title: Situations of car-to-pedestrian contact.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To reduce the severity of injuries and the number of pedestrian deaths in traffic accidents, active safety devices providing pedestrian detection are considered effective countermeasures. The features of car-to-pedestrian collisions need to be known in detail to develop such safety devices.
  
  
  METHODS
  Because information on real-world accidents is limited, this study investigated near-miss situations captured by drive recorders installed in passenger cars. We showed similarities of the contact situation between near-miss incidents and real-world fatal pedestrian accidents in Japan. We analyzed the near-miss incident data via video capturing pedestrians crossing the road in front of forward-moving cars. Using a video frame captured by a drive recorder, the time to collision (TTC) was calculated from the car velocity and the distance between the car and pedestrian at the moment that the pedestrian initially appeared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The average TTC in the cases where pedestrians were not using a pedestrian crossing was shorter than that in the cases where pedestrians were using a pedestrian crossing. The average TTC in the cases where pedestrians emerged from behind obstructions was shorter than that in the cases where drivers had unobstructed views of the pedestrians.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We propose that the specifications of the safety device for pedestrian detection and automatic braking should reflect the severe approach situation for a pedestrian and car including the TTC observed for near-miss incidents.
authors.affiliation: Vehicle Safety Research Department, National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory, Tokyo, Japan. ymatsui@ntsel.go.jp
authors.forename: Yasuhiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Matsui
authors.forename: Masahito
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hitosugi
authors.forename: Kunio
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takahashi
authors.forename: Tsutomu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Doi
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000401:mortality / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D011482:Protective Devices; D011996:Records; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D016138:Walking / Q000293:injuries*; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control