Impact phase in frontal vehicle-pedestrian collisions

The paper presents an alternative model developed in order to determine the pedestrian throw distance, taking into account ten distinct parameters. The collision dynamics, after the primary and secondary impact (pedestrian’s head hitting the vehicle windshield-hood area) between the vehicle and the pedestrian, entails the pedestrian ‘carrying’ phase onto the vehicle hood-windshield. Other parameters influencing the pedestrian throw distance, such as road inclination, friction coefficient between the pedestrian and the ground, vehicle and pedestrian mass, pedestrian launch angle are considered for the analysis. A comparison between the results obtained through the formula proposed in this paper and the results obtained by other researchers as well as a comparison with the results extracted from the casuistry analyzed by the authors on both accident reconstruction and laboratory tests is carried out.