenger head locations (in nominal postures). Of course, we've previously documented the large range of non-nominal postures and the effects of abrupt vehicle maneuvers on passenger postures. The range of likely pre-crash passenger postures is much larger than the range used in regulatory and consumer information testing.