Automotive historians will remember the 1990's as the renaissance decade of automotive safety. During that decade occupant safety established itself as a leading marketing characteristic of motor vehicles. Vehicle crashworthiness as measured in standardized crash tests is currently ranked at equal level to quality, styling, ride and handling, and fuel economy. Auto manufacturers, government agencies, insurance underwriters, and the news media provide consumers with assessments of automotive safety.

Safety features such as energy absorbing front and side structures, air bags, seats with integrated seat belts, and various crash avoidance devices are just some of the safety features offered as standard equipment on many vehicles. Future safety devices may include “smart” safety devices that would protect occupants based on age, gender, location in the vehicle, and crash severity. The focus on vehicle safety, meaning structural crashworthiness and reduction in occupant fatalities and harm, will undoubtedly continue to sharpen during the next decades in response to consumer demands, increasing government regulation and globalization of the industry.

Over the past three decades, safety experts have published hundreds of research papers to address structural crashworthiness, restraint systems, and injury biomechanics. However, these are not available in a single source for quick reference. The objective of this book is to provide essential design safety information in a single publication for the convenience of the safety engineer.