Dr Tom Whyte

Fitted lids for kids

Head injuries are the leading cause of death and disability for children older than one year of age and one of the most common reasons for paediatric presentation to the emergency department. Pedal cyclist incidents alone are responsible for 10% of hospitalisations for head injuries among Australian children. Helmets have been proven to be effective at preventing and reducing the severity of head injuries, however head injury still occurs to approximately 20% of injured child bicyclists despite helmet wearing.

Poor helmet positioning (misuse) undermines the protective benefit and has been observed in up to 85% of child bicyclists. Misuse in children relates to poor helmet fit and comfort stemming from child helmets being designed as scaled down adult helmets and not accounting for variations in head and face shape throughout child development.

We aim to define the head, face and neck shapes of children needed for appropriate helmet shell and retention system design and define the factors for helmet misuse among child bicyclists.

Keeping seniors safe on roads

People aged >65 years are up to 9 times more likely to be seriously injured in a crash than younger people. The reason most commonly cited for this is the increased frailty associated with aging leading to a reduced tolerance to crash forces. However other factors may also impact this risk including differences in size and posture affecting the interaction with vehicle safety systems.

Additionally, we recently found that approximately 25% of older occupants use a comfort accessory, such as seat belt padding, seat base cushions, seat back cushions, and back supports when travelling in cars. We are currently studying whether these accessories impact the safety of older occupants in crashes to develop guidelines for their use.

PIONEERS (Protective Innovations of New Equipment for Enhanced Rider Safety)

NeuRA is part of a multi-centre European collaborative project investigating and assessing ways to reduce fatalities and severities of injuries of motorcycles and powered two wheelers (PTWs).

This project aims to develop new Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and On-Board Safety Systems, improve validation and assessment methods and increasing the usage rate of such devices. For more information, visit http://pioneers-project.eu/

Child injury – road trauma is a leading cause of death and disabling injury for children

Our group is studying how injuries occur in children when they are involved in crashes, and how changes to the types and design of restraints used by children can reduce serious injuries and death. Key problems include whether children use restraints correctly and whether they use restraints that are appropriate for their size. Recent findings include that rates of misuse of child restraints are high, and much of this misuse is serious enough to compromise the effectiveness of the restraints in crashes. Building on our recent work that led to major changes in child restraint design and usage laws in Australia, Dr Julie Brown and I are currently studying how restraint ergonomics and comfort affect how children use restraints, and whether we can improve how restraints are labelled to help parents to use them correctly.