Review of Pedestrian Protection from Vehicle Impacts

Objective: The aim of this paper is to survey theresearch on pedestrian safety in vehicle-pedestrianimpacts and on the development of countermeasures.Methods: The literature review emphasized on thefollowing key aspects: injury epidemiology, injurymechanisms, tolerance levels, protection assessmenttechniques, and proposed safety counter-measures.Results: The current status of the knowledge andtechnology for pedestrian injury protection isdiscussed. The important gaps are identified.Conclusion: A cost-effective method for reducingpedestrian injury severity is modifying designs ofnew vehicles. Research priorities should focus onfatal head injuries and lower extremity injuriesrelated to functional impairment. It is necessary todevelop a more advanced pedestrian dummy andmathematical models to obtain a betterunderstanding of injury mechanisms. Only then caneffective counter-measures be proposed