Crashworthiness Basics

Though auto safety improves as technology advances, thousands of people still sustain injuries or die because of the failure of auto manufacturers to fully ensure the crashworthiness of their vehicles. From an engineering perspective, crashworthiness is the ability of the vehicle to prevent occupant injuries in the event of an accident. Crashworthiness deals primarily with the 'second collision' in which the driver and passengers collide against the interior of the vehicle. Most Americans are familiar with the more notorious vehicles, such as the Pinto, but few realize the nature and scope of the problem. Millions of defective vehicles remain on America's roads, capable of causing death and severe injuries in otherwise survivable accidents.

The technical definition of crashworthiness serves as a foundation for the legal doctrine of crashworthiness or enhanced injury theory. For over thirty years, the courts have allowed consumers to sue carmakers when a design or manufacturing defect in their vehicle caused death or injury. The crashworthiness doctrine recognizes that collisions are "statistically inevitable" and that car manufacturers have a duty to eliminate unreasonable risks of harm during accidents. The focus in a crashworthiness case is not on the cause of the accident but, rather, what caused the injury.

Often in litigation involving a crashworthiness claim, the cause of the accident is irrelevant even if the severity of the accident is an issue. Courts assess severity independently of the cause of the accident. Severity is recorded in steel and sheet metal damage for the most part. Preceding events involving human action and even mechanical failures that produced the damage are not relevant for determining crashworthiness.

The questions of vehicle crashworthiness include consideration such as: Given the injury mechanisms of an accident, and typically some measure of its severity, could the occupants of the vehicle have fared better than they did? Did the vehicle lack some feature that would have reduced passengers' injuries? Is it reasonable to expect the manufacturer to include such a feature on the vehicle in question?

Crashworthiness differs from vehicle safety. As a result, one should use care in distinguishing the two topics. A vehicle's safety depends both on crashworthiness and accident avoidance features. Accident avoidance features include antilock braking systems (ABS), good handling characteristics, oversize tires, and rollover risks. People frequently confuse safety and crashworthiness to the detriment of those raising the crashworthiness issue. A vehicle might be statistically safer than most and still have a significant crashworthiness defect. It could even conceivably rate less crashworthy than most, while remaining a "safer" vehicle. This is because vehicle crashworthiness depends on designed in features as well as equipment specifications. A given vehicle either has these features or it doesn't regardless of its accident or injury rates.

Crashworthiness features must minimize second collision (occupant into vehicle interior) forces, prevent ejection and reduce fire risk. A typical list of crashworthiness features includes air bags, seat belts, crumple zones, side impact protection, interior padding and head rests. These features may or may not be present in a particular vehicle and may or may not work if present. These features have been available since the early 1970's, yet many are still not found in vehicles produced in the 1990's. Federal law mandates these features to some extent. Some are mandated by Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards statute to one degree or another. Gradually the federal government upgrades these standards to include all of the items listed above as well as other features long known to ensure occupant safety.

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