The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety [IIHS] is the leading independent testing organization in the U.S. that rates vehicles using test configurations which more often match the types of crashes vehicles experience on the highways. 

The IIHS has many divisions and functions and those are described on their Home Page website at: 

http://www.iihs.org/default.html.   Very useful links on the IIHS site are: 

> Vehicle ratings

> News

> Consumer brochures & videos

> Research & stats

> Laws & regs

> Status Report Newsletter Archives

The IIHS also presents the results of their crash tests on their website in a comparative format at the “Vehicle Ratings” link:

http://www.iihs.org/ratings/default.aspx

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation is the Federal Agency in charge of regulating automobile safety in the United States.  There are many aspects to the NHTSA, and those are described on their websites at http://www.nhtsa.gov/ and  http://www.safercar.gov/.

The NHTSA Vehicle Crash Test Database is the basic database containing all available car crash tests done under Government sponsorship.  It is the primary place to start a search for laboratory and compliance type crash tests.

The NHTSA Vehicle Crash Test Database contains engineering data measured during various types of research, the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), and compliance crash tests. Information in this database refers to the performance and response of vehicles and other structures in impacts.   One of the more useful search tools is a NHTSA pre-sorted catalog at:

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/database/aspx/vehdb/veh_catalog_by_mmy.aspx

The NHTSA Vehicle Crash Test Database is not intended to support general consumer safety issues. For general consumer information please see the NHTSA's information on buying a safer car.   In addition to this link the NHTSA HOME website also contains considerable other vehicle information including defect investigations and consumer complaints.

In my opinion, much of the NHTSA information is more user-friendly when obtained through the SRS-VSIRC as described in the SRS link above.

DEFECTS, RECALLS and CONSUMER INFORMATION:

The NHTSA is the Federal Government Agency in charge of investigating and issuing recalls for defective automobile products.  If you feel you have a defective product, you can report that to NHTSA at [DEFECTS -- https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/], and if you want to know if there are any recalls pending on an automotive product that can be found at [RECALLS -- http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/recalls/].   A good portal for general auto safety consumer information is at [CONSUMER INFO. -- http://www.safercar.gov/]

NATIONAL CRASH and AUTO SAFETY DATA BASES

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA] of the U.S. Department of Transportation is the Federal Agency in charge of regulating automobile safety in the United States.   In addition, the Agency conducts extensive accident data analyses and maintains comprehensive data bases through its division National Center for Statistics and Analysis, a link to which is:

http://www.nhtsa.gov/NCSA

and there are numerous sub-links therein to specific program descriptions and data sets.  Notably:

Ø  NASS – National Automotive Sampling System

Ø  FARS – Fatality Analysis Reporting System

Ø  SCI   –   Special Crash Investigations

Ø  State Data Program and Codes

Ø  Traffic Records

Ø  Vehicle Safety

Ø  Research

Ø  [among others]

POLICE ACCIDENT REPORTS – STATE and NATIONAL CODES

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA] of the U.S. Department of Transportation collects and maintains example forms for all of the state Police Accident Reports [PAR] along with the templates for decoding of those.

The Example PAR forms and decoding templates can be found at:

http://www.nhtsa.gov/people/perform/trafrecords/crash2002/Pages/us_contact_list.htm

The NATIONAL CRASH ANALYSIS CENTER of the George Washington University has a number of premier teaching, and other automobile safety functions on the national level, as described on its home website at:

http://www.ncac.gwu.edu/

The NCAC is also the physical repository of all the NHTSA crash tests, as well as those from the FHWA and other sources which emphasize many other types of barriers and impact objects.

The NCAC Crash Test Database links to the NHTSA search engine for those tests which originated at NHTSA.  Including a search of both the NHTSA and NCAC sites is instructive when investigating a crash event.

In addition, the NCAC Library [ http://www.ncac.gwu.edu/filmlibrary/ ] contains a large number of scientific and technical citations which cannot generally be found elsewhere.

With the market for automobiles now world-wide, the EuroNCAP program provides large amounts of comparative safety data for many of the cars imported into the United States.  The EuroNCAP is ahead of U.S. safety programs in a number of safety areas.

    >Frontal impact

    >Car to Car Side impact

    >Pole Side Impact

    >Child protection

    >Pedestrian protection

    >Whiplash

    >ESC

    >Types of dummies

    >Seat belt reminders

    >Speed limitation devices

General information on EuroNCAP can be found at [EuroNCAP –

http://www.euroncap.com/home.aspx.

A particular area where EuroNCAP is ahead of the U.S. is that of rear impact/whiplash protection.  An introduction to the EuroNCAP Whiplash tests are at:

http://www.euroncap.com/whiplash.aspx.

The history of the Society of Automotive Engineers [SAE] is given at:

http://www.sae.org/about/general/history/

The SAE conducts numerous conferences and venues to present and publish technical papers on many aspects of transportation technology, including automotive safety engineering.

In addition to meeting transactions, the SAE sponsors technical committees, standards committees, and otherwise publishes widely, all of which are explained on, and available through, the SAE Home Page at:

http://www.sae.org/

The many types of materials published by the SAE, including the SAE papers cited in this website, can be ordered on the SAE “Marketplace/Store” website at:

http://store.sae.org/

The history of the Association for Advancement of Automotive Medicine [AAAM] is given at:

http://www.aaam.org/history.html

The AAAM hosts one major annual conference in the fall every year and the papers presented are published both in hard-copy and e-format in the yearly Proceedings; and, in addition, the AAAM sponsors a number of courses, all explained on their website at:

http://www.aaam.org/

AAAM is also the focal point for developing, updating and teaching the generally accepted crash-caused Abbreviated Injury Scale [AIS] which is explained further at:

http://www.aaam.org/about-ais.html

http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=2592

Public Citizen was originally founded by Ralph Nader and was headed  up for many years by Joan Claybrook to foster the interests of consumers on a national level.

They have strong interests and many initiatives in automotive safety with particular and current emphasis on:

>   Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety

>   Rollovers

>   Truck Driver Safety

>   Vehicle-to-Vehicle Compatibility

Public Citizen’s activist role in Rollover Injury Prevention is summarized well at:

http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=2552

and

A number of additional and seminal works on the history and progress on rollover research are given provided on this site.

The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) is one of the premier transportation research institutes in the United States.  The history and status of UMTRI are given at:

http://www.umtri.umich.edu/about.php

The UMTRI Library is very extensive with many links to other transportation libraries around the country and world.  The Library’s website is:

http://www.umtri.umich.edu/pubsdata.php

Yanda Consulting has capabilities in Detailed 3D Animation of Accident Sequences; Video Editing; Exhibits and Visual Aids; Scene Diagrams Using AutoCAD; Reviewing Police Reports; Expert Witness Guidance; Website Development and all can be seen at:

http://yandaconsulting.com/yandaconsulting/

Yanda Consulting is also the Webmaster for this website and additional examples of Yanda designed websites are at:

http://yandaconsulting.com/yandaconsulting/Website Design.htm