Abstract
A driver suffers the neck iijuiy by the rear-end impact in the traffic accident In this study, we analyzed the spine behavior at the time of rear-end impact using the amount of transformation and angle variation in order to clarify the singular behavior of spine that causes the neck irijuiy and examine the influence on the injuiy factor. We developed the rear-end impact experimental setup that is able to repmduce the rapid acceleration and sudden deceleration continuously and conducted the volunteer experiments upon obtaining the exaniinees agleement The results indicated that the spine draws a stmight line immediately after the impact In addition, it was clear that the upper and lower vertebral bodies shows the significant difference in behavior during neck extension-flexion motion It is considered that the different behaviors between upper and lower vertebral bodies influenced the neck injuly factor because it obviously differs fiom the kinematics of cervical spine inthe activity of daily living.
