Driver and front seat passenger fatalities associated with air bag deployment. Part 2: A review of injury patterns and investigative issues

Assessment of the role of air bag deployment in injury causation in a crash of any severity requires analysis of occupant, vehicle, and impact data. The potential injurious role of an air bag is independent of crash severity and is more obvious in minor collisions, particularly those involving "out-of-position" occupants. Factors such as occupant height and other constitutional and medical factors, intoxication, age, type, and proper use of other restraint systems, pre-impact braking and multiple impacts can contribute to an occupant being "out-of-position." Two injury mechanisms are described in out-of-position occupants: "punch-out" when the individual covers the air bag module before deployment and "membrane-force" when the occupant contacts a partly deployed air bag. Each mechanism is associated with injury patterns. In adults, "punch-out" can cause thoraco-abdominal trauma and "membrane-force" loading can lead to craniocervical injury. This can also occur in short-statured occupants including children subjected to both types of loading. In more severe collisions, other factors, e.g., intrusion, steering column and seatbelt loading and other occupant compartment contacts, can contribute to trauma.     

RHODES' CONTRIBUTION TO GOVERNANCE THEORY: PRAISE,CRITICISM AND THE FUTURE GOVERNANCE DEBATE

This article discusses Rod Rhodes' contribution to governance theory. Rod Rhodes' work on governance has been much quoted. He has contributed to setting a new governance agenda and to an ongoing governance debate. This debate has also had an impact on political practice. However, as this paper argues, Rhodes' definition of governance is problematic in that it is narrowly identified with networks, and it is not consistently applied. Rhodes' concept of governance remains too narrow for it to be able to include a comparative analysis of a variation of governance forms. In addition, the governance concept needs to be equipped with tools from political economy in order be able to incorporate important aspects of interests, power and conflict. The way forward for governance theory would seem to involve the inclusion of political economy analysis of context as it affects beliefs and dilemmas.     

Driver and front seat passenger fatalities associated with air bag deployment. Part 1: A Canadian study

Real world motor vehicle collision research of injuries due to deployment of "first-generation" air bags has been conducted by Transport Canada since 1993. Fifty-three fatal crashes (36 frontal impacts; 17 side collisions) involving 48 drivers and 10 right front passengers were reviewed. In the Canadian data, air bag deployment in five of nine low severity frontal crashes (delta-V (deltaV) < 25 km/h or 15 mph) was linked to five deaths, four of whom were autopsied (four adults with craniocervical (basal skull and C2 fracture with brainstem avulsion; "closed head injury"--no autopsy) or chest trauma (aortic or pulmonary artery tears); one child with atlanto-occipital dislocation). An occupant who is close ("out-of-position") to the air bag at the time of deployment is at risk for injury. In 27 high severity frontal impacts, unusual (e.g., pulmonary "blast" hemorrhage in one autopsied case) or isolated potentially survivable injuries (e.g., clinically documented ruptured right atrium; probable flail chest observed during the autopsy on a decomposed body) localized to the head, neck or chest in three possibly out-of-position drivers pointed to the deployed air bag as a source of injury. In one of 17 side collisions an out-of-position driver sustained a radiographically confirmed C1-C2 dislocation in a minimally intruded vehicle.