Reconstruction of Accidents Involving Highway Barriers

F. Navin; R. Klymchuk; D. Romilly; R. Thomson

doi:10.4271/930656

1993-03-01

Reconstruction of Accidents Involving Highway Barriers 930656

The reconstructionist is often faced with quantifying potential areas of measurement in order to determine pre-impact conditions, usually vehicle speed. Police reports provide only a limited amount of information that is useful in reconstructing roadside impact accidents. Physical evidence is the most reliable source of data for reconstruction and it is such evidence that is the concern of the analysis in this paper. The evidence normally available to determine pre-impact conditions are tire mark measurements, vehicle crush profiles and momentum debris.

The full scale crash tests on which this report is based focused on the performance of a segmented concrete barrier used along the highways of British Columbia. The barriers are similar to those used along many construction zones of the U.S. The opportunity was taken during a number of the tests to make a detailed record of the vehicle damage. The purpose of these vehicle damage measurements was to investigate how well vehicle damage could be related to the original test impact conditions. The main pre-impact condition of interest in many situations is speed.

SAE MOBILUS

Subscribers can view annotate, and download all of SAE's content. Learn More »

Access SAE MOBILUS »

Digital $37.00 Print $37.00

Preview Document

We also recommend:

Standards

SAE Mobilus®

Publications

News

Events

Professional Development

A World in Motion (PreK-12)

Participate with SAE

SAE Membership

Donate

Reconstruction of Accidents Involving Highway Barriers 930656

SAE MOBILUS