Rear seat safety focusing occupants from 3 years to 5th percentile female in frontal to side impacts, part 2

Purpose and goal

In line with the preceding project, the purpose is to understand real children in real traffic and to create knowledge, methods and tools aiming at real world protection for children in cars (focus on booster-seated children). Another purpose is to contribute to enforce Sweden as a hub in vehicle safety, and to strengthen Swedish industry and research. These purposes have been achieved through state-of-the art studies in combination with efficient dissemination and networking.

Expected results and effects

The overall goal is to protect real children in real traffic. The project has shown how the needs for the child deviate from today’s methods for evaluating boosters. The synthesis of the results emphasizes that the car and child restraint needs to cooperate, which also implies that realistic vehicle aspects are important when evaluating child restraints. The project has contributed to raise these issues internationally, which in the long run will reduce the number of injured child car passengers.

Planned approach and implementation

A combination of studies and methods are used in the project, including driving studies with children, maneuver studies with children and crash test dummies, real world data analysis, crash testing and simulations, and interaction with international researchers. The diversity of studies have facilitated to understand the needs for children in real traffic and the impact on their protection in a potential crash. Publications, including 2 PhD theses, and presentations at international meetings and conferences have enabled efficient goal achievement.