Comparing motor-vehicle crash risk of EU and US vehicles
Journal article, 2018

Objective: This study examined the hypotheses that passenger vehicles meeting European Union (EU) safety standards have similar crashworthiness to United States (US) -regulated vehicles in the US driving environment, and vice versa. Methods: The first step involved identifying appropriate databases of US and EU crashes that include in-depth crash information, such as estimation of crash severity using Delta-V and injury outcome based on medical records. The next step was to harmonize variable definitions and sampling criteria so that the EU data could be combined and compared to the US data using the same or equivalent parameters. Logistic regression models of the risk of a Maximum injury according to the Abbreviated Injury Scale of 3 or greater, or fatality (MAIS3+F) in EU-regulated and US-regulated vehicles were constructed. The injury risk predictions of the EU model and the US model were each applied to both the US and EU standard crash populations. Frontal, near-side, and far-side crashes were analyzed together (termed “front/side crashes”) and a separate model was developed for rollover crashes. Results: For the front/side model applied to the US standard population, the mean estimated risk for the US-vehicle model is 0.035 (sd = 0.012), and the mean estimated risk for the EU-vehicle model is 0.023 (sd = 0.016). When applied to the EU front/side population, the US model predicted a 0.065 risk (sd = 0.027), and the EU model predicted a 0.052 risk (sd = 0.025). For the rollover model applied to the US standard population, the US model predicted a risk of 0.071 (sd = 0.024), and the EU model predicted 0.128 risk (sd = 0.057). When applied to the EU rollover standard population, the US model predicted a 0.067 risk (sd = 0.024), and the EU model predicted 0.103 risk (sd = 0.040). Conclusions: The results based on these methods indicate that EU vehicles most likely have a lower risk of MAIS3+F injury in front/side impacts, while US vehicles most likely have a lower risk of MAIS3+F injury in llroovers. These results should be interpreted with an understanding of the uncertainty of the estimates, the study limitations, and our recommendations for further study detailed in the report.

United States

Regulations

European Union

Statistical methods

Crash risk

Author

Carol Flannagan

University of Michigan

András Bálint

Chalmers, Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers (SAFER)

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Vehicle Safety

Kathleen D. Klinich

University of Michigan

Ulrich Sander

Chalmers, Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers (SAFER)

Autoliv AB

Miriam A. Manary

University of Michigan

Sophie Cuny

Centre Europeen d'etudes de Securite et d'analyse des Risquesc (CEESAR)

Michael McCarthy

TRL Limited

Vuthy Phan

Centre Europeen d'etudes de Securite et d'analyse des Risquesc (CEESAR)

Caroline Wallbank

TRL Limited

Paul E. Green

University of Michigan

Bo Sui

Autoliv AB

Chalmers, Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers (SAFER)

Å. Forsman

Chalmers, Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers (SAFER)

The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI)

Helen Fagerlind

Chalmers, Mechanics and Maritime Sciences (M2), Vehicle Safety

Chalmers, Vehicle and Traffic Safety Centre at Chalmers (SAFER)

Accident Analysis and Prevention

0001-4575 (ISSN)

Vol. 117 392-397

Subject Categories

Transport Systems and Logistics

Vehicle Engineering

Probability Theory and Statistics

DOI

10.1016/j.aap.2018.01.003

More information

Latest update

8/13/2020