Do Seniors Suffer Substantially Different Injuries in an Accident? Toyota Wants To Know
Tim Esterdahl | Dec 20, 2011 | Comments 3
Automobile safety has advanced in leaps and bounds since the early days of motoring, but room for improvement still exists. Studies conducted by large automobile manufacturers such as Toyota continue to search for ways to reduce the risk of injury to drivers and passengers in accidents. A recent study conducted by Japanese researchers found that seniors were more likely to suffer abdominal injuries in an accident.
Toyota has joined up with Virginia Tech University to determine whether seniors suffer different accident injuries.
Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center was opened in January 2011 to promote automobile safety through research not only into the way accidents impact people in cars, but also into the way people drive and their impact on accidents. The Virginia Tech University study is not the only collaboration Toyota has underway with major universities. Toyota’s Collaborative Safety Research Center has started or prepared to start 17 studies with 12 institutions of higher learning since its inception.
Because testers can’t use real people for their experiments, the use of virtual human models such as Toyota’s Total Human Model for Safety (THUMS) and of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s THOR-NT crash test dummy allows researcher to accurately measure forces during impact which will lead to safety improvements.
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Filed Under: Auto News
Toyota has to look into this. I’m sure most seniors buy the Lexus models and safety has to be a concern or they could lose the customers.
A new study found that when senior drivers are prescribed an antidepressant along with a sedative/hypnotic drug, they face a 23 per cent higher risk of being in a motor vehicle crash.
Because senior citizens are generally in poorer health and more frail than younger people, drivers 65 and older are at much greater risk of serious injury or death when they do have an accident, according to the study report Senior drivers are nearly seven times more likely than younger drivers to be killed in car accidents.