Injuries to the hip joint in frontal motor-vehicle crashes: biomechanical and real-world perspectives.

Hip fractures and dislocations in frontal crashes are of substantial concern to clinicians and automotive safety engineers because of the frequency at which hip injuries occur and the associated potential for long-term disability. Impacts to the flexed knees of unembalmed cadavers under loading conditions similar to those that occur in frontal crashes of newer-model vehicles indicate that the hip is the weakest part of the knee-thigh-hip complex and that hip injury tolerance is reduced by hip flexion and adduction from a typical driving posture. These results are being used to develop new knee-thigh-hip injury assessment criteria for use in anthropomorphic test devices (crash test dummies).