To the "thread,"
I have completed some additional work on ascertaining the nature of the Detroit located symposium on auto safety tomorrow. As you may recall, this meeting is sponsored by the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), and will be held at 1:00 PM local time.
One of the papers being presented was produced by Kennerly Digges (of K. Digges & Associates), a firm that specializes in crash research. Mr. Digges has some impressive credentials: Aside from being a Professor of Biomechanics, he managed the Department of Transportation's NHTSA Research Division for twelve years, directing literally 100's of research projects.
He was engaged by BMW to do a study on the effectiveness of ITS (inflatable tubular structures), and reported that study to the car company in mid-August. Tomorrow will mark the first public discussion of the data, which is volumous in nature.
The significance of his study can not be overemphasized. Dr. Digges found that the *annual* percentage reduction of fatalities likely to be affected by ITS deployment (side-impact and rollover), including ejection and non-ejection scenarios, would be approximately 38%. This accounted for a reduction in loss-of-life statistics of roughly 1344 deaths per year.
Important, however, is that the rollover death and injury reduction figures he cited were held at only 30% of the fatalities/injuries in such crashes, as BMW determined that without a specific sensor to deal with rollover effects, deployment would take place only approximately 30% of the time. In the event that Simula is able to resolve the sensor issue favorably, these auto death reduction estimates will need to be substantially raised.
It should be particularly noted that Mr. Digges opined:
"The calculated benefits fo the ITS system are as large as those estimated by NHTSA for the recently implemented revisions to standards FMVSS 201 and FMVSS 214 combined."
In essence, that means that his studies of ITS indicate that even without 100% rollover protection (which will come as soon as adequate sensors are tested), the reduction in deaths and injuries from implementation of ITS on the American auto fleet would be *more* than the safety enhancements of NHTSA's head protection (201) and side impact protection (214) in total.
I can't speak for the rest of you, but *I* am excited. If the auto companies don't use this technology...considering that its use roughly equals the expense of installing extra door frame and A&B pillar padding...they can not be thinking about the safety of their customers.
I would expect that publication and release of this study will have an impact on SMU shares, particularly because the venue is very high quality, and there is likely to be press coverage in the Detroit area...obviously a "hot spot" for automotive engineering breakthroughs.
We will know more in due course.
Have a good evening. |
