Test and Evaluation Criteria for Side‐Impact Roadside Appurtenance Collisions

Abstract

Side‐impact collisions with roadside objects, such as trees, luminaires, signs, and guardrails, a serious type of accident, have not been adequately addressed by the roadside hardware testing community due to the difficulties of performing and evaluating such crash tests. During the past decade, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has developed procedures and criteria for performing side‐impact vehicle‐to‐vehicle crash tests. The present paper describes an effort to incorporate the latest side‐impact research from the vehicle crashworthiness community and to integrate it with the procedures and evaluation criteria used in designing roadside hardware. A 50 km/h full broadside impact at the center of the driver‐side door of a small two‐door 820‐kg passenger car is recommended for evaluating side‐impact performance with roadside objects. The recommendations contained in this paper provide useful test and evaluation criteria, and provide an unusual linkage between the criteria of the two principal crash‐testing groups that should foster an increased exchange of information and ideas.