SEAT BACK FAILURE IN ROLLOVER & REAR END COLLISIONS
In
a rollover accident the vehicle occupants are faced with a variety of
dangers including injuries from the roof collapsing, roof pillars failing,
seatbelts unlatching, headrests / head restraints not protecting
,airbags failing to deploy, the seatback collapsing and seat back hinges
fracturing under load.
The
goal of product design in the automotive industry is to design a safety system,
which reduces injuries, not one that can enhance or aggravate injuries.
Unfortunately many seating systems cause as many or more injuries then
they prevent.
 In
front-end crashes, the vehicle’s forward movement is abruptly stopped, and
seat belts and air bags keep the occupants from hurling forward.
The goal is to maintain the occupant in an upright position and to
prevent the body from striking hard surfaces and other occupants or from being
ejected.
When a car is struck from the rear or in a rollover, the forces work in the
opposite direction. The car is then
abruptly propelled forward, and occupants are thrown backward.
The safety objective of a seat back is to remain upright while cushioning
and containing the occupant’s body.
If the seat back collapses, the occupant can be ejected or lose control of the
vehicle and be exposed to otherwise avoidable multiple crashes.
The occupant can also be hurled into the vehicle’s rigid interior
structures or other occupants. The
collapsed seat back can make it difficult for crash victims to get out of the
car, an especially hazardous defect when a fuel system has ruptured and a
vehicle is on fire.
In
real world, low-speed, rear-impact crashes, flimsy seat backs have failed to
provide adequate protection. Fully
investigated “fender bender” cases dramatically demonstrate that seat back
failures in low-impact accidents have resulted in severe or fatal injuries. Poorly
designed adjustable head restraints add  the
hazard because they can be adjusted flush with the top of the seat back,
allowing the occupant’s heads to pivot over the headrest.
This can cause severe spinal injury, even quadriplegia.
The importance of seat rigidity in rear-impact crashes has been known for many
years. Studies show the industry
was well aware of the need for properly designed seat backs as early as the
1960’s.
After conducting an extensive test program of
rear-impact collisions, a researcher conducted in 1968 that
:
Rigid seat backs assure more effective support of the occupant during rear-end
collisions, providing the seat back support is high enough to also resist
rearward movement of the head. Conversely,
a seat that yields appreciably rearward places the motorist in a semi-reclined
posture that may serve to attenuate some of the injury-producing forces but at
the same time adversely displaces the motorist to high elevations relative to
the seat back, thereby reducing the measure of support that may be derived.
Non-catastrophic injuries to the head and neck have also been documented in
engineering and scientific literature. These
injuries are exacerbated by poor seat back construction, including poorly
designed headrests.
In
1967, the agency promulgated FMVSS 207, which calls for a static loading test
for seats and seat backs. The test
simply requires that an empty seat be attached to a pulley and a static load 20
times the empty seat weight is applied with minimal rearward bending.
For example, an empty seat that weighs 10 pounds is required to withstand
a static load of only 200 pounds before collapsing.
FMVSS 202, adopted in 1968, similarly sets static loading limits for
headrests.
As cars have become lighter to meet fuel economy requirements, so have car
seats. The result has been a
corresponding reduction in the minimal level of protection provided by a grossly
inadequate standard.
While
seat belts and shoulder harnesses are required to meet dynamic crash test
conditions in which the test vehicle collides with a concrete wall at 30 miles
per hour, no similar requirements exists for the seat back in rear-impact
collisions. Tests dramatically
illustrate how a seat back can collapse in a real world, rear-impact crash and
still meet the performance requirements of FMVSS 207.Virtually every front seat
produced by General Motors from 1970- mid1990’s was designed to collapse
rearward in impact in which there was a speed change of 15 miles per hour or
greater. In fact, GM’s own tests
document this seat collapse in crash tests. When
an occupant is rear-ended at a speed greater then the 15 miles per hour
threshold, then the seat back collapses ramping the occupant to increase chances
of spinal, neck and head injuries, resulting in paralysis.
SEAT
BACK FAILURES IN ROLLOVER & REAR-END COLLISION ACCIDENTS
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