Pedestrian safety | Airbags

Every year, a large number of vulnerable road users (VRU’s) are killed in road traffic collisions, with a vast number seriously injured. In 2020, VRU’s accounted for 53% of all fatalities on UK roads, with pedestrians making up the largest proportion of this number at 24%. In pedestrian collisions, the most serious head injuries are often caused by the hard structures under the bonnet panel, the lower edge of the windscreen, and the A-pillars. Vehicle manufacturers have developed various technologies to attempt to avoid collisions with VRU’s such as AEB pedestrian detection systems, which automatically apply emergency braking when they detect the presence of a pedestrian ahead of the vehicle.

TRL Technical Series: Video Analysis | Calculating distance and speed

Video analysis is becoming an ever more important part of many investigations and there are a variety of different analysis methods and techniques that can be used. In this article we outline some of the potential ways to calculate distances travelled, as well as how we decide which analysis method to use, and why the time taken to analyse footage can seem to vary widely.

TRL Technical Series: Load Security

Most drivers are aware of the need to keep their vehicle in a roadworthy condition, renew insurance, keep up with vehicle maintenance and so on, but many overlook the importance of securing a load attached to the vehicle. In England each year, there are over 22,000 road related incidents involving load security on our motorways alone, with many more going unreported. Read our article on the common misconceptions around this topic here.

A history of impact biomechanics, Part 1 – from the Ancient Greeks to the 1970s

Read Part 1 of our History of Biomechanics series by Dr Ana Barbir, outlining the developments in this science all the way back from the Ancient Greeks through to the first computer simulations in the 1960s & 70s. Part 2 will follow in the new year to bring us up to the present day and will include more details of TRL’s input to this discipline over the years.