common type of crash?

[steph]

I remember a post about the most common type of vehicle crashes (i.e. rear, side, front). Does anyone have info or a link?

Thanks

[papooses]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0603/scatterbunny/angle468.gif

Also, specific to lateral/side impacts: % can flip-flop or otherwise alter ... they're really pretty equivalent as far as Driver "vs" Passenger sides.

http://www.safecarguide.com/img/angle468NEW.gif

The number of impacts varies a lot from all reportable crashes to just those that involved fatalties. Rear end crashes are usually well under 10% of all crashes when a fatality is invoved, but the number goes up quite a bit when you consider all crashes.

There are also dozens of other variables you can use to produce different results and these simple graphics don't give any of that information. Year-to-year variations often change the numbers, such as driver side vs. passenger side. You can produce your own query here for fatal crashes:

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/queryReport.cfm?stateid=0&year=2005

This might also help > http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=9208

[Robert]

As you can see the frontal crash is the most common. That is why we protect children from frontal crashes. When you think about it, in almost every crash, someone has sustained frontend damage. Rarely do two vehicles have rearend damage and when they do its in a parking lot where a vehicle backed into another and that is a low speed impact. Side impact crashes are the most deadly. Are bodies are designed for an impact from the side and there is less protection from the side.

[CPSDarren]

I just wanted to add that the numbers for frontal crashes are usually head-on crashes (whether full width or offset), though again this can vary with the study. For example, a front-to-rear crash would not count as both frontal and rear crashes, but only a rear crash in most results. Similarly, front-to-side t-bone crashes would typically be counted only as a side impact for reporting purposes.