page_title: Cab over
section_title: Perception of safety
hierarchical_section_title: Cab over / Design aspects / Perception of safety
caption_attribution_description: Tatra 813
context_page_description: Cab-over, also known as cab over engine, cab forward, flat nose, or forward control, is a body style of truck, bus, or van that has a vertical front, "flat face" or a semi-hood, with the cab of the truck sitting above the front axle. This contrasts with a conventional truck where the engine is mounted in front of the driver.
  This truck configuration is currently common among European and Asian truck manufacturers. European regulations set restrictions for both the total length and the length of the load area, which allow a cab length of 2.35 m in combination with the maximum load area length. This allows a sleeper cab with a narrow bunk, and would allow a bonneted day cab. Nonetheless, no manufacturer in Europe produces such day cabs with bonnets. The last manufacturer of a conventional in Europe, Scania, stopped production in 2005. Generally speaking, Asian regulations are even stricter, and the relatively shorter journey distances allow more heavy trucks to forgo sleepers to save even more length.
context_section_description: Truck occupant safety depends on survival space within the cab, with "rollover" being the most significant heavy truck accident causing occupant casualties.
   In the 1950s, when many truck cabs were still wooden structures, knowledge about the most common accidents was already established, and led to the first mechanized truck cab crash test in 1959, performed by Volvo. The test became a Swedish standard, and was adopted by the European Community in simplified form as ECE R-29 in 1974. During the early 1980s, the safest place for a truck driver was a European truck, usually a cabover.
  Decision-making is based on human perception in first place, results of statistics might not be present. Motor placement before or under the cab does not have much influence on the results of rollovers. Behind the danger of a rollover, heavy truck on heavy truck accidents are the second most relevant reason for occupant casualties. With a 1980s USA conventional, the result of such accident was: Frame, front axle and wheels would go under the truck in front, while the motor got pushed into the cab (which was very small in a 1980s conventional). Contrary to these real-world results, the motor in front, which would crush the truck driver in an accident, was nonetheless perceived as "protection", and this perception was an important factor for the adoption of these trucks in the US, during the 1980s.
  Both conventionals and cabovers need structural protection against rollovers, and special protection against massive objects at the height of another truck body. The survival space should be able to move backward on the frame. Today (2017), crash tests have been adopted all over the world (the most important ones still being similar to the Swedish tests of the 1960s), and the 1970s/80s safety advantage of European trucks no longer exists therefore.
  In military use, the COE design increases the chance of crew injury or death in the event of running over a landmine. This is because the tire that detonates the mine is directly below/beside the driver.
caption: Tatra 813 Kolos 8x8 Drive Military Truck
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