Inherent uncertainty in pedestrian collision reconstruction: How evidence variability affects head kinematics and injury prediction

Claire Baker, Phil Martin, A Montemeglio, Rui Li, Mark H. Wilson, David Sharp, Mazdak Ghajari

Accident Analysis & Prevention, 2024

Abstract

• Mean contact force from the head-vehicle interaction predicted skull vault fracture presence at different locations. • Mean peak rotational acceleration from the head-vehicle interaction predicted subdural haemorrhage presence. • A greater range of risk curves are needed to assess risk of different types of intracranial haemorrhage. • Across the study simulations, the ground impact produced greater variation in head kinematics than the vehicle impact. • Varying ground landing kinematics could be grouped by mechanisms that produced different head contact forces. • Inherent uncertainty in collision data should be accounted for in reconstructions and injury risk curve creation and use. Reconstructing individual cases from real-world collision data is used as a tool to better understand injury biomechanics and determine injury thresholds. However, real-world data tends to have inherent uncertainty within parameters, such as ranges of impact speed, pre-impact pedestrian stance or pedestrian anthropometric characteristics. The implications of this input parameter uncertainty on the conclusions made from case reconstruction about injury biomechanics and risk is not well investigated,…

Cite as (BibTeX)

@article{baker-2024-inherent-uncertainty-in-pedestrian,
  title={Inherent uncertainty in pedestrian collision reconstruction: How evidence variability affects head kinematics and injury prediction},
  author={Claire Baker and Phil Martin and A Montemeglio and Rui Li and Mark H. Wilson and David Sharp and Mazdak Ghajari},
  journal={Accident Analysis & Prevention},
  year={2024},
  doi={10.1016/j.aap.2024.107726}
}