Occupant Injuries in Frontal Crashes by Age, Weight and BMI

The paper used NASS/CDS to examine the distribution of belted front seat occupants exposed to frontal crashes and the resulting injured at the MAIS 3+ severity level. The data was subdivided by occupant weight, BMI, and age. Further subdivisions by gender and crash severity were included. The age effect was most pronounced. Injury risk for all ages increases with delta-V. However, exposure at higher speeds is lower for occupants over 35 years old than for the younger population. Occupants under 35 experience the highest number of injuries in higher speed crashes while injuries to older occupants are more uniformly distributed. About 17% of the occupants with MAIS 3+ injuries were 55 and older and were also in low or moderate severity crashes. The increasing weight and BMI of the US population was also evident in the data. Occupants weighing more than 205 lbs. in higher severity frontal crashes accounted for about 7% of the of the belted front seat occupants with MAIS 3+ injuries. Another 9.5% weighed between 175 and 205 lbs.