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BMW Honors American Vehicle Safety Researcher

The automaker presents the BMW Vehicle Safety Lifetime Achievement Award to Professor Kennerly Digges of George Washington University.

by Staff
October 20, 2014
BMW Honors American Vehicle Safety Researcher

Prof. Kennerly Digges accepts the BMW Vehicle Safety Lifetime Achievement Award. Photo courtesy of BMW.

1 min to read


Prof. Kennerly Digges accepts the BMW Vehicle Safety Lifetime Achievement Award. Photo courtesy of BMW.

Kennerly Digges, one of the world’s leading experts in vehicle safety, has won the BMW Vehicle Safety Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Professor Klaus Kompass, vice president of vehicle safety at the BMW Group, presented the award to Digges in recognition of his contributions to technologies that improve vehicle occupant protection. The award presentation was made during the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine in Munich.

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Digges conducts his research out of George Washington University in Ashburn, Va. His scientific work includes development of crash test processes and vehicle safety systems.

Back in the 1970s and ’80s, Digges worked as a departmental director at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and helped advance use of active and passive safety technology in vehicles. He also initiated the New Car Assessment Program.

Moreover, Digges laid the groundwork for the Intelligent Emergency Call system that BMW now features as standard in several models. Digges, in fact, developed the algorithm underpinning the vehicle information analysis that, in turn, provides data on the collision severity and number of potentially injured occupants.

To view a video about Intelligent Emergency Call, click on the link below.

VIDEO: BMW’s Intelligent Emergency Call

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