I believe this originated with the BSI or some such
organisation which tests safety of various products.
They did tests with crash dummies and calculated the
number of excess deaths due to bullbars. Unfortunately
there are problems with this. While the adult crash
dummies are very accurate in predicting likely
patterns of injury (but not perfect) the current child
dummies are far from good in this respect. They are in
effect scaled down adults because the data for
children just doesn't exist. This highlights a problem
with differences between in vivo and in vitro testing.
Once had to go to court with a child abuse case.
Defense produced a paper from a German pathologist
which claimed that 50% of infants dropped on their
heads from 3 feet onto carpeted surface would suffer
skull fracture. I looked through our records and we
had a 2% fracture rate in this age group (onto all
surfaces). Even if we were underdiagnosing by half the
number of fractures then that would still have not got
us anywhere near this figure. I expect the "facts"
about the dangerousness of bullbars will get enshrined
in policy along with other dubious bits of science.
Fred Cartwright.
--- Adrian Fogarty <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Yes it sounds like a load of old crap! The
> pedestrians would still be injured or killed by the
> vehicle attached behind the bullbars, wouldn't they?
> I suspect bullbars might reduce the
> crumple/deformation of a vehicle but this will have
> minimal effect on pedestrian casualties, although
> they might slightly increase the energy involved in
> a vehicle to vehicle crash.
>
> Adrian Fogarty
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Keith Foster
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2001 10:53 PM
> Subject: Bullbars
>
>
> It's not often that a subject raises that
> encompasses all of my interests, but a recent paper
> issued by the RAC and European Parliament has
> inspired some thought. I am, by the way, an
> ambulanceman, member of an advanced driving group, I
> provide Health & Safely training and am more than
> interested in off road driving.
>
> The RAC, apparently with the help of the EU, has
> indicated that there are some 40,000 road deaths
> annually throughout the EU. In order to reduce the
> number of road deaths, the RAC advocate the
> removable of bullbars from vehicles. The European
> Automobile Manufacturers Association has agreed to
> stop supplying the as an option on new vehicles,
> mainly because of the following evidence;
>
> There are, says the RAC, 18,000 pedestrian
> injuries and 2000 pedestrian deaths each year caused
> by bullbars.
>
> Whereas I agree that they are, for the most part,
> an unnecessary addition to a vehicle, I don't think
> there are that many vehicles about with bullbars
> fitted - even in the rural area in which I live.
>
> Given that a few moths ago I read in one of the
> medical journals that there were about 2,000
> pedestrian / vehicle fatalities annually throughout
> the EU, this would mean that bullbars cause more
> than 20% of all pedestrian fatalities! This I can't
> believe. Does anyone have any statistics to support
> or contradict these incredible figures please?
>
> Regards
> Keith Foster
> Powys
>
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