Tokyo, May 10, 2000 - Honda Motor Co., Ltd. announced the development of its 2nd generation crash test pedestrian dummy. Known as POLAR II, the dummy accurately simulates the kinematics of the human body during car-pedestrian collisions. POLAR II was designed to help Honda develop new safety technologies that reduce pedestrian injuries, providing accurate data on damage sustained by the human body in accidents. Honda will use POLAR II to collect car-pedestrian crash test data, and plans to make the dummy, and the data collected, available to other interested parties.

In 1998, Honda developed a pedestrian crash test dummy to reproduce the human body's kinematics during vehicle-pedestrian collisions, with the aim of identifying the parts of the car body most often involved in the infliction of injuries, and developing safety technologies to protect pedestrians from head injuries in traffic accidents.

With the 2nd generation pedestrian dummy, Honda has modified the joint structures to more faithfully represent those of the human body. The new dummy also incorporates instruments that measure the level of injury in eight regions, including the neck and leg. Honda was particularly concerned about knee injuries -- the most common and severe injuries in car- pedestrian accidents -- and thus redesigned the dummy's meniscus and knee joint ligaments to more closely resemble their human counterparts. These modifications make it possible to analyze the details of real-world accidents.

Honda is using computer simulations of car-pedestrian collisions employing improved finite element (FE)* models that make it possible to more accurately measure injury levels. Honda also developed a leg injury assessment FE model that reproduces the human tibia for detailed analysis of lower leg damage. Honda intends to use data from computer simulation-based analyses, and analyses of actual dummy kinematics to develop technologies that reduce injuries to the legs and other parts of the human body.

Honda's efforts to create new traffic safety technology are remarkable in that they target both vehicle occupants and pedestrians - those most vulnerable in a traffic accident. In 1998 Honda announced the development of a car body designed to reduce pedestrian head injuries and applied it to the HR-V, which was released in September of the same year. Since then, Honda has also implemented this body technology in the Odyssey and in compact cars. By the end of April, 2000, Honda had sold more than half a million vehicles incorporating this injury-reducing body technology.