Impact and Movement of Pedestrians in Frontal Collisions with Vehicles

Abstract

The movement of pedestrians after frontal impact with vehicles and the inter-relationship between pedestrian throw distance and the pre-impact velocity of the vehicle is of interest in accident reconstruction. This paper derives a single-segment rigid-body model for the primary and secondary impacts between the pedestrian and the vehicle. Published data on staged collisions involving horizontal flight are used to derive pedestrian-ground friction coefficients and show that the friction coefficient decreases with increasing speed. The analysis shows that for horizontal flight the throw distances of adults and children are similar. For impacts with cars the model for primary and secondary impact yields calculated throw distances that closely match published results for staged collisions between cars and dummies and cadavers.