From an engineering perspective, crashworthiness is the ability of the vehicle to prevent occupant injuries in the event of an accident. This topic is then the technical foundation for the legal doctrine of crashworthiness or enhanced injury theory. It should be noted here that the accident is a given when assessing the crashworthiness of a vehicle. It is further worth noting that the cause of the accident is technically irrelevant in crashworthiness cases even if the severity of the accident is an issue. Severity can be assessed independently of the cause of the accident.
Severity is recorded in steel- in sheet metal damage for the most part.
Preceding instances of human agency and even mechanical failures that produced the record are not relevant for interpreting it. If accident causation is an issue in a crashworthiness case, it is for legal reasons then and not technical ones. Crashworthiness is not the same as vehicle safety, and the two topics must be distinguished. The safety afforded by a vehicle depends both on crashworthiness and accident avoidance features, the latter including such things as ABS, good handling characteristics, or even oversize tires. These two concepts are frequently confused to the detriment of those raising the crashworthiness issue.