Vehicle-to-Vehicle Rear Crashes in China - A Study of Accident Characteristics to Provide Input to Active Safety System Design

To develop an AEB assessment method working well in Chinese real world traffic situation, it is necessary to under-stand the detailed accident characteristics about ve-hicle-to-vehicle rear end crashes based on Chinese real world accident data. Therefore, the objective of this study was to understand the vehicle-to-vehicle rear end accident characteristics in detail, focusing on parameters important for design of active safety systems. Two current Chinese real world accident data-bases were queried for vehicle-to-vehicle rear end crashes. In total, 102 cases were selected for further detailed study regarding accident scene, lighting conditions (daytime and night), target vehicle status before the crash, and crash offset. In Chinese real world rear end accidents with passenger car as rear (striking) vehicle, passenger cars and trucks are most common collision opponents. The car-to-truck accident is the most severe rear end accident type, since under-ride occurs frequently. To protect more occupants in passenger cars in rear end accidents, more attention should be paid on the car-to-truck rear end accidents. A possible effective countermeasure is an AEB system able to detect both cars and trucks, trucks preferably also in night conditions.