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From ITARDA's in-depth study database, this section introduces three case examples of collisions with roadside structures.
Case 1: Collision with a guard fence (guard rail) resulting in minor injury
[Situation]
A 48-year-old male driver felt drowsy while driving at 60 km/h and crashed into a guard rail on the left-hand side of the road. He was wearing his seat belt and sustained minor bruising to his chest.
This case, resulting in minor injury thanks to the guard rail, demonstrates the relatively low fatality rate of 1.1% shown in Table 5 for belted drivers crashing into a guard fence at 60 km/h.
If there had been no guard rail and the car had collided with one of the utility poles on the roadside, the driver might have suffered more serious injury as the fatality rate doubles to 2.0% in that case.
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Case 2: Falling off a cliff after running off a road without guard fences
[Situation]
A male driver in his 20s driving on a mountain road ran off the road to the right on a left-hand bend, and went over the cliff between a guard rope post and a signpost. The car rolled and was destroyed, and the driver's chest hit the steering wheel and he died.
The car would not have fallen off the cliff if there had been a guard fence. If the car had collided with a guard fence, the driver, if wearing his seat belt, could have survived with serious or minor injury, according to Table 5 showing a fatality rate of 7.1% even at speeds over 100 km/h.
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Case 3: Side collision with utility poles (traffic light pole and street lamp pole) due to speeding
[Situation]
A 20-year-old male driving at 100 km/h on a road with a legal limit of 60 km/h lost control of his car after hitting a curbstone and crashed the right side of his car into a traffic light pole and a street lamp pole installed on the left-hand side of the road. The driver sustained a fatal blow to the head when he struck the traffic light pole.
As explained in Section 3, there is a high probability of death in this type of accident, i.e., a side collision with a thin tall structure such as a street lamp pole or traffic light pole.
The side of the car was heavily destroyed as shown in the picture below. Safety measures to reduce the injury sustained by the occupant must be taken such as strengthening the side(s) of the vehicle and protecting the head of the occupant.
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