Small-Overlap Frontal Impacts Involving Passenger Cars in Germany

Small-overlap frontal impacts involving passenger cars have again become a topic of discussion among specialists, and more recently among the public at large. The publication of relevant test results by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has triggered questions with respect to the relevance of these collisions to accident situations and with respect to the conclusions that can be drawn and any measures to be implemented. And yet this type of collision is not something that is unknown. On the contrary, among experts, it has been a matter for discussion for decades. One will, for instance, find information and the findings from investigations at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Steyr-Daimler-Puch and Autoliv. In Germany also, the question of how relevant small- overlap frontal impact collisions are and what the consequences of this type of collision are is currently being raised. In an attempt to clarify this, the UDV (German Insurers Accident Research) has carried out a comprehensive set of analyses using its accident database (UDB). The UDB contains a representative sample of all damage claims in Germany (all types of road users) and currently covers more than 5,000 third-party motor insurance claims from the years 2002 through 2009. All the accidents in this database involve personal injury and damage costs of €15,000 or more. The objective of the current data analysis was to place small-overlap frontal impacts in the context of all collisions involving passenger cars and to derive the characteristics of such collisions on the basis of detailed accident parameters. In addition, the patterns of injury were analyzed and compared with those resulting from other collision scenarios. The findings described in this paper are based on the retrospective analysis of 3,242 accidents involving passenger cars. 60% of these accidents (n=1,930) were frontal impacts and 15% (n=485) involved at least one passenger car with a small overlap at the front of the car. The present paper provides evidence of the relevance of small-overlap frontal impacts to the accident situation in Germany and, in the opinion of the authors, justifies efforts to implement counter- measures. In this context, active systems should also play a greater role in the future.