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| UBC |
As a result, a University of B.C. research project is investigating ways to ensure vehicle head restraints are properly positioned, including making the process completely automatic.
"The cost of rear-end collisions tends to be very high in terms of medical expenses, lost time at work, long-term care and lost productivity," research head Douglas Romilly said in an interview. "Things tend to be long term. In many cases, softtissue injuries last a long time and there's a lot of therapy."
He noted that the Insurance Corp. of B.C. estimates that about $135 of each annual auto insurance premium is associated with whiplash injury.
Romilly, an associate professor in the UBC department of mechanical engineering, is a project leader involved in Auto21, a network of universities across Canada that has been driving automotive research over the last decade.
The federally-funded program, headquartered in Windsor, Ont., has focused on everything from lightweight materials and alternative powertrains to injury prevention.
Romilly said a 2002 study found that while proper seatbelt use was in the mid-90per-cent range, proper head restraint use was just 14 per cent.
He said a new study would likely show proper head restraint usage increasing, partly because of improved vehicles, "but we still think it's low compared to seatbelt use."
A whiplash prevention campaign is part of the UBC Auto21 project, as is urging people to buy safer vehicles.
Romilly said that while the first stage of his research is to get people to use head restraints properly, new cutting-edge technology is also part of the solution.
"Technology we're working on now is a system to provide an automatically adjusting head restraint, so there's no longer the need to adjust the restraint. We're trying to put a prototype together this summer.
"Some systems in high-level vehicles activate at the time of collision by moving the head restraint forward, but it's not designed to any specific individual, which ours would be.
"We're trying to work with auto companies to take on the technology."
Romilly is also investigating the potential for improved seat design as a way to lessen injuries during collisions.
Meanwhile, at the University of Windsor, the idea of a car never getting into an accident is moving closer to reality thanks to the development of a low-cost anti-collision system with the potential to be mass produced and installed in every vehicle on the road.
Led by Sazzadur Chowdhury, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, a team of researchers is engaged in the Auto21 project that could transform Windsor's traditional automotive industry into a high-tech automotive hub.
"This has tremendous economic potential and has a rapid growth forecast for the coming years," Chowdhury said. "The revolution is coming to the auto industry."
Once touted as the automotive capital of Canada, over the last two decades Windsor has been relinquishing tens of thousands of assembly and auto parts jobs to lower-cost jurisdictions such as China and Mexico.
