Khurshid A Mattoo^1,, Gurpreet Singh²

Most of the vehicles that are involved in accidents suffer from so called second harmful effects rather than the primary collision itself, especially in cases of a shunt or a high speed spin. Secondary harmful, effects not only damage more, they also increase the severity of passenger injuries. The aims and objectives of this study were to evaluate the fatal injuries to the passenger with the initial impact along with the prevalence of multiple impacts. 100 light motor vehicles (LMV) involved in primary collision with other vehicles having clear evidence of multiple impacts and having brought serious injuries to its passengers were selected from a total of 250 crashed vehicles. Criteria for severe injuries caused were, according to AIS or MAIS scale. The study objects were divided into four groups (1 impact, 2 impact, 3 impact and 4 or more impacts) under one class and another 4 groups (frontal, side, rear and multiple) under second class. Results show that 40% of the vehicles had caused serious or fatal injuries with most frequent of impact being side of the vehicle (37%). Besides further research in vehicle safety, the study concludes that present testing of vehicles in laboratories does not comply with actual impacts.

collision, rollover, drifting, steering control, car spin and shunt