New observations from real-world vehicle-pedestrian collisions in reducing ground related injury by controlling vehicle braking

Pedestrians suffer significant injuries from ground contact, but attempts to reduce them have been limited. A recent study using multi-body simulations showed ground contact injury may be improved by controlling vehicle braking. The aim of the study is to assesses whether controlled braking would be beneficial in real-world collisions. PC-Crash was used to reconstruct 150 freely available real-world vehicle pedestrian video collisions. Pairwise comparison of actual versus controlled braking was then performed for each case. Pedestrian injury evaluation metrics included head injury criterion HIC15 and pelvis contact force, and another metric named separation distance between the vehicle and pedestrian at the instant of ground contact was used to test the feasibility of external airbags for mitigating ground contact. Substantial head and pelvis injury reductions may be possible through the application of controlled braking. Full vehicle braking after first vehicle-pedestrian contact has little influence on overall pedestrian injury outcome. In controlled braking, an external semi-elliptic airbag with a range 2 m can prevent 83.1% ground contact (only 46.6% in actual cases) and there is a high probability (50%) that the available space to control braking is limited if the vehicle deviates from its original lane. Various kinematic explanations are presented, consistent with the principle that the vertical component of the impact on the ground can be reduced by controlling the vehicle braking. Despite the variation in real-world pedestrian collisions, controlled braking may generally provide a benefit for ground contact injuries.