White Paper Reclassifying High Speed Craft Impacts as Motor Vehicle Accidents (MVAs)

Abstract Occupational risk assessments for Navy Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman (SWCC) operators traditionally rely on steady-state Whole-Body Vibration (WBV) frameworks. These frameworks systematically underestimate spinal and neurological pathology. This paper presents a formal engineering and physiological argument to analogize high-speed craft (HSC) wave-slamming events to off-road Motor Vehicle Accidents (MVAs). By isolating the mathematical models governing transient mechanical shock versus averaged vibration, we demonstrate that a SWCC hull impact is physically and pathologically identical to a rapid vehicle deceleration crash. Moving beyond simplistic time-averaged models is necessary to properly evaluate acute traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and structural skeletal failure in tactical maritime environments. Flaws, failures, and inaqequacies in the Vibration models of exposure used are emphasized. Crest Factor (CF) is emphasized as the mathematical trigger to abandon steady-state vibration models in favor of shock models. The Crest Factor (CF), defined as the ratio of the peak instantaneous acceleration to the RMS acceleration, mathematically proves that the environment is governed by shock, not vibration.