title: [Pedestrian head injury biomechanics and damage mechanism. Pedestrian protection automotive regulation assessment].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Pedestrian-vehicle collisions are a leading cause of death among motor vehicle accidents. Recently, pedestrian injury research has been increased, mostly due to the implementation of European and Japanese regulations. This research presents an analysis of the main head injury vehicle sources and injury mechanisms observed in the field, posteriorly the data are compared with the current pedestrian regulations.
  
  
  METHODS
  The analysis has been performed through an epidemiologic transversal and descriptive study, using the Pedestrian Crash Data Study (PCDS) involving 552 pedestrians, sustaining a total of 4.500 documented injuries.
  
  
  RESULTS
  According to this research, the hood surface is responsible for only 15,1% of all the head injuries. On the other hand, the windshield glazing is responsible for 41,8%. In case of sedan vehicles the head impact location exceeds what is expected in the current regulation, and therefore no countermeasures are applied. From all the head injuries sustained by the pedestrians just 20% have the linear acceleration as isolated injury mechanism, 40% of the injuries are due to rotational acceleration.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this research, the importance of the rotational acceleration as injury mechanism, in case of pedestrian-vehicle collision is highlighted. In the current pedestrian regulation just the linear acceleration is addressed in the main injury criteria used for head injury prediction.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ingeniería Mecánica, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Barcelona-Tech, Barcelona, España; Center for Applied Biomechanics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, EE. UU.. Electronic address: carlos.arregui@upc.edu.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Arregui-Dalmases
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Patología Forense, Instituto de Medicina Legal de Catalunya, IMLC, Barcelona, España.
authors.forename: M Carmen
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Rebollo-Soria
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Resistencia de Materiales y estructuras en Ingeniería, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Barcelona-Tech, Barcelona, España.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sanchez-Molina
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Resistencia de Materiales y estructuras en Ingeniería, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Barcelona-Tech, Barcelona, España.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Velazquez-Ameijide
authors.affiliation: Instituto Navarro de Medina Legal, Gobierno de Navarra, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Navarra, España.
authors.lastname: Teijeira Alvarez
mesh_terms: D000054:Acceleration; D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D001336:Automobiles; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004867:Equipment Design; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008348:Manikins; D000069636:Pedestrians; D012399:Rotation; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Aceleración rotacional; Atropello; Biomechanics; Biomecánica; Head injury; Pedestrian collision; Pedestrian protection; Protección de peatones; Rotational acceleration; Traumatismo cráneo-encefálico