Obesity effects on pedestrian lower extremity injuries in vehicle-to-pedestrian impacts: A numerical investigation using human body models.

Obesity could significantly increase the risk of pedestrian lower extremity injuries due to the inertial effect from the added mass. Pre-impact posture and impact velocity also significantly affect pedestrian injury measures. Future vehicle designs for pedestrian protection should consider populations with obesity. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using parametric human modeling to account for population diversity in injury prediction.